Ze clique thing

[bubosquared]

I'm just kinda baffled, you know? It's just ... whatever.

This is fandom. People meet through a common interest. people connect. People become friends, and sometimes more. People form groups of friends. People do not say "Anything that's not written by us sucks." People are not, in general, exclusive.

If there is a hierarchy in any fandom, especially in puppyfandom, I didn't notice it. So either I'm dense, or people are letting themselves be intimidated by the way they percieve some authors' image.

I know whereof I speak, people. Like badbatz said, one tends to be too intimidated to feedback Famous Authors (or people perceived as such). I know, I've been there. Shit, I've had a feedbacker saying she was afraid to fb before because I was such a famous author. Which, um, I'm not. Nor am I scary or intimidating or exclusive.

So. In conclusion. Fandom is not Junior High. Take a deep breath and a chance and find out of the authors you're accusing of clickishness actually are. If so, then you can complain. But now, you're just being Junior High-ish yourself.

Comments

[bubosquared.livejournal.com]

Should, of course, have added my own discmailer: "Everything here is from my own experience, which does not include large fandoms and thus I am less likely to have encountered fandom splits, cliques, etc." :)

Er. Well. Like I said, I never saw people act like that. Have I just been lucky, or are people like that rather rare? Prolly a combination of both. (Also, despite the generalisation, I was mainly thinking of the specific people being whined about. Despite my issues with some of them's behaviour (aweful grammar, I know), I've never felt they were cliquish or exclusive of "If you're not one of us, you suck"-like. YMMV.)

Er, yes. In relation to fandom. *sheepish grin* And well ... I've to admit there's been times I thought about starting an 'elite' list for just 'good' fiction. But, and again this is the result of me generalising when i should've been specific, not many people (in my experience!) define 'good' as 'only that which is written by my specific group of friends'.

I didn't say there was no structure. I'm just saying that blaming the 'stars' for being where they are, and claiming that they're knowingly and deliberately putting themselves up there and abusing their position to get their friends and only their friends into stardom seems more than a bit unfair. They're only 'stars' because people see/treat them that way.

As for the Metallica thing ... Well. I think this is even beyond cliquishness -- prolly to the negative side. But. No one I know will dismiss a story out of hand because the author is on TF, although I admit I will, when an author falls victim to the dreaded "James-beats-Kirk-up-and-Kirk-fogives-him-because-he's-so-noble-and-loves-James" staple, groan and blame "TF-syndrome".