Poll: You Make the Call, Because I Sure Can't

[thefourthvine]

I haven't been posting recently, mostly because of real life issues, none of which is amusing. But I'm trying to get back into the swing of things - if I don't post to LJ, eventually all of my writing starts to sound like I'm attempting to give orders to an eight-year-old without leaving any wiggle room the kid can later use to claim that it was not his fault because I never said not to set the house on fire.

But, unfortunately, my recs writing has been stalled by a cohort of evil bacteria. Turns out that if I'm entertaining myself for a full hour, between naps, with internet-based illness metaphors ("switching back to dial-up," for example, and you don't want to know what I did with "information super-highway," although I will note how proud I am that I managed, even in my weakened state, to make an obscene joke out of every word of that phrase), I'm not well enough to produce any recs sets, let alone ones I'd be willing to share with, well, anyone.

Still. I wanted to post something before I forgot my own journal password. What, I asked myself, is like posting, only less requiring of actual higher brain functions? Polls!

And this is a very good time for me to post a poll. For some time I've had a bunch of questions I wanted to ask you all - for example, who are you, and what are you reading, and also, how did you come to be here? So I seriously considered just re-running my first-ever poll.

Except, of course, that that would not count as any kind of writing at all. So I pondered for a bit (i.e., three naps), until I remembered a recent humiliation I suffered while attempting to explain a fandom kerfluffle to Best Beloved, who does not so much grok the fandom lifestyle. (Me:"See, okay, this one person said, okay, I'm not really sure because it's f-locked, but I do know that this other person said, um, something. About fans. Or fandom. Or maybe...huh. You know, I'm not really sure how it started, but what eventually happened was..." Best Beloved: "This is like high school, only in slow motion." Me: "Yes! Exactly!") My narration ground to a halt entirely - to, I suspect, the relief of all - when Best Beloved asked for a definition, with examples, of the term "Big Name Fan." At which point I was obliged to admit that I don't really know that.

Yeah. See, I know what the term means. Or, okay - I know what the initials stand for. But there's no handy index of name biggishness for individual fans. (Or maybe there is, and I just haven't found it yet; that would be fairly typical of my fannish experience to date.) Do I know any BNFs? Do I know of any? Have I been corresponding for years with one? There's no way to tell! So I exist in a very Zen zone when it comes to BNFs: I generally assume that either everyone is or no one is. Unfortunately, this did not satisfy Best Beloved's need for detailed, precise, and, ideally, thoughtfully indexed information.

Turns out there's a lot of shame in admitting to a loved one, whose good opinion you value and would like to keep, that you have been using a term for years without really understanding it.

No, I'm not going to ask you all to define BNF for me. I'm not insane, people. (Although if anyone wants to send me a handy link to the Index of Name Biggishness by Fan, really, my love for you will be intense.) I'm not actually going to ask you to define anything, since I'm not, you know, up to learning anything right now. Instead, I'm going to ask you your opinions of various concepts I have encountered within the fannish world. Together, we will make authoritative declarations about these things! And then, some other time, when I've regained the use of my brain, I will ask you to explain them to me.

[Poll #593002]

Comments

[starwatcher]

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For me, there are two types of BNFs.

1) The ones I look up to because - in my view - they given so much to fandom, such as excellent stories or excellent helpful fandom sites. Many of my personal BNFs go back to my early days of reading my fandom; if I fell hard for a particular writer, that residual glow still pervades my perception of them - even though I now realize (with further knowledge of fandom and fic) that their stories might not really be all that special. It matters not a whit. But - and this DOES matter - in this view, my BNFs are not the same as your BNFs, who are not the same as her BNFs. It's an individual, private kind of thing. (Although, if you asked, you might find that a number of people share your perception that "X" is a BNF.)

2) The ones who seem to style themselves as BNFs (although, if you accuse them of it, they'd probably deny it). We've seen them on every list - the ones who lordly declare that, "Nobody wants to discuss that tired old point any more; it's long ago been beaten to death," and frequently cow the newbies into dropping a discussion that they were really interested in. The ones who declare that, "This idea is totally cliche; those stories aren't worth reading." What they mean is, they're so saturated by that fandom that it's grown stale for them; however, they don't have the good sense to go looking elsewhere for a new spark, they just stay and make everyone else miserable. But they've been in the fandom since it began, so their Word is Law! This type of BNF, I dig in my heels and resist with every fiber of my being.

So it's hard to tell sometimes, if someone is using BNF in the first definition or the second. I have no problem with #1, since it doesn't affect anyone who doesn't want to be affected. I do have problems with #2, and have been known to argue against them just for sheer cussedness. *g*
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