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?
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timeasmymeasure
Secret Masters of Golden-Age Fandom?
Date: 2006-10-26 02:03 am (UTC)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:
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