Friending Media

[singedsun]

In which I overthink listing out fandoms for the friending meme. Or, here's a weird first post to see from me if you're coming over from a friending meme, and other stories where I don't actually list any of the stuff I'm into.



I can never be trusted to create a list of the media I enjoy. I feel like even if I'm not actively creating for a specific fandom that doesn't mean I won't pick it up in a heartbeat if something strikes my fancy. I also indulge in a LOT of television, YouTube & podcasts because I don't like to rewatch or replay very many things. So I posted my comment on the friending post linked above but then wanted to edit it a bunch after reading through other comments because I kept finding fandoms I wanted to add. I let myself edit once and then just figured it wasn't worth it to keep going back, especially since comments are nearing 400 the likelihood of people going back and finding mine are slim.

The other thing I have trouble quantifying are individuals I love that like I'm not going to be writing about them, but I will sit here and talk to you about them for hours. I have a conversation with a friend that is 100% just nerd moments from Brendon Urie's Twitch channel, but I by no means consider that really part of Panic!'s bandom. Nor do I engage with band fandoms much at all (despite my love for rock band AUs in other fandoms lol).

Also, I just watch a BUNCH of YouTube but everyone I've met in most YouTube communities are far younger than me. And while I am not typically bothered by talking to younger fandom friends, I definitely don't feel welcome in most of those fandoms when the communities are full of 15-16 year olds. (To be clear, people are generally lovely in most of those fandoms - like for the Polygon video team - but they're usually the places I feel like a weird old creeper. LOL)

I feel half-tempted on friending posts or in profiles where it's expected you list out what you're into, to just write, IDK STUFF OKAY?! because that's how I feel writing them out. This is likely also impacted by the fact that the only fandom I've really participated in for a lengthy period of time was Dragon Age. But I've also written for Yuletide for the past nine years where Dragon Age is too big a fandom. So I'm happy to pick up an engage with smaller fandoms for the sake of something interesting to create.

When I was browsing back through the other comments though, I a little bit was envious of the people that can just list something obscure like ... Forever Knight, and that just be their one and only fandom. I mean, I don't get it but if that's you, that's cool. Also Forever Knight was a show beyond its years that never got the attention it should have. Alas, the vampire goodness we could've had.

Comments

[sewn]

This post is a Big Mood.

I posted in a friending meme and a friending comm last month, and now I can't even remember half the things I listed as my favourites, and what I do remember I really haven't written about except in passing... I feel like I should have put up banners saying "Beware! False advertisement! Please add me so I can read YOUR thoughts on these things though /o\" And even with things that take up a lot of space in my obsessive fannish brain, like your Brendon Urie example, I just have nothing to put down in writing... Like I listen to a podcast that I probably spend half of my waking life thinking about, but I don't know what I'd say about it on DW.

I thought about this a little, and I suppose it helps to think of the favourites/interests list not as a list of current active fandom where you are creating visible content, but as a sort of glimpse into your fandom history and fannish background. (If you wanna be wanky, you could say it's an example of Barthes' conception of the self-construction of your public identity. I've always liked his list! "...slow walks, pears, white peaches, cherries, colors, watches, all kinds of writing pens, desserts, unrefined salt, realistic novels, the piano, coffee, Pollock...")

So, generalising here, people whose faves include HP and LotR have probably had a different fannish path than someone with a Western anime fandom background or someone who would list MCU as their first fannish interest. Even if you don't share current fandoms, you can sort of of guess whether you have some familiar fandom baseline you can fall back on. For example, for some people asking "Which Hogwarts house are you in" is an obvious icebreaker and the answer works as shorthand (sort of like the Myers-Brigg type); for others, even if they are casual Potter readers, it's just a boring question. -- I obviously don't advocate for gravitating only towards people with a similar fannish background, but I think there's value in these lists, even if they feel haphazard and even false to us once we've finished writing them. Just the fact that we thought of the items on the list tells something about us.

[singedsun]

Oh, yes, agree agree! I always feel like I have to give enough examples of different things so it's like, "I don't always post about video games, I promise"! But like I said, then I feel a little jealous of people who know exactly where their fannish heart lays 99.9% of the time. Though, you're right, even that gives an example of the types of things they might also be into.

Also, WHAT PODCAST?! Because same. As I mentioned about YouTube, I feel like podcasts are also in this weird category because there's such a far reaching variety in that platform and if you don't like or listen to podcasts at all... I can't even begin to explain to you about one that I'm always thinking about. (Explaining table top games like Dungeons & Dragons used to be like this because all people might know about them was the 80's Satanic panic. Now, it's kind of everywhere.) That said, I'm always looking for new podcasts!

[sewn]

I feel a little jealous of people who know exactly where their fannish heart lays 99.9% of the time

I know what you mean. My attention wanders from place to place, and I don't really know what fandom I'm "in" at any given moment. I mean I'm always a fan of the things I'm fan of, right? But that's... hundreds of things, some of which I will be intensely obsessed with for a month, and then pick up something else. Sometimes I have one-night bouts where I wonder if there's a fandom and fic for this or that canon, discover there is, and spend a few hours bingereading until it's out of my system. Should that go on my interest list then, hmm...

It's such a weird thought to have one fandom, or just a couple, for years, maybe decades, and have a deep fandom experience with one canon alone!

Haha, it's We Hate Movies. They are one of those Bad Movies podcast where four dudes sit down and pick apart a terrible (or an amazing) movie. I'm not generally a big fan of that format anymore, and I feel weird gushing about them, but they are just head and shoulders above any "dude media" I can think of. I actually wouldn't categorize them as such because they're, well, educated adults, and usually hone in on a movie's racist, misogynist and transphobic aspects. I like it because they sort of lured in a community of reddit bros and are now teaching them intersectional feminist analysis 101 while being shriek-out-loud hilarious. /I feel dumb giving woke cookies to men, but still. I just gosh darnit love them.

That said, I always have a hard time reccing them because, like you said, first of all there's being into podcasts, and then being into non-fiction podcasts, and then into a particular subgenre of movie podcasts... it's just hard to know if someone is a potential fan of their stuff! What's the podcast YOU are thinking about?

And hey, you're also into tabletop RPGs??

Hope you don't mind these super long comments, by the way. I feel like I'm rambling D:

[singedsun]

I think streaming media makes it so easy to binge a new thing too, so falling down a fandom hole for a week or a month or whatever is so easy to do. And again, those are the kinds of things that if they roll around on a Yuletide pinch list, I might be willing to write something for it if I like it and remember enough without a canon review. They're just not fandoms I'm active in the rest of the time... I think they count, but I will almost always forget them on a list of "fandoms" I make for things like this.

I've never heard of that podcast! Those kinds aren't usually the kind I listen to or at least not on a regular basis, but I total understand the appeal of them. My Brother, My Brother and Me (MBMBAM) is the one I can talk about forever. That and a weird one I LOVE called Good Christian Fun. GCF is a podcast about Christian pop culture but through a modern, thoughtful (and liberal) lens. It's a hard sell because while the hosts consider themselves Christian, they're definitely not your stereotypical straight-laced right-wing conservative Christians. They take an honest look at what Christian pop culture (both old and new) is trying to impart, who it's marketed to, and where it might fall down. Also, they're extremely funny. But like those are two wildly different talky podcasts (although if you like one, you'll probably like the other) but selling those to non-podcast people or audio drama podcast people might be difficult.

And yes! I DM a weekly D&D game on Wednesdays and play a Earth Genasi Barbarian in a game on Tuesdays. :D I've been a hard core TTRPGer for almost two decades. I've played a bunch of different kinds of games too, not just D&D.

(I LOVE long comments - see my own above lol)

[sewn]

Good Christian Fun sounds like it could be right up my alley, actually. Another movie podcast I love is Linoleum Knife, and one of the two hosts was raised Evangelical (in 70s Texas). He isn't Christian anymore, but every so often they will review new faith-based movies, which mainstream movie critics normally completely ignore; his observations on them are always really interesting, and I've learned more about Christian pop culture in the US than I never did before. So GCF sounds great, I subscribed to it. :) I see they are actually part of the same podcast network as We Hate Movies (Headgum). Seal of approval!

MBMBAM I know, because they have a connection to a New Zealand podcast I used to listen to, The Worst Idea of All Time... They've had some crossover episodes, maybe you heard them? So I've actually listened to some of it but didn't become a regular listener. Most of the podcasts I listen to are movie-related, with a few conspiracy theory and cult ones thrown in.

I'm more of a "softcore" RPGer, even though I've played a whole lot of different games for ten years now, several D&D campaigns and a whole bunch of others, from Conan to Vampire The Masquerade to Star Trek Adventures... I haven't played for a few months now, but I agreed to play D&D Out of the Abyss with someone who wants to try DMing for the first time. It doesn't start until March and I have no character yet, but I'm looking forward to it!

[singedsun]

Definitely tell me what you think of GCF. Some of the conversations they have about the faith-based backgrounds of their guests is the most interesting thing about the show. And sometimes it's the stupid bad Christian songs they find to pit against each other in a bout of a game they play called "The Worst Christian Song of All Time". They make me laugh every week. (Also, one of the hosts was a host of Gilmore Guys.)

I HAVE heard of them, but I never listened to the crossover episodes. LOL
OMG CULT podcasts! Did you listen to the Heaven's Gate one?!

Most of mine are talky, or game/story based. But sometimes I branch out.

ooooh. Man I MISS playing VtM. I played in a long, long Sabbat campaign (Toreador) and it was so much fun. I've been watching LA By Night on Geek & Sundry and it's making me so nostalgic of that game. Out of the Abyss is tough. I was in a campaign that made it about halfway through the campaign before real life stuff just was too overwhelming and we fell apart. I played a druid in that game which came in pretty handy. The best advice I can give for that campaign is to take lots and lots of notes. You'll need to know the NPCs well.

[sewn]

I'm looking forward to the song discussions! I was involved with a church choir and related activities as a youngster and have endured a lot of terrible Christian pop music, although just of the local variety. I don't know much about the US side of it, though I did see some American Christian bands when they had international tours. (Full disclosure here: I'm an atheist now, haven't left the Lutheran church. The religious landscape is quite different where I live.)

I'm listening to Heaven's Gate, not all the way through yet! It's great. And it's not a cult podcast per se, but I've also got Surviving Y2K on my playlist, which covers the millenium panic phenomenon, which did have some cult-y elements to it.

I played a druid in that game which came in pretty handy. The best advice I can give for that campaign is to take lots and lots of notes. You'll need to know the NPCs well.

Thank you for the advice :D I'm not the most... strategic of players, let's put it like that. No one's picked druid yet, so I might just do that.

[implicated2]

Ugh, yes! I stressed about what fandoms to include in the Snowflake Friending Meme too. What am I even into these days? What should I tell people I'm into? Which fandoms I consume fan content in feels less defining of my fannishness than other things. (And yesss to feeling like an outsider in young-people fandom spaces.) All of which to say, I appreciated this post and I don't know what My Fandoms, capital-m capital-f, are either.

[singedsun]

Yes, all of this! I tend to think about My Fandoms as the sorts of things that if they came in to me on the pitch hit list for Yuletide, do I know enough about them to be able to pick them up on behalf of someone else. Because that category is a lot more broad than the ones where I've curated a specific list of things I want as a gift. But how do you I quantify what that list is other than linking to like my Goodreads page and my Netflix/Hulu viewing history, you know?

On the young whippersnappers in fandoms I will admit to being guilty of joining and then just immediately leaving Discord communities when I realize the introductions are all from people under 21. Just... I do not belong here and an immediate sense of DANGER DANGER WILL ROBINSON

[dhampyresa]

I feel half-tempted on friending posts or in profiles where it's expected you list out what you're into, to just write, IDK STUFF OKAY?!
HARD SAME! corvidology's ongoing yes friending meme was a huge relief.

Any recs for rock band AUs?

[singedsun]

I think my favorite rock band AU is this Critical Role story (which given that it's modern/rock band AU I think you can read without canon knowledge anyway): https://archiveofourown.org/works/12816993
It's just 50k+ of slow burn rock band/movie star goodness.

[dhampyresa]

Thank you for the link! I look forward to reading it.

[sewn]

Thanks for mentioning that friending meme! What a great concept.

[dhampyresa]

You're welcome.