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

AHAHAHAHAHA.

[qe2.livejournal.com]

Oh, my dear, you made me cry with laughter in the window of my 'bucks, backlit by rare October sunshine for all the triple-skim-half-caf-latte-drinking undergrad plebes to stare at and mock. THANK you. Even sick, you're fabulous.

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

*giggles madly*

Given that I am probably going to Hell for unleashing the pairings of Sparrowblower and Surf And Turf on the world...

I can't say a whole lot.

also:

[qe2.livejournal.com]

your Best Beloved gets big points for this one:

Best Beloved: "This is like high school, only in slow motion." Me: "Yes! Exactly!"

Talk about a Fate Worse Than Death. OY GEVALT, yo.

Yea! For humor!

[lurksnomore]

Oh, that was wonderful! I tend to fall into the ....What? category lots, and it was great to be able to finally be able to answer that way!

[caseylane.livejournal.com]

Damnit I wanted "other" for the BNF question. BNF's just are. Some are good, some are annoying as shit, but you can't lump them all in one basket.

[janissa11.livejournal.com]

I must be way, way, WAY out of the loop. Or something. Because "fan service?" WTF? And I'm not even sick, and I've never really understood BNF. And what the hell is Jossing? Do you have to be a Buffy/Firefly/whatever person to understand that one?

Do I want the answers to these?

Am I creating my own little poll here? Damn! Sorry!

BTW, feel better soon!

[starfishchick]

Wonderful poll. I laughed, I cried with laughter, I pondered, I laughed more.

Hope life gets better for you very soon.

[laylah.livejournal.com]

Best poll evar omg.

[nolivingman.livejournal.com]

Just the other day I used Sparrowblower as an example of the few acceptable-to-me instances of portmanteaus. (Of course the other example was Kirk/Spock=Kock, so that tells you where my head is there). If it makes me laugh till my stomach hurts, then it's a-okay.

[kageygirl.livejournal.com]

but you can't lump them all in one basket.

... if we could, though, we could dump in some Jell-O, and sell tickets! It'd be like Celebrity Deathmatch! But with fans. And Jell-O. And no claymation. *g*

[luminosity]

This is the GREATEST poll. Did you know that you type "greatest" with only your left hand?

RE BNF: I know you are, but what am I? <--- carrion cry of BNF's everywhere.

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

It just ... happened, somewhere amidst the sound of me explaining earnestly for the millionth time that they had PROMISED not to leave me with Horatio and where the hell was the rescue squad ...

[wychwood]

I said:
Acceptable only if the alternative is "creative" portmanteaus, such as "Harmoniums," or whatever the hell that damn word is.
on the pairing portmanteau question. But really, I meant "I hate 99% of them, but the others are fine" :) So, basically, I'm inconsistent. I think some pairings like "Spuffy" (Spike/Buffy), or I suppose "Snarry", are big enough that you can get away with it... but so many of them are really ugly. I mean, who wants a ship with a name like "Bangel"? Or "Sheyla"? I'd avoided using them myself until I fell into SGA, but I keep finding myself talking about "McShep", it's shameful.

ICON OF SHAME.

Get well soon!

[kalimyre.livejournal.com]

*cackles madly*

I really must link to this. I promise not to use a fake cut (mostly because I don't know how).

Also, I think you've arrived as a BNF when complete strangers in fandom have trembling fits of squee when you send them feedback. "OMG you liked my story? OMGOMGOMG you're the best ever OMG."

Not that I've ever done that.

[zoerayne]

I have news for you, sweetie. You're a BNF. *g* Seriously. As was pointed out, one cannot lump all BNFs into the same basket, and there are many people out there who are BNFs without even realizing it. Being a BNF isn't necessarily a bad thing, if one uses one's powers for good rather than evil (or, you know, the good kind of evil).

Also? Wank and fanwanking are two different things entirely. The former having to do with things like fandom_wank an the latter having to do with canon whoring and jossing and pretty much making sense out of the chaos TPTB present us with sometimes.

[lastscorpion.livejournal.com]

LOL! What a funny poll! I feel really dumb now, though, because I answered "What?" to almost everything!

I'm sorry to hear you're so sick. Get well soon!

[theve.livejournal.com]

Nonsensical polls

Yeah, love those. The only better kind is the nonsensical poll that brings the humor. Like this one. :)

[caseylane.livejournal.com]

Ohhh, bet you could sell it to Fox.

[thisisbone.livejournal.com]

I feel completely lacking in lexicon. Most of the stuff you're asking about makes me go, "Aroo???"

I think I must be skimming some shallow surface (rononrononrononrononrononrononrononrononrononrononjohnjohnjohnrononjohnjohnjohnjohnrononjohn) and therefore miss, like, a lot.

I hope you feel MUCH better SOON, because I miss seeing you in my LJ.

Re: also:

[norah.livejournal.com]

And okay, "OY GEVALT, yo" is pretty damn funny in and of itself.

LINKS AND STRING!!!

I sent both you lovely ladies something in the mail yesterday. Enjoy...

Wank

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

I have to say, add me among the "What?" people; I don't really understand the questions as you've framed them. I mean, you really can't use these words without context, IMO.

For instance, wank can refer to anything from "academic meta analysis of canon" to "the fan process of making canon make sense", i.e. creating an explanation that makes what you saw fit with the rest of the show when TPTB forgot what they're doing, to fannish-trouble-making in general. It's also the label we give to anything we think is "taking it too seriously"; sometimes it's our label for "too serious" (and it's interesting that we--fans!--obsessed by definition!-need to define "too obsessed" and police that boundary.)

Anyway, by several of these definitions this comment is wank. *g* But I can't answer your poll based on any of them!

[norah.livejournal.com]

Live and learn, I suppose...I thought wank and fanwank were more or less the same thing. Although, of course, there is wank outside of fandom, for sure.

I always thought BNFs were, like, those people who have literally thousands of people friending them on their LJs, or who had been around with their fingers in all fanpies since Kirk and Spock were in the Academy. This is not true?

[starwatcher]

.
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*
.

[apetslife.livejournal.com]

I've always been under the impression that in order to be a full-fledged, true-blue BNF, you have to have minions. Like, you can be a big name writer in the fandom or whatever, or post every episode EVER for download, and that just makes you kinda famous. In fandom. But to be a classic BNF, you must have fanpeople and minions and such, people who devote themselves to you and your writing and your opinions and such and follow you about (on the internet only, hopefully) and support your every word. Like a Greek Chorus. Or a squad of bodyguards. It's like having your very own fandom!

On the internet.

I dunno, man. I always thought it'd be kinda cool to have minions. *grin*

(have you started reading CSI fiction yet? Because really, it's wonderful, there's a whole CAST of gorgeous men of indeterminate sexual orientation, and they play lovely characters full of humor and angst and intelligence, and there are even interesting female characters, which, let me tell you, as a hardcore slasher I very rarely say. So you should, y'know, check it out. And the show is available on DVD! *GRIN*)

[zoerayne]

Wank is...wank. Like fandom_wank. *g*

Fanwank is what you do when canon gives you something that doesn't make sense, or something that you really, really don't want to accept (like a canonical relationship that interferes with your pairing of choice). You fanwank the problems away by coming up with an alternative explanation that fits both with canon and with logic or your own fanon preferences.

BNFs. Hmmm. You can have fandom-wide BNFs and you can have BNFs within specific fandoms. Some people use BNF to mean someone who's egotistical in their involvement in fandom, but really (IME) all BNF means is someone whose name is highly recognizable, someone who's highly involved. Popularity is often a factor, yes, but even someone friended by thousands of people isn't necessarily a BNF if they're not actually producing anything or interacting with fandom in any meaningful way.