Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

And where is this Golden Age fanwriting found, pray tell?

I duck into LJ from time to time, and when I've got the time to kill, I chase around comments to journals to friendslists to other journals and comments and around and around I go. It's all very interesting and undoubtedly it's better than much of what emanates from mainstream broadcast media. But a Golden Age therein? How can this be, if I remember just about none of it a week later? Anything meriting the appelation ought to be memorable, not for mere weeks, but for years if not decades. If it isn't, it's just another devaluation of the term. We may as well all be watching silly kitten stunts on YouTube, for all the timebinding it gives us.

The irony is that, within "traditional fanzine fandom" there has lately been a huge burst of preservation and archiving activity. Hundreds of pages of crumbling old mimeo paper have been scanned and OCR'ed or even re-keyed from scratch, and can now be found on the Web. Isn't it curious how these people who allegedly are insular and snobbish to the nth degree (see Cheryl's attempt at humour below) manage to put their collective history within ready reach of a Web search engine? It'll soon be easier to access paper fanac's eohistory than electronic fanac's appearance half a century later.

As for Ted's arguments, I can't say that I agree with them although the underlying premises are hard to ignore: the activities that were central to most active fans 40 years ago are pretty marginal these days, and the Fan Hugos honour an even tinier sub-section of that fringe. This trend is exacerbated even more by the diminishing overlap of Worldcon attendees and fanzine folks. Aside from pretending that this isn't happening, I see three alternatives:

Recognise that fandom and the Fan Hugos have been drifting apart, and thus we need to fix fandom. Let's turn back the clock 40 years, and reclaim the lost halcyon days of Worldcon.

Recognise that fandom and the Fan Hugos have been drifting apart, and tweak the Fan Hugos accordingly, or

Recognise that fandom and the Fan Hugos have been drifting apart, and since there's no sane way to bring them back together, it's better to axe the Fan Hugos and honour fanac through some other means.

All three positions have been argued here (on LJ, that is) and elsewhere. Naturally, continuing with the status quo incurs the fewest headaches. But at what cost?

- Colin

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By implicitly defining "fandom" the way you appear to be doing, you reinforce the stereotype that Cheryl lampoons.

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Where am I defining "fandom", Kevin? All I've done is acknowledge that its far more diverse, with a much broader range of interests, than it used to be.

I don't think it's elitist or snobbish to insist that something called "golden age fanac" have lasting qualities. Ipso facto, that's what golden age is.

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You don't explicitly define fandom. But the Hugo Awards are voted on by fans -- hundreds of them, drawn from an eligible electorate of thousands. It appears to me that you don't consider those fans who are voting to be "real fans" as you want them to be. This suggests to me that your definition of "fandom" is "my and my little circle of friends." I have a more inclusive definition.

I interpret your dislike of the results of the Hugo Awards as: "The Hugo Awards don't reflect my personal tastes; therefore, the entire process is flawed. Because the Fan Hugos don't go to people I think deserve them, there shouldn't be Fan Hugos."

This is as bad as the people in SMOFdom -- and they are there, even if they won't admit it to themselves -- who would rather destroy the Worldcon than have it be anything other than what they personally want it to be.

I would certainly prefer if more eligible members of WSFS (Worldcon members) voted on the Hugo Awards. I've worked on this during the times that it's my responsibility. In fact, I don't think I'm bragging when I say that there have been several years (1993 and 1994 in particular, but also 2003), where if it had not been for me personally banging on the project and doing a lot of the leg-work myself (like labeling envelopes and dealing with post offices), where members of a given Worldcon would not have been aware that they were eligible to nominate in the subsequent year's election. This is, I think, one of the reasons that 1994's nominating ballot turnout was quite large relative to the size of the Worldcon that year.

The funny thing to me is that I expect that to you I'm one of those dangerous lunatics who are destroying fandom-as-you-know-it because I'm not actively trying to turn the clock back to 1964 or something like that, whereas to other people, I'm a hopelessly hidebound conservative who is preventing people from voting on the Hugos because I won't let them do it for free, and also won't let them cast their ballots at the Worldcon itself.

I don't have a problem with describing "golden age fanac" as you have done. What I don't think we should do is engaged in excessive "good old days" thinking. History has it's place; I love the history exhibits at Worldcon, for instance. But there's also a future, and I'm interested in that as well.

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I have a pretty inclusive definition of fandom, too. You'd notice this if you actually read my initial comment as I wrote it, instead of reading into it stuff that isn't there.

Where is it written that I have advocated the abolition of the Fan Hugos? Again, read closely what I wrote. I do think that if the subject of "the Fan Hugos have not kept pace with fandom itself" is being discussed, that the abolition position is logically one that ought to be considered. I don't agree with it, but neither do I agree with shouting it down with ad hominem remarks. Really, Kevin, since you pride yourself as being a parliamentarian I expect a whole lot better from you.

Where your understanding of my position completely falls apart is this: Back in the Old Days, fanzines were a pretty central part of fandom and it was indeed an honour amongst "fans in general" to receive a Best Fanzine Hugo. The world has changed, and whether anybody likes it or not, fanzines are more and more a fringe activity. Why have an award for an activity that fewer and fewer fans care about? Why encourage people to vote for an award under the circumstances?

Wouldn't it make more sense to broaden the scope of the award, instead? Big-tent awards for big-tent fandom?

See, that's my real position on the matter. And remember, I write this solely as myself, and I'm not the factional groupthinker that you seem to think I am.

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Well, if that's really how you feel, that's different. Remember that I was among those who were involved with two Worldcons (2002, 2005) experimenting with a Best Web Site Hugo Award? Well, I think it would be appropriate to explicitly broaden the scope of the Best Fanzine category to include web site (probably including weblogs explicitly, thanks to the fannish tendency to assume anything not explicitly allowed is prohibited).

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A well-written blog (or blog comment) usually bears little resemblance to any but the most superficial perzine-type fanzines. It is possible that we have blurred so much around the edges with Mundania that it is no longer meaningful to identify (or reward) "fan writing" or "fan art" as a thing unto itself, and we should just get over it and abandon those archaic categories no longer of interest to WorldCon-going fandom.

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cherylmorgan.livejournal.com

Roscoe was taking a recently demised fan on a tour of fannish heaven. "Here," he said, "are the Lit Fans. We have a librray containing every science fiction book and magazine ever published. Here are the Trek fans. As you can see we have given them life-size mock-ups of every starship used in the shows, and a full costume wardrobe (100% accurate, of course). This here is our Worldcon site. It has 2,000,000 hotel bedrooms, all on the ground floor, and not one of them more than 2 minutes walk from the convention center. Over there you can see the furries trying out new body forms..."

"It looks fabulous," said the dead fan, "everything I ever dreamed of. But tell me, what's behind that huge wall?"

"Oh," said Roscoe, "that's the Trufen, they like to pretend that they are the only ones here."

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avt-tor.livejournal.com

Okay, that's funny.

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Nice stereotyping, Cheryl. Presumably in reaction to the longwinded commentary written by a certain deceased fanzine fan, you continue to prejudge the entire lot of us. Thanks bunches.

Do you remember the MilPhil fanzine lounge? I was there on one occasion when you wandered in. I remember the Lounge Host welcoming you, and commenting (favourably) on a book review in a recent Emerald City. This must have messed with your "all fanzine fans are against me" notions, as you silently glared at her in response and eventually you left the room.

In my universe,

corflu (the annual gathering of the fanzine fans) has its own LJ community. How insular is that?

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We do?

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nwl.livejournal.com

I've sent a LOC responding to this article, although I did not include my usual observation about people who gripe about the Hugo Awards, which is that IMO most people dissatisfied with the Hugos do so because the Awards don't reflect their personal preferences for who should be winning them.

This is hardly limited to fandom. I can't think of any award on the planet that isn't second guessed. Not that people can't agree that whatever got the award isn't worthy for the most part, but there is always something else that could have been just as worthy. It's known as being human.

I'd rather have lots of choices than be limited to just best sellers or the Top Ten songs.

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People complaining about who won doesn't really bother me; that's a matter of taste. People bitterly complaining that the award shouldn't exist because their favorites don't win is what bugs me.

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I would say rather that the current Hugo voting population, by and large, is ignorant of fanzines and that having something called a "Best Fanzine" Hugo rewards those zine-like objects which are most familiar to non-fanzine-reading voters. That's not the same thing.

Emerald City was a fanzine, albeit an online one. Most blogs are not, nor do they want to be; Ghu knows mine isn't. Calling a "Best Fannish Website" Hugo the "Best Fanzine" Hugo would be both a-historical and incorrect.

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debgeisler.livejournal.com

...which is that IMO most people dissatisfied with the Hugos do so because the Awards don't reflect their personal preferences for who should be winning them.

I'm with

nwl: every set of awards in the history of the universe where someone didn't like the winner had dissatisfied people because their preference didn't win.

(This also works with political elections, where the world is coming to an end because the candidate we wanted didn't get elected.)

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To extend the analogy, it's the people who are convinced that "democracy is broken" or "the form of the government isn't legitimate" because they don't get their way are the ones who get my goat.

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Do you distinguish this from those who have concluded that the election machinery is so irretreviably corrupted (with Diebold vote-generating machines in place, a packed SCOTUS to "legalize" the products they will spit forth, and the news media self-gelded) that voting is in fact a futile gesture, and that the American Experiment of 1776 has finally jumped the shark?

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