They Say What They Say

This started out life as a comment in phoebesmum's  journal, but I decided to post it to mine instead because I'm curious about what other people think.

One of the oft-lamented problems in the Sports Night fandom is that we're such a disparate bunch of people. There appears to be a lot of SN fans out there, and many of them are still quite active in the fandom, but in a very fractured and less than cohesive way.

Fandoms come and go. Some fandoms, both big and small, burn brightly for a short time then simply fade away. Then there are others that don't ever seem to die. Firefly is a good example of a small fandom that refuses to die, while I don't think Star Trek, in any of its forms, is ever going to fade away. They may have fewer fans than they had when they first started out, and are perhaps less vocal than in the past, but they are still attracting new people to the fandom every day and are very much alive.

Sports Night could be described as one of those small fandoms that keep bubbling away, even though its heyday is arguably long gone. People are still writing fic and still commenting on the IMDB message board; they still expound it's virtues in blogs and on LJ. However while all this is happening it would seem that many of these active fans are unaware of what other active fans are doing.

It has been said that one of the big problems with the Sports Night fandom is that we really have no central rallying point. Once upon a time there were Yahoo Groups mailing lists, web sites, a fanfiction archive and other fanish rallying points for people to flock to. However over time many of the people who established these lists and websites have, as happens, drifted out of the fandom and on to new things. And thus the websites have been left to languish in internet limbo land, the fic archive fell down and never got back up again, and while the mailing lists still exist, they are no longer being contributed to in any real way.

The consequence of all this is that the people who are still active in the fandom, as well as those who have recently discovered it, have nowhere to congregate in a unifying and meaningful way. It's not that people aren't aware of what's going on, it's more that we lack the fierce cohesiveness that other fandoms have to bind us together. Instead of having one big community of practice, we've got several small, isolated silos, each one unaware of what the other groups are doing and none of them communicating in any real way. Thus, in one place fic gets written and goes unnoticed by all but a handful of fans that happen to know the author. Somewhere else another fan is writing meta and engaging in a meaningful discussion about why Dana and Casey are better as friends than lovers, but because the meta!fan is unaware of the fic!fan, neither of them come together to support each other in their fanish pursuits.

It's a puzzle as to why this has happened. One could argue that the shift in fandom that has seen many of the old discussion lists fade away as people moved over to LiveJournal and the like are to blame. Suddenly a fan has to work harder to be fanish. Instead of subscribing to a mailing list and sitting back while fic and meta automatically drop into their email inbox on a daily basis, they now have to actively seek out communities and individuals and make a point of checking journals or blogs for new content. In addition, the show is getting on for ten years old and it only lasted for two seasons, which isn't very long in TV land. Are people growing tired of talking about the same forty-five episodes or forgetting why they fell in love with the show in the first place?

These are all very good points, however the global viewing parties held last year, as well as the recent Putting the Sports Back in Sports Night fic challenge, just to name a couple of examples, is proof that Sports Night as a fandom is far from dead. People are still writing fic, they're still squeeing over the hotness of Dan and Casey and beauty of Aaron Sorkin's dialogue. But they're not doing it in a cohesive way and that is where the fandom falls down.

One of the joys of fandom is the way it brings people together in an interconnected social network, giving them a chance to not only squee about their favourite show among like-minded people, but in many cases develop friendships that have the potential to reach far beyond the fanish base around which they were first created.  For those people involved in the Sports Night fandom, this lack of community could make it seem like they are existing in a vacuum. Because they're not connecting with their fellow fans they may grow to feel like they not part of anything at all. This is particularly true when it appears that only a handful of fans, and quite often the same fans each and every time, appear to be commenting on their meta, reading their fic or signing up for the challenges. It's a frustrating situation for those of us who are deeply committed to the show and the fandom, and possibly an even greater one for new fans who want to get involved but have no idea where to begin.

It's hard to say how this situation can be rectified, if it can be at all. People have to want to engage and trying to force them into being more forthcoming will only alienate the old fans and make the new ones less likely to want to join in. And maybe deep down we're simply a fandom of lurkers; happy to have Sports Night listed as one of our interests on LJ, to write fic for our friends or even just our own edification, to discuss how much we dislike JJ with those closest to us, but nothing more. One must then ask the question, if such a central rallying point were to be established, where would it be and how would we encourage people to come and play?

This started out life as a comment in phoebesmum's  journal, but I decided to post it to mine instead because I'm curious about what other people think.

One of the oft-lamented problems in the Sports Night fandom is that we're such a disparate bunch of people. There appears to be a lot of SN fans out there, and many of them are still quite active in the fandom, but in a very fractured and less than cohesive way.

Fandoms come and go. Some fandoms, both big and small, burn brightly for a short time then simply fade away. Then there are others that don't ever seem to die. Firefly is a good example of a small fandom that refuses to die, while I don't think Star Trek, in any of its forms, is ever going to fade away. They may have fewer fans than they had when they first started out, and are perhaps less vocal than in the past, but they are still attracting new people to the fandom every day and are very much alive.

Sports Night could be described as one of those small fandoms that keep bubbling away, even though its heyday is arguably long gone. People are still writing fic and still commenting on the IMDB message board; they still expound it's virtues in blogs and on LJ. However while all this is happening it would seem that many of these active fans are unaware of what other active fans are doing.

It has been said that one of the big problems with the Sports Night fandom is that we really have no central rallying point. Once upon a time there were Yahoo Groups mailing lists, web sites, a fanfiction archive and other fanish rallying points for people to flock to. However over time many of the people who established these lists and websites have, as happens, drifted out of the fandom and on to new things. And thus the websites have been left to languish in internet limbo land, the fic archive fell down and never got back up again, and while the mailing lists still exist, they are no longer being contributed to in any real way.

The consequence of all this is that the people who are still active in the fandom, as well as those who have recently discovered it, have nowhere to congregate in a unifying and meaningful way. It's not that people aren't aware of what's going on, it's more that we lack the fierce cohesiveness that other fandoms have to bind us together. Instead of having one big community of practice, we've got several small, isolated silos, each one unaware of what the other groups are doing and none of them communicating in any real way. Thus, in one place fic gets written and goes unnoticed by all but a handful of fans that happen to know the author. Somewhere else another fan is writing meta and engaging in a meaningful discussion about why Dana and Casey are better as friends than lovers, but because the meta!fan is unaware of the fic!fan, neither of them come together to support each other in their fanish pursuits.

It's a puzzle as to why this has happened. One could argue that the shift in fandom that has seen many of the old discussion lists fade away as people moved over to LiveJournal and the like are to blame. Suddenly a fan has to work harder to be fanish. Instead of subscribing to a mailing list and sitting back while fic and meta automatically drop into their email inbox on a daily basis, they now have to actively seek out communities and individuals and make a point of checking journals or blogs for new content. In addition, the show is getting on for ten years old and it only lasted for two seasons, which isn't very long in TV land. Are people growing tired of talking about the same forty-five episodes or forgetting why they fell in love with the show in the first place?

These are all very good points, however the global viewing parties held last year, as well as the recent Putting the Sports Back in Sports Night fic challenge, just to name a couple of examples, is proof that Sports Night as a fandom is far from dead. People are still writing fic, they're still squeeing over the hotness of Dan and Casey and beauty of Aaron Sorkin's dialogue. But they're not doing it in a cohesive way and that is where the fandom falls down.

One of the joys of fandom is the way it brings people together in an interconnected social network, giving them a chance to not only squee about their favourite show among like-minded people, but in many cases develop friendships that have the potential to reach far beyond the fanish base around which they were first created.  For those people involved in the Sports Night fandom, this lack of community could make it seem like they are existing in a vacuum. Because they're not connecting with their fellow fans they may grow to feel like they not part of anything at all. This is particularly true when it appears that only a handful of fans, and quite often the same fans each and every time, appear to be commenting on their meta, reading their fic or signing up for the challenges. It's a frustrating situation for those of us who are deeply committed to the show and the fandom, and possibly an even greater one for new fans who want to get involved but have no idea where to begin.

It's hard to say how this situation can be rectified, if it can be at all. People have to want to engage and trying to force them into being more forthcoming will only alienate the old fans and make the new ones less likely to want to join in. And maybe deep down we're simply a fandom of lurkers; happy to have Sports Night listed as one of our interests on LJ, to write fic for our friends or even just our own edification, to discuss how much we dislike JJ with those closest to us, but nothing more. One must then ask the question, if such a central rallying point were to be established, where would it be and how would we encourage people to come and play?