fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2707 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2707 ⌋

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Notes:

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Tbh I'm not surprised. But it probably means that the quality is worse than if it would be if it were just thirteen-year-olds. When people in their fifties and sixties go for a love story about vampires, this means that it is a horribly tired, cliche love story about vampires pushing all the tropey buttons that were popular like in the eighties.

I find that fandoms based on bad, tropey canon sources with fifty- to sixty-year-old fans are just like their analogues for teenagers, except the teenagers in question are from the eighties, and so are there tastes.

What?

A) what do you mean by 'tropey buttons that were popular like in the eighties'? What's specific about the eighties?

B) I have nothing to do with Twilight, but I'm a fanfic writer in my fifties and my stories/tastes have nothing to do with the eighties. I've lived a lot since then; I don't even remember the effing eighties.

I wrote a snappy response, but then I thought better of it. Don't mind me, I think I'm just in a bad mood. And my original comment was rather sloppily worded.

Although I must say that I judged no one and that you are overreacting a little. I never said that the tastes of any given fanfic writer in their fifties must have something to do with the eighties. It is very region- and fandom-specific, anyway.

I just thought your comment was weird, LOL, (and tbh kind of insulting) but, if it's fandom specific, I would genuinely be interested to know what these fifty-somethings are writing that's so eighties-flavoured and awful.

Yeahh I get how that could be insulting. I was sleep deprived (as I almost always am when I post on f!s, thanks to my being a European) and phrased that badly. My point wasn't to judge older fanfic authors, or even older fanfic authors writing for terrible Twilight-esque canons, but to state that in my opinion, people's tastes in id media do not tend to improve with age. As a result, when it comes to self-indulgent entertainment, we have older people fangirling over things that are basically the same level of awful as the things the teenage demographic usually fangirls over. Apart from that, the nostalgia (which, despite your personally not experiencing it, is a pretty common thing - and the period from the late seventies to early nineties does hold special significance for many people) causes some older fans to choose the tired tropes of their youth over the flavour-of-the-day tropes.

Let me also add that all of the above applies specifically to the kind of fiction that is "so bad it's good", and that in no way am I asserting that such fiction is a bad thing or that people shouldn't enjoy it. I was speaking merely about the technical quality. The fans themselves are very often aware of the fact that their canon source is poorly written.

I am also not saying that the older fans of Twilight or any similar canon write awful fanfiction (I have heard it is actually better than the canon material...), only that [insert a lazily made id work popular with older people] itself is technically bad and that a part of the reason its quality is poor is outdated tropes that make it popular with older people. (which, I repeat, isn't bad. Everyone should have their share of mindless entertainment, regardless of their age).

Thus, I think Darkier and Edgier (adding darker themes to a work in order to make it "more adult") is a very 1980s trope. Not that it's exclusive to the decade, but it did get a major boost during that period and using it today just strikes me as ridiculous. Speaking of which, I do suspect that the whole "boo sexy vampires" thing is largely popular because of the 1980s' abundance of horror and slasher films/TV. I have also heard a theory that one of the reasons Twilight and the like are irritating to many people is because the main heroine is that particular brand of bland that used to be popular but no longer is - the bland girl that is good for self-insert but not for anything else.

That being said, of course there are more universal tropes at work (All Girls Want Bad Boys, for one - this one has to be immortal), which are attractive to all demographics alike.

I hope this makes sense. I honestly did not mean to insult or offend anyone - if anything, I admire and respect older fans and I would like to be one myself when I'm in my fifties.

Well, here's my two pence worth (since I'm English):

I still think it's too simplistic to talk about tropes that appeal to 'older people', or to dismiss a trope as 'outdated' (though it may currently be out of fashion).

People who write mediocre fanfic do so because they're mediocre writers. Mediocrity is not about age or about 'outdated tropes', it's ultimately about lack of vision. A good writer can take an unfashionable trope and make it fresh and relevant. Popular culture is constantly mining the past, adapting it, and making the present out of it.

When you get to your fifties, you are pretty much the same person you were when you were [insert whatever age you are now]. Your body is older, yes, and you've experienced things that your younger self hadn't -- and some of those experiences may have changed your beliefs in important ways -- but you're still the same person and your tastes are still evolving and fluctuating and being influenced by other people in exactly the same way that they always have been. If you're participating in fandom, you're fully aware of fandom's current values and preoccupations, its current dos and don'ts (though your longer term perspective may mean you find yourself less inclined to conform to certain trends).

I've noticed people criticising Dark-and-Edginess on F!S, and I'm not sure I know what they're referring to. To me, the defining quality of popular fanfic is its 'cosiness'. This is something I've spent a lot of time analysing and attempting to pin down, and it's elusive, but it has something to do with the describing of events (good or bad) in a level of detail and using language that makes them seem 'safe', and I'm convinced it's the instinctive ability to write like this that makes a BNF a BNF...

tweed, you? :)

Tbf I was talking about people's enjoying certain types of media, not about their writing mediocre fanfiction (they may be writing great things for all I know). Mine was a pretty specific theory pertaining to various demographics' relationships with wish-fulfillment fantasies.

But it was idle theorizing more than anything else, since I've not enough knowledge to make a satisfactory conclusion either way, and this

>but you're still the same person and your tastes are still evolving and fluctuating and being influenced by other people in exactly the same way that they always have been.

IS a strong argument. So I certainly am not about to insist my interpretation's correct.

>I've noticed people criticising Dark-and-Edginess on F!S, and I'm not sure I know what they're referring to.

Well, again, I was not talking fanfiction and I do think that the Darker and Edgier trope is not a popular fanfiction technique; it is much more common in original media. Twilight being a notable example. BBC Sherlock, too, to a certain extent.

As to your ideas in regards to the BNF status, I'm not sure I know what you mean, but if it is 'safe' as in 'non-threatening to the reader because [the events] seem right and natural the expected narrative development-wise', then I agree? I mean, fans do so like it when fanfiction takes them in the direction they anticipate - not in terms of plot, mind, people like it when plots are surprising - but in terms of mood, characterizations, and in part, style.

It does sound like a complex concept, anyway, and one it'd be interesting to explore.

and this was supposed to be *their tastes, oh, well. I finally made this mistake. Who'd have thought.

[ SECRET POST #2707 ]

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