Tavia wrote:
My usual retort to those who classify fandom with trainspotting (ie most of my acquaintance) is that nearly everyone watches television (some fans less than average), non-fans are content to sit and watch, while fans try to participate in social and/or creative ways.
IIRC, Jenkins had a hypothesis about that. Something along the lines of ordinary people wanting to define their own passive consumption of television (something like five hours a day for the average American, I think!) as "normal," even though most people have the feeling, deep down, that there may well be something vaguely wrong with staring passively at the tube like that for large chunks of time. But if you can point to someone whose TV-watching behavior is really unsual, it can make your own habits seem "normal" by comparison, and therefore, somehow, OK. "Yeah, sure, I watch a lot of TV, but at least I'm not like *those* people! They're obsessive!" (I may be slightly mischaracterizing Jenkins' argument, there... I don't remember it terribly well, and I don't have the book here with me to check. But I've certainly seen variants of that kind of reasoning first-hand, occasionally in some rather amusing contexts.)
-- Betty Ragan ** bragan@nrao.edu ** http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~bragan Not speaking for my employers, officially or otherwise. "Seeing a rotten picture for the special effects is like eating a tough steak for the smothered onions..." -- Isaac Asimov
From: Betty Ragan bragan@aoc.nrao.edu
My usual retort to those who classify fandom with trainspotting (ie most of my acquaintance) is that nearly everyone watches television (some fans less than average), non-fans are content to sit and watch, while fans try to participate in social and/or creative ways.
IIRC, Jenkins had a hypothesis about that. Something along the lines of ordinary people wanting to define their own passive consumption of television (something like five hours a day for the average American, I think!) as "normal," even though most people have the feeling, deep down, that there may well be something vaguely wrong with staring passively at the tube like that for large chunks of time. But if you can point to someone whose TV-watching behavior is really unsual, it can make your own habits seem "normal" by comparison, and therefore, somehow, OK. "Yeah, sure, I watch a lot of TV, but at least I'm not like *those* people! They're obsessive!"
Pretty much as I remember it (long time since I ordered the book from the local library). But I think he goes even further, pointing out that fans themselves defend themselves in the very same way, by referring to the really obsessive geeks that they don't want to be associated with. This actually encourages the popular media view of fans as obsessive geeks by perpetuating the myth of some kind of Ultimate Geek who is out there, somewhere, and fans end up collaborating with the construction of this aprocyphal figure who has come to misrepresent them.
Neil
Neil Faulkner wrote:
Pretty much as I remember it (long time since I ordered the book from the local library). But I think he goes even further, pointing out that fans themselves defend themselves in the very same way, by referring to the really obsessive geeks that they don't want to be associated with.
Absolutely. I've been part of more than one conversation where a group of people who'd just spent an hour or two talking about computer hardware, RPGs, SF TV shows and Star Wars trivia then turned around and laughed at someone else for being "a geek" because they were into much the same things but took them (what was perceived as being) one step farther. And if I had a nickle for every time I've heard "Yeah, I'm a Star Trek fan, but it's not like I dress up and go to conventions!" Everybody likes to define themselves as "normal" by pointing to someone more "extreme" than themselves, I think.
Betty said:
And if I had a nickle for every time I've heard "Yeah, I'm a Star Trek fan, but it's not like I dress up and go to conventions!" Everybody likes to define themselves as "normal" by pointing to someone more "extreme" than themselves, I think.
Like the time-honored conjugation: I am a social drinker/you have a drinking problem/he is an alcoholic I am creatively involved/you are a fan/she is a trainspotting geek
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Neil Faulkner