Forums / Discussion / Serious Debate

(Note: if you wanna shitpost I made a thread in Riff-Raff for that)

How important do you think is the idea of fan subculture to the internet. Do you think that the idea of fandom is something that must be protected at all cost, or do you see it as meaningless to the world at large. And do you think it should be legalized or illegalized?

I ask this because I think the opposition to the TPP (and before it, CISPA and ACTA) stems from the opposition of SOPA, which was mostly rooted in the issues it presented for fandom and fanworks.

I'd expect people to explain their stance on this given the board I shose

"do you think it should be legalized or illegalized"

Criminalize Fandoms. You have got to be kidding me. There are two concepts, Freedom of Association and Freedom of Assembly, that make such a criminalization not only unlawful, but a violation of basic human rights to join or leave a group of your own free will, with a clause in some versions of declarations or laws pertaining to these concepts about military or criminal activity being the focus of said groups. You're mileage may vary from country to country.

And yes, even though the above two are meant to protect political groups, they have been extended in the past to cover things such as Sports Clubs, which are pretty much the early forms of fandoms. So you'd need a pretty good reason to say "Expressing ones interest in a topic with others who also enjoy discussing said topic is illegal".

Outside of that nonsense, I think Fandom's are important. They are an outlet for which people can express ideas, thoughts, opinions, their imaginations, and especially express their feelings with one another in a usually healthy way. They give a unifying common purpose that isn't something so serious to be devouted to. In a way fandoms are like any other massive group of people who like the same thing, it can be a varied landscape of different people brought together or an echo chamber, but even then still provides an outlet for these various feelings and pent up energies to go. Like, do you really want the bad parts of fandoms bringing what they normally bring to the fandom into non-fandom stuff like religion or politics? You really want that guy who screams at people over episodes of a cartoon or lets play putting their energies to affecting your daily life?

I happen to think fandoms are giving people a way to get out that negative emotional expression, while at the same time providing a medium for people to find positive encouragement from other human beings in ways they may not be able to in real life. And while this can produce its own brand of cringe, I'd rather people find emotional support through common interest, then live a life where they feel absolutely alone and a constant outsider. I think we all are mature enough to know where that kind of path can lead.

So in my opinion, Fandoms are a positive force, both for expelling the bad and enabling the good. Like life, it is a kaleidoscope of different people, good, bad, saints, scumbags, hard workers and lazy whiners. They are not and probably will never be seen as serious or important, which is a good thing to keep them as the non-harmful outlet they are. But saying we need to get rid of them is the shortest of short sighted things.

Anti-fandoms though, that's a whole 'nother mess to go through. Mostly because the positive enabling part of the fandom is foregone in order to create a bigger space for the negative expression. I'll be the first to shit on something I don't like. But joining a group dedicated to hating a group of people is a tenuousness step towards the wrong direction.

You're asking the wrong question OP. You ask "is there any reason to keep fandoms around?" when the appropriate question is "is there any reason to get rid of fandoms?" The question shouldn't be 'What has fandoms done for us?" but "Do fandoms do any damage that justifies criminalization?"

A lot of our rights are meaningless to the world at large, but very meaningful to the individual. Fandoms bring people together based on a common interest, help people make friends and inspires creativity. I believe that is worth fighting for, and don't believe this false pretense that a fanart drawing is "losing money for the original work creators" nor believe it should be criminalized even if it did.

The reason people oppose SOPA, and the TPP is because people don't believe things should be criminalized based on how it affects the profits of big business, and that big business should be forced to make money within the confines of the law, not change the laws to fit how they make money.

If this is a question about fan art, I think fan art is actually means by which the original content makes more money, not less. It's exposure, advertisement that the original content creators didn;t need to spend money to get. And those people who see good fan art or funny fan art usually go out and see the original content it was based off of if they see enough of it, or if it captures their attention.

At least that's how it's worked for me. I've gotten into more book series and tv broadcasts thanks to the fan art then I ever did with simple word of mouth.

Along the same lines BGT said, the same can be said of Let's Plays. Unless the game is 90% story, each persons experience is different, so seeing someone play the game isn't going to make people think they no longer need to buy it, it's going to make people go "This game looks really fun, I want to try it!" This is how I got into Minecraft, Freedom Planet, and KSP, I saw Let's Players play it and it piqued my interest. Luckily, a lot of Game Developers realize this, and even send out Early access codes and even free games to Let's Players in hopes of getting free exposure.
From what I've seen, a lot of Show creators encourage fan works like parodies and fanart, because they realize it's harmless and made from the love of their work. It's a warm feeling when someone enjoys your work enough to create an artwork of it. Of course the people who are pushing these laws are the people upstairs who don't create or work on the show, but sell it (Networks). All they think about is the money, and don't understand or care for the fan works aspect, and falsely assume they are stealing money from them. I feel like it's a sign of how detached they are from their own programs.

In agreeing with everyone who's posted thus far, the answer seemed so self-evident to me that I was surprised you felt the need to ask. And I feel like the biggest problem with asking this question in the first place is…it's really hard to ask questions concerning fandom/fanworks that couldn't just as easily be used to question all kinds of cultural expression or cultural expression in general. If you asked someone if sharing your own performance of X popular song or being able to share personal remixes of X song with others freely (free of restriction as well as free of price) should be legalized/illegalized, they'd probably tell you the answer is obvious as well.

A funny thing I've noticed: people everywhere seem to operate under this assumption that we are obligated to sustain industries that make money off of the production of cultural works; that if Hollywood or Big Music were no longer sustainable moneymakers, nothing would move in to fill the cultural void left behind. This is silly, and fandom sort of serves as the proof. The heart and soul of culture, I feel, is not the work itself but the acceptance, approval, and admiration of the work; great painters are remembered as great because at some point, many people decided this was so. Plenty of movies with high production values, that make all their money back and then some, fail to leave any lasting mark on the culture of society because they simply don't strike the right chord with people. Tons of money is spent making it, tons more is spent consuming it, and then it's forgotten; no cultural value is placed on it. Conversely, plenty of movies with mediocre production values, that might have even been considered major flops at the time of release, find themselves becoming cult classics down the road, because cultural value is placed on them. They gain fans even well after they have any chance at financial benefit.

Fandom, not money, is the true measure of cultural importance and value. Fandoms are born for people, things, and ideas for no other reason than that they exist and catch peoples' eye. Memes exist and spread, regardless of any ability to profit off of them. It may be the aim of fandom to admire and praise a work, to express creativity through emulation, but there is never an obligation to bend over backwards or curb their creativity for the sake of making that work more profitable. Fan does not mean hyper-consumer, or drone, or corporate sycophant. Even as corporations go under, culture marches on and fandom finds a way.

So, to answer the question properly, protect fandom at all costs. Because if you give them even an inch of control over it, they will find a way to turn it into a mile.

Fanworks: They will never be gone after unless they directly infringe on the profit potential of the original work. This is rare and already punishable. Nobody goes after the creators of fanart, but if somebody started bootlegging figurines when official ones already exist then that's rightfully illegal.

Fandoms: These are safe as well. They are hype chambers that do nothing but drum up the value of origianal works, which is why some content creators pander to fandoms, more than anything else (MLP and Supernatural are very guilty of this). In a way it's unfortunate because I despise "fandoms" for their drama and self-importance but oh well :v