fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2085 ]

[ SECRET POST #2085 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2085 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 077 secrets from Secret Submission Post #298.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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So I asked last night if you knew who the BNFs in your fandom were (because I have no idea who the BNFs in mine are), and the responses I got were largely "no". So I'm going to go more general this time. What makes someone a BNF anyway? Are there criteria specific to LJ/DW or Tumblr or FFN that make someone a BNF in some places but not others?

(And if you know of some good BNF stories, share them! For all the wank in my fandom (Supernatural), none of it that I've seen has been about BNF wank, and I looove BNF wank.)

From my experience, a BNF writes okay to mediocre fic. As long as the BNF is writing a couple people like at the right time, they're BNFs. The right "time" depends. One BNF (that I've talked about before in an earlier thread) wrote the canon couple around the time a fandom I currently write for was active and got a lot of comments on what otherwise was a fic that kept changing tenses. Some other BNFs are writing the canon couple because a lot of people have left the fandom and whoever's left largely likes this canon couple "happy" and "alive," all while these BNFs have no regard for rules for certain comms, punctuation or spelling. (This is LJ specific, btw.)

On Tumblr, you have to say the right things and post the most atrociously colored gifs and whatnot to become a BNF over there.

tl;dr; If you do the right things at the right time but don't do them particularly well (but you think you do), you're a BNF.

But why is doing things badly a requirement? That's kind of depressing. I would be more likely to believe that actual skill had nothing to do with it.

AYRT

The right time thing seems like a really good point! I definitely think you couldn't have any BNFs of the Cassie-Claire type right now because there's no fandom on the internet big enough and ripe enough for it.

And your summary of tumblr BNFs basically explains why I don't use tumblr. Atrocious gifs indeed.

http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/index.php?title=Big_Name_Fan
says "The size and diversity of the Supernatural fandom means BNFs tend to occur within sub-sections of fandom, rather than across the fandom as a whole." so it looks like SPN might not be the best fandom for BNF wank but here's what I found.

supernaturalwiki links to these two specific wanks on Fandom Wank as featuring BNF's.

http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/1087452.html
http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/1100873.html

AYRT

Yeah, that's pretty much been my observation in SPN. Each group does its own thing, and nothing permeates the whole fandom. Which makes it a less than ideal place to observe BNFs in their native environment. (Though I do remember ckll. Her batshit was pretty glorious.)

Oh, she's still at it. Every once in a while, when she feels her comm is too slow, she'll threaten to delete it, until she gets enough people screaming "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! DON'T DO THAT!!".

Re: BNFs (again)

(Anonymous) - 2012-09-18 01:28 (UTC) - Expand

I think that's true of every fandom I've been in, though, that wasn't a really rare Yuletidey type thing. I can only think of maybe one or two BNFs who were/are known fandom wide and across fandoms.

I know some smaller fandoms, or fandoms with few characters and very little shipping opportunities that had some pretty well known BNFs.

I wasn't in Due South or Sentinel fandom during their heydey but they were large fandoms and seem to have had some commonly known BNFs. I assume because they were focused so exclusively on the same two pairings/characters.

Now that I think about it there is a lot more diversity when it comes to where you upload your stuff nowadays tumblr, A03, ffnet, skyehawke, dreamwidth, lj, etc. I think fandom tends to run to grouping off more now.

Edited 2012-09-18 01:52 (UTC)

But surely Kroki Refur counts as a BNF in Supernatural? She's drifted out now, but time was everyone (including cast, crew and writers) was familiar with her "10 expressions picspam"s. I would swear it even ended up referenced on the show.

http://kroki-refur.livejournal.com/131418.html
http://kroki-refur.livejournal.com/134377.html#cutid1

I was never that fond of the rest of her fic. Except that one where it's Supernatural but set in Britain.

I actually didn't know who this was so thanks for the links!

BNF, as in authors everyone has read? Because I know a few of those. Gyzm or whatever is one, pretty sure. A lot of people don't like her stuff much, but damn near everyone has read it. Asuka Kuruna (spelling. I'm bad at it) in the Naruto fandom--her stuff is actually really good. Malador in GW, Naruto, and One Piece--fantastic author who gets recced a ton.

Whether the get the qualifications of being everywhere, IDK. Just know that they come up on almost every rec list.

AYRT

I really don't know if it's as simple as authors everyone has read. I used to think it was, but when people complain about BNFs, it definitely seems to be more about a cult of personality than just writing. Although I do see gyzm recced in every fandom ever, so that must mean something.

Whoah, people don't like Gyzym now? since when?

I think a BNF would just be someone who's well-known in a (mostly) positive light. Usually they'd have to be active contributors in some way--maybe they organize group activities, maybe they're known for writing popular fanfic, maybe they have a big following for their fanart, etc. If they're known primarily for causing drama, I wouldn't consider them a BNF, but that doesn't mean BNFs can't be dramatic. That just can't be the only thing that people know them for, I think.

And yeah, I think it's possible to be a BNF on LJ/DW but not, say, Tumblr, since it all depends on where the community is centered around. For example, if someone only posted their fanfic on DW and LJ, then probably the people active in the community would know of them and maybe consider them a BNF, but if none of those users on LJ/DW also posted her fanfic on Tumblr then most tumblr fans would probably say "Who?" if you mentioned them.

These days you probably have to be on a place like tumblr, or at least a large community, to be a BNF though. It feels like a lot of fandom is dying off on journal sites, at least the fandoms I'm around.

I think that BNFs are the people who get the most hate mail. Not because they deserve it, just because.

I left SPN fandom after season three and while I was there I was mostly in the Wincest/J2 camp, but a few BNFs I remember from the top of my head:

fleshflutter
astolat
destina
trollprincess/apocalypso (sp? also not sure which one her current name is)
maygra
winterlive
thenyxie
possible poisontaster and lemmealone?

Basically anyone who's fics/vids/meta got recced again and again and had flists the sizes of a small country.

For wankier examples, ckll (the mod mentioned in the fandom wank write ups) and keepaofthecheez.

Generally speaking being a BNF isn't something bad. It's just what it says on the tin: a Big Name Fan. Anyone who's name is known through fandom (or the specific subset of fandom they're part of). I could have clicked on any random Wincest/J2 rec list back in the day and found at least one fic of one of the above mentioned people on there. (And with the possilbe expection of the last two they all deserve it. I think I read one of keepa's fics, but it's been too long that I could say whether or not it was any good. And I'm pretty sure that ckll's fame came from being the mod of a popular pairing comm rather than her writing skills.)

I call a BNF someone who is known for contributing to fandom. Whether it's because they're known for making discussion/meta/review/etc. posts, organizing communities, writing enough fic that people easily rec or will read based on knowing who the author is, being an awesome well-known artist, whatever. As long as they're known. (although if you're infamous, that's not quite bnf imo, that's more like being cast as the village idiot or scapegoat)

A good sign that people are talking about a bnf is if they have opinions about them, and maybe about whether they even merit popularity or some other nonsense.

Aaaand I guess I should have answered "yes" in your thread yesterday, but not for all of the ones I'm in atm.

When I'm at my most cynical, I feel like a BNF is a writer who gets more comments/kudos/recs than you do.

I feel like it's partly the zeitgeist: getting in on the ground floor of a fandom--being one of the first to post fic for the source material or a certain pairing or a certain trope or whatever.

I know that many BNFs are known for their bad behavior or whatever, but most of the BNFs I've interacted with have been really welcoming and kind. *shrugs*

I think it's funny that I just recently found out that I was considered a BNF in my old fandom, and I had no idea. Kinda weirds me out, actually.

Personally, i think a BNF is someone who got lucky enough to hit on just the *right* characterization and just the right tropes in a fic that came out at just the right time, and makes a kind of 'benchmark' in the fandom.

Fics that everyone 'must read', that kind of set the tone for a lot of other fics and for a lot of fanon.

Quality may vary. Some is awful, and the person is a BNF in spite of this, probably because they're very vocal and excited and post a lot. Some is really, really good and the person is a BNF because they're all mysterious and don't talk a lot or make a lot of 'fandom noise', they just post this fic to die for.

Take your pic - i've seen both. :)

I guess a BNF is a name that most people who participate in fandom would recognise? I think BNF's would also be more noticable in small fandoms or fandom subsectors as, say, opposed to the pokemon fandom which is so big and has so many different fandom subsets I can't bring a single BNF to mind.

BNF wank?

Snapesnogger for Harry Potter fandom.

Can't think of any others. I tend to ignore wank :/

My most active fandom is a pretty small video game fandom on Tumblr and it's pretty easy to know who the BNFs are because, well, they're really the only ones making fanart or fic in any sort of a consistent way.

Well, that and one small subset of what I suppose you could call the BNF's evil twins since we all know them, but only because they hate the fandom. They just stick around constantly complaining to everyone how much they hate the people and the tag and how we're ruining the game for them, but then they never leave.

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