Wow. Not only do I totally agree with you, but if your tone had been a little angrier, I might have mistaken you for aboveaveragejoe, right down to the Farscape "this is the best show ever, ever, ever, and all else is crap, and if you don't like this you're obviously stupid, you have no taste, and how can you like "X" and not like this, there's something wrong with you..." experience (I was sitting right beside him when that happened).
I had a friend tell me recently that she hated a certain character on a show, but upon a little further discussion, it became apparent that what she really hated was the way the fanbase/fanfic authors reacted to/depicted the character (and vilified other characters in his defense).
It was around that time - as a community rather than a state of enjoyment of cultural produce) - I began really thinking about fandom and my place in/out of it. And I realised that fandom just doesn't work for me. The Bronze did because the discussion I participated in were the sort of lit-crit level anaylses of characters and story and all the off-topic social/personal stuff.
But most fandom is extremely off-putting to me, because it engages with the source in a way that can actual REDUCE my enjoyment of it, and amongst the cool people (ie everyone I have friended on LJ and in RL), it tends to attract a LOT of extreme, obsessive, not-always-pleasant personalities.
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I had a friend tell me recently that she hated a certain character on a show, but upon a little further discussion, it became apparent that what she really hated was the way the fanbase/fanfic authors reacted to/depicted the character (and vilified other characters in his defense).
It was around that time - as a community rather than a state of enjoyment of cultural produce) - I began really thinking about fandom and my place in/out of it. And I realised that fandom just doesn't work for me. The Bronze did because the discussion I participated in were the sort of lit-crit level anaylses of characters and story and all the off-topic social/personal stuff.
But most fandom is extremely off-putting to me, because it engages with the source in a way that can actual REDUCE my enjoyment of it, and amongst the cool people (ie everyone I have friended on LJ and in RL), it tends to attract a LOT of extreme, obsessive, not-always-pleasant personalities.