fandoms are fascinating things

[smg01]

A couple of people on my flist have linked to the Ms.Scribe Story which I've started reading. It is indeed engrossing. datawhorevoyeur have you come across this yet? It seems like something right up your alley.

One of the things that's interesting to me is that there seems to be an inevitability to the life cycles of online communities. It begins, everyone is excited, fresh, "young." It's the best community ever. We all love each other and will be BFF. We're the bestest of the best. Then come the disputes, the fractures, the cliques. Subcommunities form. Offences are taken. Charges of elitism are made. Power positions--real or more likely imagined--are identitied. Frauds, the obnoxious, and the just plain weird come onto the scene. Everyone laments the good old days, which may or may not have been as golden as memory makes them. And eventually people start moving on to new communities that are fresh and exciting, where everyone is the coolest person ever and we'll all be BFF. The cycle begins anew.

It's been interesting reading other friend's comments about the evolutions of various communities and thinking, "yup, been there. the next step will probably be X."

Looking back, as trying as times could be at the Bronze--particularly around posting board party time--we were a pretty healthy community. Passionate and fighty and touchy sometimes, but somehow there was also a lot of humor and wit to take us through many of the dark times. Or maybe I'm just looking back through the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia.

Comments

[datawhorevoyeur.livejournal.com]

No, I hadn't seen that yet, but it's bookmarked now. :-)

A lot of the things about online community cycles? I think are true about communities in general -- especially the nostalgia for the good old days... But also, I think a lot of us have not necessarily moved on to a new community cycle per se, or if we have, we've not necessarily abandoned the old community ties. We still, I think, carry the Bronzer identity, and we still maintain a network if not a community. And we all actually disagree about whether and when the Bronze ended; clearly the folks who maintain and post at the Beta every day are carrying on the sense of place of the community -- the attempt to maintain the look and feel, and many of the everyday practices reflects that I think.

*thinky*

[suzannemarie.livejournal.com]

But also, I think a lot of us have not necessarily moved on to a new community cycle per se, or if we have, we've not necessarily abandoned the old community ties. We still, I think, carry the Bronzer identity, and we still maintain a network if not a community

Yeah, I would agree with that. Almost every online community that I'm associated with is an outgrowth of the Bronze. It seems like at the least, there's a spririt of the bronze that lives on. I suppose everyone feels this way about their communities, but I think there was/is something special about the Bronze. (Maybe it's just because it was my first. And because it literally changed my life. At least my social life changed.)

A lot of the things about online community cycles? I think are true about communities in general -- especially the nostalgia for the good old days...

Plus there's also the question of just when were the good old days. I was a relative late-comer so I missed the color wars, the topic wars, the early posting board parties, and the early bonding when Buffy was a show that no one had ever heard of. So of course for me the golden age was when I joined. It was a remarkably open and accepting community for newcomers. Provided you followed the few rules, played nice with others, and were generally respectful of the traditions and proceedings, it was pretty easy to find a place there.

I'm also working my way through all of my Buffy dvds. I think it's fueling my fond memories of things Bronze-related.

[adrililith.livejournal.com]

The Bronze was my first online community and still shadows most of the places I hang out online now :) Yup, what you wrote sounds very familiar ;)

[suzannemarie.livejournal.com]

I can remember frustrations with the Bronze experience. It certainly wasn't a perfect place. But what I mostly feel for that time is fondness and a fondness for the remnants that live on in other parts of the internet that I frequent.

[uufarmgirl.livejournal.com]

I've been following this too. I find the whole thing utterly fascinating, because if even half what she said was true, she was already in a pretty good position. But then I remember all the fuss over who was and wasn't in Buffyatrics, and BigBoy's fraud, and a hundred other things, so obviously she's hardly the first to seek this kind of approval in digital form. Maybe I'm biased because of my own experience, but I feel like the community part of the Bronze is what remained after the original supporting structure fell away.

Also, just FYI, bad_penny (http://www.journalfen.net/community/bad_penny/) has some updates that aren't on charlottelennox's journal.

[suzannemarie.livejournal.com]

Everyone probably feels this away about their respective communities, but I feel like there was something special about the Bronze. And the community spirit does seem to live on.

Thanks for the link. The fascination continues....

[mediumdave.livejournal.com]

The whole Ms Scribe affair has been weird for me, personally, because I was starting to become acquainted with some of the people involved (such as angua9). All of a sudden they started talking about this long-standing feud that I knew nothing about, and until I read the "Charlotte Lennox" journal I was pretty confused.

I was aware of Fandom_Scruples before, because "his" posts had been featured on Fandom_Wank, but at the time I thought FS sounded just like one of the hundreds of self-righteous gits that one encounters in fandom. It was quite a surprise to find out that "he" was probably one of Ms Scribe's socks. I could partly blame that on my ignorance of the world of Potter fic, but I do have some grudging admiration for the way that Ms Scribe nailed the tone of your typical self-righteous git so perfectly.

Because of the way that the WB Bronze and the Bronze Beta displayed IP addresses, it would've been difficult to wage a sockpuppet campaign of that type there, but I remember speculations here and there about "ringers" trying to discredit one faction or another by pretending to be one of them (e.g., a Kitten pretending to be a homophobe). And of course there was the "Penlind" saga, which is fascinating in its own right.

[suzannemarie.livejournal.com]

Penlind came to mind a couple of times in the course of reading the saga. I suppose it's inevitable that the users of the world will make their appearance in every community.

I, too, can't help but have a little admiration for the manipulative, puppetmaster skills of some of the people that pop up from time to time. It's an intriguing thing to observe, though I just can't relate to the type of person that engages in that sort of behavior.