O Mighty Flist (and beyond), I seek your assistance!

[gnine]

As you may or may not know, I’m currently working on my MA in Critical Media and Cultural Studies at University of London, SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies). For my thesis, I’m delving into the question of how culture, one’s own, as well as that of the source material one is fanning on, affects how fans identify and interact with said media and the fandoms surrounding them.

I am very aware that academic scrutiny of fandom has at times been…less than pleasant, shall we say. With that in mind, I’d like to make clear that it is not my intent to place fen or fandom under the microscope, but rather to use them as one concrete example in the broader investigation of culture’s impact on the field of media studies.

The following questions I’ve split into two sections, one focused on the media itself, the other on fandom as a whole. These are just a jumping-off point; feel free to answer as many/as few of the questions as you’d like, in as much/little detail as you feel comfortable. If you’d prefer to comment anonymously or email me directly at gnine AT livejournal DOT com, that’s fine, too.

Media Questions:

How much of what you fan on is produced by your own culture/country?

How much of what you fan on is originally produced in your native language(s)?

Have either of the above changed over the course of your time in fandom?

If/When consuming material not originally produced in a language you are fluent in, how do you access it? (e.g., dubs, scanlations, muddle through the raws and just enjoy the pretty people/art/voices, etc.)

Are there any culture’s materials you particularly avoid or seek out? (e.g. you avoid anything Japanese, be it anime, manga, video games, etc.; you love anything British, TV, books, etc.)If so, why?

The first time you watched/read/listened to something produced by a culture whose material you had not previously fanned on, were there details you had to adjust to (e.g. narrative styles, character depictions, pacing, cultural references, etc.) ?

Are there any particular tropes/stereotypes/character traits/plot devices you particularly associate with a certain culture’s material?


Fandom Questions:

At a guess, are the majority of the people you regularly fan with your nationality?

Do you think this changes depending on what fandom you’re in?

If you go to live fan events/conventions/meet-ups, have you attended different fan events for media of different cultures? (E.g. have you gone to both conventions for an English-language series (such as Supernatural) and anime conventions?)If so, have you noticed any differences between such conventions?

Have you ever attended fan events/conventions/meet-ups in more than one country? If so, did you notice any differences?

Has fanning with people from various countries ever caused surprise/confusion/misunderstandings?

Do your expectations for the fandom and its fanwork change depending on the source culture?


Additionally, there are a few details that’d be helpful for everyone to include, if they could:

Nationality:
Native language(s):
Language(s) you most often fan in (e.g. write/read/discuss in):
Gender (that you're most comfortable identify yourself as):
Is it all right for me to reference you directly in the final paper:
If yes, how would you prefer to be called (e.g. LJ handle/name/nickname/anonymously, etc):
If needed, would it be alright for me to contact you for more questions/details via email/skype, etc.?


Beyond that, if there are any other details, personal experiences, general trends you’ve observed, feel free to expound. Further discussion/questions in the comments is also very welcome.

If anyone's willing to link this in their journals, I’d be grateful, as the more responses the more expansive the research.

Thanks for your help!

Comments

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

We've already discussed a lot of these things, obviously, but here's a few random responses:

I'm American, native English speaker, and that's the only language I usually fan in. These days most of the media I fan on seems to be English-language (American, Canadian, and British productions) but I've been into a lot of Japanese animanga and live-action dramas as well. In my experience, anime fandoms are quite a different beast from Western fandoms - for one, the fans tend to be significantly younger (at 20, I was fairly young for a Western fandom fan, fairly old for an anime fan). Possibly because America tends to view cartoons as "kid's stuff"? So some of the differences may be less cultural and more age-based. A lot of early anime fandoms also were more male than female, while as all the Western fandoms I've been in the vast majority of fans are female, so that makes a difference, too.

That being said, there's quite a lot of difference between fanworks for anime fandoms and English-language fandoms. Anime seems to inspire more fan art, and different kinds of fan art (e.g. manips are common for live-action series, never seen them for anime.) Fanfic especially is different - I tend to prefer Western-based fic, in no small part because h/c is one of my favorite genres, and it's a lot less common in anime fic. Character-centric gen fic, too, is harder to find in anime fic.

There's also certain things that only turn up in anime fic - "fangirl Japanese" isn't a problem in English-language fics; it can be awfully annoying in anime fic (at least when the Japanese is wrong...)

Then, my expectations for the series themselves will be different. Sometimes I'll be in the mood for English-language series, and sometimes more in the mood for something Japanese. Sometimes that's because I don't feel like reading subtitles/trying to translate, but it's often for other things. For instance, I like anime and American cartoons, but for somewhat different reasons. Shounen series tend to have certain themes and tropes I love (such as friendship and nakamaship and fighting for what you believe in) and I love superhero cartoons for a lot of the same stuff, but it's done differently. Anime tends to have more violence, brutalization of small children, etc; there's also certain character types I love, like fangboys and eternal rival characters, which are a staple in anime but less common in Western stuff. (Though superhero stories often have arch-nemeses...) And correspondingly there's some char types more common in Western series, like geeky supergeniuses.

Plus, some things are just easier in my native language - it's easier for me to quote funny lines when they're in English, so the vast majority of my favorite quotes come from English-language series...

(and obviously it's all right for you to reference me - you know how to contact me!)

[gnine.livejournal.com]

I'm giving this to you even though we've mostly talked about it cause I'm curious what you'd write:

So I know this is ridiculously after the fact (busy summer/additional research/the fact that I'm a horrible procrastinator and more all account for it) but if you have the time/inclination, I have a few follow-up/additional questions that would be a big help if you could answer:

In what ways (if any), for you personally, do your fannish practices change depending on the source culture of the material you're fanning on? (e.g. do you watch more music vids for anime, do you read/write particular kinds of fic for western shows, do you seek out cons for only certain types of fandoms, etc.) The more specific the examples, the better.

Semi-related to the above question, in what ways, if any, has your fannish practices changed over your time in fandom? (both in general over the years you've been in fandom and in specific fandoms. ) And have these changes at all coincided with differences in source culture? (eg for western fandoms, you've always just watched/read fic w/out much change over time but with Japanese fandom, you started watching anime then moved on to music vids then progressed to
helping scanlate manga because you went on to learn Japanese, etc.)

And one or two questions on one topic I might be exploring in a bit more detail, so:

Are you interested in/have any experience with/in slash/Boys Love/yaoi/ m/m etc.? If yes, do you notice a difference in how it is approached/explored depending on the source culture of the material? Examples/details appreciated.

Do you personally approach it differently/have different expectations for how it's depicted in fan works depending on the culture? If so, in what ways?

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

My fannish practices don't change that much overall - I tend to critique, discuss, squee, and fic for fandoms of all sources in similar ways. Though there are certain fannish activities I do for animanga fandoms that I don't do for English-language fandoms, such as scan and translate (on occasion). This has less to do with source culture and more to do with source language, though - I'm a native English speaker and in English-speaking fandoms, so fanning on anything Japanese requires extra logistical steps, and I sometimes contribute. I also buy doujinshi for animanga fandoms and not for most Western fandoms, because dj don't really exist for Western fandoms (though nowadays I do look for Western-fandom dj, what little is out there!)

I tend to read more fic for Western fandoms than for animanga fandoms, as Western fandoms tend to have more of the kind of fic I like to read (such as the hurt/comfort genre.) Not sure if this is a cultural difference or in part an age difference? Or perhaps it has to do with the nature of the canons. Oddly, if anything animanga canons have *more* of what I like to read, more direct fangirl-id-appeals; but the fic doesn't often reflect this. (e.g. the GetBackers manga/anime has quite a bit of h/c, the fic not so much.) But I don't change genres myself when writing fic - I write h/c, slash, and friendship stories for both Western and animanga fandoms.

And yup, I do have experience with slash & BL. There's a lot of overlap between the genres but enough difference that they're not quite synonymous. The most obvious difference of course is the seme/uke-pairing order thing. Pairing order matters to many slash fen - there are pairings in which you're more likely to see one partner on top than another, and certain fans will state their preferences - but it's not as, hmm, regimented, as it is in (Western) yaoi fandom. In Western fandoms, some fans will use pairing order (top first) but it's not particularly a standard, while as the majority of yaoi fen will put the top first (even when using the "/" as well as the "x" notation, in my experience.)

I personally tend to like slash fic more than yaoi fic, though it's difficult for me to articulate exactly why, and a lot of it, too, is less about the source's culture of origin and more about other factors. Anime fans do tend to be younger than Western fans, and so there are more experienced, mature writers writing Western fic than for anime. As well, the characters in Western canons are often older than in animanga canons (many popular animanga series feature teenage protagonists) so the natures of the relationships are somewhat different - teen romance vs romance between adult chars.

There's also a difference in that while there are very few canonical gay couples in Western canons (Jack/Ianto is one of the only major ones I know of) there is a lot of canon BL manga and some anime; and moreover there are many animanga series which, while not technically BL, are far more suggestive than most Western series - writing John & Rodney as gay lovers is decidedly counter to how their creators intended them; writing Ban & Ginji as lovers is not so much. This might be why slash fandom tends to be somewhat more concerned with "realism" - both in staying "in character" as much as possible (and arguing about how strict the canonical sexuality really is, whether it's canonical or just inferred) and in portraying sex realistically (not all writers do, but a lot try); animanga fandom tends to be more flexible. The debates still happen, but not as much, in my experience.