fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2238 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2238 ⌋

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Notes:

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You know what? I'm not even that put off by the weirdness/creepiness of it all. I just find it so goddamn boring.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not above pop culture. I love celebrities and have posters of them in my room. I like reading interviews with them. That said, I'm completely uninterested in reading fanfic about them.

The thing is that with characters, you really get to know them. You see how they act by themselves, you see them at their best, their worst, you see them witnessing their fears, and fall in love. You don't get that with actos/celebrities. You see the persona they put on in public, and, yeah, their actual personality usually seeps through, but, at the end of the day, you don't really know them -- not like a character anyway.

So would someone mind telling me why they find RPF interesting?

You don't get that with actors/celebrities, but RPF/RPS fans feel that they do. They see people -their public 'personas'- as characters. It's weird to me, but that's pretty much it as far as my friends have explained it.

ITAWTC

I can't get into the RPF side of my fandoms for this reason. It seems to me people just write what they want Celebrity A to be like, or how it'll suit the story, with some fandom-specific variations to convince us that No It's Really Them.

Mind, these are usually the people who write fandom characters that way, too, but it's honestly less excusable there, since a good fandom will... you know... have canon characterization.

A shorter answer is "porn of hot people," though.

I think it's exactly what you said: at the end of the day, you don't really know them. So taking into account the constrictions of what you do about their real lives and their careers and their public personas, you have a lot of room to speculate and come up with ideas and explanations and theories. The appeal comes from the challenge of fitting the outlandish stories and personalities you come up with into the constraints of RL facts.

Also, it's fun to put a layer of subtext onto what you see of their characters onscreen, in the case of actors. Like, everyone in the fandom is familiar with "that scene", so then you can write about what the acts were doing right before/after "that scene", what they felt about "that scene", how turned-on they were during "that scene", etc.

I'm not into RPF, but I think that it IS the same as with a character? It is a very simple scheme:

you get the reactions and all the outward stuff->you interpret them to create an image

Naturally it is different for the characters for whom you know their actual thoughts, but sometimes it doesn't happen (especially in the films/shows). So what? You don't write fanfic about the characters whose thoughts are not written down in the canon?

ia with how the way you know celebs and characters are different. That said, I once wrote RPS for Adam Levine/Blake Shelton based on the personalities they show on The Voice, but I still don't quite get it myself.

I think it does rely on the idea that you have a connection with a celebrity, or at least some kind of real knowledge of who they are, based on their public persona.

But that's something it's really easy to believe in the present media climate and the way our mass culture works atm, with the amount of access people have (or think they have) to celebrities. It's pretty easy to get the idea that you know their personality a bit. I mean, for instance, I can certainly understand how someone would be interested in RPF about David Mitchell (although I'm not myself).

You could basically ask the same thing about why people write fic and slash side characters with little screentime.

I mean, yeah, part of it is slashing the public personas that the celebrities put out there, especially for those who really put themselves in the spotlight, but the other part is basically...turning them into characters based on what little information you're given. Filling in the blanks, so to speak. Seeing that celebrities are just about as removed from our own reality as fictional characters are, it's easy to forget that you're technically writing/reading about real people, even if the only things that match up are the names and faces.

I think you're forgetting that there is plenty of fanfic for characters who's entire personalities are fanon inventions anyway. Like those movie and tv characters who don't get fully realised in canon, people get intrigued by their public face are interested in the setting of their lives and figuring out their motivations.

I don't understand the appeal of writing it, but I've certainly read interesting RPF. I've also read really really terrible (and popular) rpf where the characters were given ZERO personality whatsoever and were basically used as ken dolls to enact cheesy gay porn.

Some people see it as writing original fiction, and 'casting' real actors as if they were envisioning a movie as they wrote.

I think that's okay.

This is why I read rpf. Familiar faces, somewhat familiar personalities (though they can vary from fic to fic).

Plus there's both long and short fics of every genre for whatever you feel like at the time. There's an established community already, so there's plenty of rec lists.

Sometimes you just want to read a fluffy something based of your favorite movie.

All right, how about this? Think of any movie fandom that one involves one movie. You have a couple of hours (more or less depending on the movie) to get to know any of the characters. If the character is not a main one, you’re not even going to get that much, but you can still write about that character. Okay, so, any celebrity will spend a fair amount of time promoting their projects (talk shows, press rounds, conventions, etc.), plus there are behind-the-scenes specials on a lot of projects and/or commentary, plus interviews and other public appearances. I believe that is plenty to build a character out of any celebrity’s public persona and write about them. But that’s just me.

Personally, I only ever read AUs and just treat them as original fic "starring" [insert celebrity here].

[ SECRET POST #2238 ]

Can someone please explain to me the appeal of RPS/RPF?

Re: Can someone please explain to me the appeal of RPS/RPF?

Re: Can someone please explain to me the appeal of RPS/RPF?

Re: Can someone please explain to me the appeal of RPS/RPF?

Re: Can someone please explain to me the appeal of RPS/RPF?

Re: Can someone please explain to me the appeal of RPS/RPF?

Re: Can someone please explain to me the appeal of RPS/RPF?

Re: Can someone please explain to me the appeal of RPS/RPF?

Re: Can someone please explain to me the appeal of RPS/RPF?

Re: Can someone please explain to me the appeal of RPS/RPF?

Re: Can someone please explain to me the appeal of RPS/RPF?

Re: Can someone please explain to me the appeal of RPS/RPF?

Re: Can someone please explain to me the appeal of RPS/RPF?