I ask you this. What is a fandom?
How do you qualify that answer? What core elements determine what make up a fan community, and what simply produce a group of like-minded individuals? When do you transcend that boundary into the world of "fandom?"
Some might say it has to do with degrees of obsession, and I can't really dispute that. Certain programs just inspire that fervor in people. There's no rhyme or reason behind the choices; they could be anything from soap operas to game shows. But something draws people in, takes them from passive viewers in the comfort of their own living rooms to active participants in an electronic playground.
The dedication it takes to really dwell on the characterizations and growth of these characters over the years, or to make a website devoted to your favorite season. This is not something that people simply do, it's an act of phenomenal love for something intangible. With no hope of reward or monetary gain.
I won't try and go into what I think makes different shows "special." I couldn't tell you why Star Trek has uberfans who will spend every moment of their lives memorizing minutia and analyzing children's books from Europe about Jim Kirk as a boy. And yet those same fans will not display that level of dedication for, say, LA Law.
Instead I'd like to delve into what I think makes a fandom a true Internet community. And what qualities I feel we've lost touch with over the years. Please bear with me.
When I joined Power Rangers fandom, we did not lack for a large number of people to talk to. Nor did we lack for a great many places to go. While the technical sophistication of sites like the Morphin' Grid might not stack up against PRO, I would put the amount of content and dedication Manny had against any and all contenders.
Curiously, while you could make a case for the general quantity of PR fans online being higher than ever, I feel as though the fandom itself is in a recession. The sites have gotten glossier, and the conversations have gotten more tedious. And while a good portion of that is simply my inevitable descent into codgerdom, I think there's a point buried somewhere in my discontent.
We're ramping up our signal to noise ratio, and I think that's dangerous. There was a time when you could spend an entire day perusing the fic archives, and never even hope to make a dent before the next week's update added even more. Now we have people on the PRC board who think by writing script-format stories in 51 parts they're "fanfic writers," producing "faux seasons." With glossy photo mods and bios for their original cast. Not to mention java heavy logos.
The Internet provides a wealth of features and services for the struggling fan looking to make a dent in the community they've chosen to participate in. Unfortunately, this comes across less like a buffet, and more like The Night Chicago Died. Tom Servo put it best, folks. Doesn't matter how much bread and how many condiments you add, a crap sandwich still has crap in it.
You know what names cross my mind when I think about the giants of PR fandom? Captain Eclipse. My god, if you were here circa Turbo, you know what I mean. Walt would have hundreds, literally hundreds, of manually captured snaps from each episode. And the next day he'd do the whole damn thing over again. Where is that level of dedication to the form? That level of self-satisfaction, to do it not because he wanted praise, but because it was an invaluable service?
I think of Ray Calderon. Ray, who has busted his hump to try and make Power Rangers Central one of the cornerstones of this fandom. I think of Joe Rovang, who would spend countless hours a day researching his video tapes to the point of wearing them out. I think of Jesse Herndon, who has gone from slightly summarizing episodes to writing mammoth transcriptions longer than the original scripts.
Going back farther... Kittie Verdena. Jeremy Logsdon. Cynthia Harrell. Sure, they all had emotional breakdowns from the stress of trying to manage their archives, but each provided a service that no one else has yet to step up and attempt again. The era of the "central" PR fic archive- the fic Funaroverse, for wont of a better example- is over.
And yes... I think of Amit Bhaumik. I think of PROA, which tried to do a little bit of everything for the fandom with a style and panache that just hasn't been duplicated since. Character bios, equipment entries, fanfics, cast listings, shameless plugs for Scott's album... That was just a hell of a site.
What the blue bloody blazes do we have now? Ray and Jesse are still plugging away, but now we have posers like me thinking they can do the job. I want to tell you something. I can't. I don't do this site out of an intent to prop the fandom up all by my lonesome. I desperately want (and need) other sites out there taking the slack. Because there are so many things out there that this site was not intended to do. Because that's supposed to be the job of other sites.
What do I think caused the death of the "central" PR site? The hubs that would happily work off one another, and collaborate to provide overlapping service? Egos. At some point people stopped leaving their fragile self-esteem behind at the door, and started putting more significance and worth in the time they spent in PR fandom than they did in that big scary place called the real world.
"I have to provide the best, exclusive, content! Or else I'm a failure! Why won't you love me? I'm the guy who can get it all for you!"
Yeah, all right, that's nothing new. We always had an Oxman or two running around. But even the kooks counterbalanced the fact that the fandom was generally healthy.
At some point, it stopped being about the love of the series. The shared sense of community that lay at the core of fandom itself. Look, you and I might disagree about any number of things. Politics, religion, what have you. But we are both here because we share a love of Power Rangers. Are we going to argue semantics about the kind of love we have, and bring disharmony to our little clique?
People began to take this seriously, and that's dangerous. Fandom is not reality, it's a kind of imposed fiction. Like attending a renne fair, or being brainwashed. The instant this begins to take precedence in your life, or when egos start to come into play, you need to make like a Fox Kids PSA and check yourself.
The battles to gain control of domain names the instant they become available. To contact the actors in time to get their permission to run "the official" shrine. To have the flashiest, ritziest site dedicated to an incarnation that hasn't even aired yet. Full of music clips on the main page, and graphics which will crash anyone on dialup.
Let me explain this to you. That is a bona fide crap sandwich. You are making no friends by doing this. And you are not, by any stretch of the imagination, having fun. So stop doing it. That is the credo of a fandom. If it's not fun, then it's not worth it. This isn't your job, and you ain't ever going to be paid for doing it.
Do you know the kinds of sites we need? Picture shrines. Sites filled with caps and promotional images of actors. With no grand illusions of being authorized. We need informational indexes, containing information from valid sources. We need sites which break down the hundreds of characters which inhabited this show over the years, making the show's mythos easy to digest for incoming fans.
Can you imagine being a new fan of Power Rangers? To be told you'll need to watch almost five hundred episodes of this program to get fully caught up? That might not approach the complexity of Doctor Who, but it's still pretty up there.
We need sites which provide helpful, basic services. Is this such a hard concept to grasp? The last thing I need is another Wild Force site which tells me nothing more about the characters or concepts than I wouldn't already know from going to FK.com.
And you know what else we need? People actually writing fanfiction. Real fanfics, about characters we know and love. They don't have to be good, but I want more than the pap I see spit out on fanfiction.net. I want to know the good stories out there in this day and age are coming from more than just the ten or so remaining good writers in the fandom. Because fanfics also have their own sub-communities, and those are equally important.
So I ask again. What is a fandom?
I believe a fandom is a collective of people who share a love for an item or program, and who come together in forums and via e-mail to enjoy one another's company, and participate in activities and discussions relating to their shared interest. It's not socializing, it's not (often) your circle of friends, but it's important. It's fun fluff.
I believe a fandom provides services internal to itself which benefit all participants in that fandom. That a fandom should not maliciously be turned against itself, because in the words of Lincoln- a house divided cannot stand. Further, I look to the words of the two great ones, Bill S. Preston Esq., and Ted "Theodore" Logan. Be excellent to each other.
That sounds hokey, but I sincerely mean it. I am not in competition with any PR fan. Why should I be? PR doesn't mean enough to me that I'd carry a grudge for the rest of my life over something. It means enough to me that I enjoy it; a lot. And often. Not enough that I'd consider it life, mother, god. If PRO got some information before us, I'd be happy for Mike. And I'd refer you to his site, just to make sure you were aware of it. I would hope he'd do me that same courtesy.
Our Funaroverse manifesto states that we do this only for as long as the two of us, Derik and myself, continue to have fun with it. The instant this is no longer the case, we will fold the site for good. I am under no obligation to do anything for "the fans." You are not my audience, you are my peers. Our recommendation to aspiring webmasters is to always have fun, first and foremost. And to never expect praise or thanks for the work you do. Because, believe me, you are never going to get it. Even when you give the little monsters an exclusive interview with Judd Lynn that took you SIX MONTHS to get...
Ahem.
In closing, I ask that you bear these words in mind. Being a "name" in a fandom is never going to fix whatever problems you might have in your personal life. It's just going to make the party that much more miserable for everyone else. Like spitting in the dip. If you want to start a website, want it for the right reasons. Enjoy yourself. Look at what's out there, and ask yourself what you can contribute that no one else has. Ask yourself what's needed, and what you'd like to do.
And for the love of god, somebody start a central fanfic archive again. With some basic quality control policies.