In a message dated 2/20/01 12:30:08 AM Eastern Standard Time, calle@lysator.liu.se writes:
<< Why? I found it quite good when I read it. Not perfect, of course, but there seemed to be a lot of good thinking in it. >>
Jenkins wasn't regarded as 'bad'; his work just came across as as a bit pretentious and his theories were sometimes spot on, sometimes way out in left field, and sometimes from another planet. It was never given much weight as a whole, because he often generalizes when almost every fan has different motivations and inspiration than every other fan on almost everything (one only has to hang out on a typical mailing list for a few days to discover this). Read from beginning to end, you often spot areas where his conclusions seem to be drawn on thin sampling of the fannish milieu in general.
I suppose Jenkins was trying to isolate a phenomenon which might be a bit more universal than any of us suppose.
Leah