As big a fan of Doctor Who as I am, there are times I wonder why I bother to dredge through the various online communities which discuss the show. If you took the average discussion of the programme and presented it as a parody of fannish writing, you’d be accused of unfair stereotyping.
But then, every so often, I run across a post like this. Good reading, and interesting to think about.
alymid
I think that is a generality that applies to almost all fannish meta and meta communities. Reading post episode discussions for shows I love almost always leave me pulling my hair and gnashing my teeth.
No reason for sturgeon’s law to NOT apply ;).
At this point I have found a few people for each fandom that don’t make me crazy and then read their reviews and following conversations and people they recommend.
smoooom
Personally I just stopped reading other peoples thoughts on Dr Who. I enjoy the show. I don’t need to have it ripped apart and analysed. It’s just a TV show. I want to enjoy it for what it is, just that a TV show, it brings back childhood memories, my kids enjoy it, and it’s fun, it’s sometimes scary, and if it’s sometimes cliched then so is most of TV I just enjoy it.
Rob Wynne
Part of me feels the same way. I’m quite often a pretty easy consumer; if I’m entertained, I don’t need to look too closely at it.
Another part of me, though, is too mired in the tradition of critique and discussion. And back when I first got online in the late 1980s, there were (it seemed) great amounts of reasoned. intelligent, and interesting conversations going on about all the things I loved and enjoyed. Books, TV, movies, you name it.
Maybe I’m just old and cranky and out of step with the current mass of the fanbase. Maybe I always was, and the mass of the fanbase was just never online before. I dunno. But I long to sit and have interesting conversations with interesting people about things I enjoy. It’s part of the communal experience that drew me to fandom in the first place. And it is therefore frustrating when 90% of the conversations are drivel. No escaping Sturgeon’s Law, I guess.
allisona
I love reading other people’s opinions of shows I like- maybe it’s the English literature major in me :). To me part of the experience of watching an episode of a show that is a favorite is seeking out a cyber discussion to see what other people think of it. I’ll often lurk… but I do enjoy reading the feedback.
My old cranky fandom complaint? 🙂 It’s almost impossible to have a real life discussion about any current TV show anymore because it’s a given that there will be someone who hasn’t seen it yet, hasn’t caught up with the episodes yet or plans to get around to watching the season in question in the next year or two. Despite the advantages of that kind of timeslip it makes me a tiny bit nostalgic for the days when we were all watching the same TV shows at the same time and all a-buzz to talk about it together :).
kaffyr
May I join you in your old cranky fandom complaint, if it’s large enough to take two of us?
keristor
I grew up being used to discussions of TV shows and books. When we used to watch Star Trek (the only series, first run in the UK, in the late 60s) we would then turn off the TV and sit there discussing it for hours. The same if we’d read the same book. In those days I knew nothing of ‘fandom’, this was in my family and with a few friends at school.
As a result I’ve come to several conclusions:
* Nothing is perfect.
* Sturgeon’s Law applies to everything (sometimes recursively).
* No sequel is the same as the original. Sometimes better, sometimes worse.
* Nothing has to be perfect to be enjoyable.
* It’s OK to enjoy crap, as long as you don’t then claim that it’s perfect.
* Some things which I hate others enjoy, and the reverse. This is fine.
* General: there are no absolutes in taste.
allisona
Thanks, I enjoyed this essay, too (though I haven’t seen the third episode yet).
kaffyr
Thank you so much for the recommendation. Sometimes, I’m afraid, I fall in love with the similes and metaphors I use, and completely forget what the hell it was I wanted to say. If that didn’t happen this time -- hurrah!
(Also, the phrase ‘Autograph the cat’ has lodged in my head and sits there, quite like a cat itself, and will not leave. I think it’s marvelous.)
fourzoas
Thanks for the link--good lunchtime reading!
Just wanted to recommend--roundup of fandom conversations that might make it easier to find more of what you want and avoid the other stuff.
Rob Wynne
Ah, thank you!
One problem with a fandom as active and fractured as Doctor Who is that there’s a billion different communities and no way to tell which ones are worth plunging into. 🙂
*scurries off to join*
fourzoas
You’re welcome!
That’s the beauty of the daily comm--you get on and off lj links served up fresh every day! Enjoy!
radiantbaby
I definitely second the recommendation for. Aside from my friends list, that is the main way I keep up with fandom (even if I’m rarely keeping up these days as I currently have about 5 tabs of open to read episode reviews and various meta I’m behind on *facepalm*)
acciochocolate
I don’t read much in the comms, because hardly anyone is posting meta in the general comms anymore, except in the comm. That comm is too damn busy, as it accepts anything DW-related, and also the mods are known to edit posts, and ban anyone who disagrees with their opinions, esp. when it comes to the Wose-wuv. 🙁
But my thanks for the link to this post. 🙂 The real discussion is going on in personal LJs, and I’m not sure why. No one wants to talk about why this has happened in the past year or so, at least as far as DW is concerned. The really great posters at left when the policies became evident. 🙁
Rob Wynne
Yes, I have an icon JUST for those people. 🙂
Did you notice recommendation of the community? It looks like a pretty useful digest of what’s going on out in the Whoniverse.
acciochocolate
If I had known that you didn’t know about already, I would have mentioned it to you long ago. Wait. I’m sure I did, didn’t I? Oh, well, you know about it now.
One more thing about : all posts are moderated. I’m not overly fond of comms like that. Makes me wonder what I’m NOT seeing.
And I do like Rose, don’t get me wrong, but to those people (usually newcomers to Who, and never were Classic era fans) who think that Rose is the one-and-only companion EVAR, no, uh, just no, what part of the word “NO” did you not understand? LOL!
Especially if they bash Martha or Donna or Jack. I kind of like to think that he loves them all. 🙂