Poll and Miscellany

[thefourthvine]

Three things, almost entirely content free. (But one of them is a poll! There will be clicking, and that's always fun, right?)

I swear I will have actual content in this LJ again. Eventually. In the meantime -

1. Remember the poll? Um, this one? Thanks to everyone who took it, by the way, and I am slowly working my way through the comments, because they are meaty and thought-filled and fun. And I'm knee-deep in meta about it, but it's taken a strange turn. So I'm hoping that some of you will do my a favor, and run a poll like this one:
   
   [Poll #831564]
   
   Basically, I want you to ask your friends what archetype they think you are. (I've alphabetized the archetypes to make finding them easier.) And while you're here, please do pick mine; I'm truly curious to see if there's a difference between how I see myself and how others see me. (In this sense only. I'm not crazy.)
   
   Sadly, I don't have bribes to offer. But if you do run a poll like this, and you also drop me a link in the comments here, I will be forever grateful. And you will be furthering the cause of meta. (I know, I know, it's not precisely ever fan's dream, but - stay with me, here, okay?)
   
   
2. This is driving me insane, so - okay. I collect what I call genderswapped songs. Although, really, I should call them ungenderswapped songs - the song is covered by a singer of a different sex than the original one, but no gendered element of the song is changed. I have one song by Cam Clarke, from Inside Out, which is a whole CD of songs just like this. (The one I have is Son of a Preacher Man.) And I cannot find the whole CD anywhere. Does anyone have a copy of this? Or know where I can get a copy of this? I am experiencing the anguish of the thwarted collector, and it is not pretty.
   
   
3. This is more of a bonus item; I found it interesting. If any of you watch AMVs - and if you don't, why not? - you might want to take a look at this AMV-related survey.

Comments

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

I'm curious what you expect to learn from this. To me, it seems that asking someone else to place you in a bin that has a fairly objective definition (because either one has a single fandom, or not, for example) is basically a measure of how much you talk about fandom in your lj and how long that other person has been reading your lj. I think that asking people to self-identify as these archetypes is cool and has resulted in some interesting conversation, but I don't understand the purpose of asking people to identify others.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

is basically a measure of how much you talk about fandom in your lj and how long that other person has been reading your lj.

In part it is. And I expected that. But it also has done basically what I hoped it would do. (Plus some extra.)

With this, I was trying to work around a problem in the original poll, which I think of as the Rule of the Magpie. Even allowing for the way LJ encourages polyfannishness (and the way my friends list skews toward polyfannish types), there were too many magpies - and there were some people who picked magpie who I know well enough to be pretty sure that they aren't.

I have theories about why the magpie reigned supreme that basically boil down to the outside observer/internal observer thing. Sometimes, people see things about us before we see them in ourselves. One example of this (unrelated to the poll - I'm picking on her because I'm pretty sure won't mind being an example) is musesfool. When she switched fandoms recently, it was immediately obvious to me. There was a sea change in her LJ posts, her fan fiction volume, content, and frequency, everything. But when I talked to her about it a week or two after that, she still hadn't processed the switch; a few days later, she did, and then she admitted she'd jumped fandoms. But there was a distinct lag - the observers could tell faster than she could.

Okay. I'm rambling. You don't need a wandering discussion of a small portion of the crap I'm chewing on about this right now. So, summary time.

Basically, I'm taking a parallax view of the question. Each of the points of view is flawed; one is flawed because we don't always see (or admit to ourselves) what our fannish behavior really is, and one is flawed because we don't tell our friends list everything that we think (and even if we do, it's not like they're always paying attention).

When you combine the views, you get a group of people who have more or less matching results, and a group of people who have highly variant ones.

So then I look at the variance and try to explain it (and try to talk to the person about it). And what I'm finding is that it breaks down into specific categories of things that observers are better at noticing and specific categories of things that subjects (um, bad term, but - you see what I mean) are better at noticing. Which is basically what I expected, but I wanted to see exactly what those categories were. (And I wanted better test subjects than I am; because I babbled about what archetypes I thought I was all over the comments of my previous poll, people taking the poll are likely to be very biased.)

What I didn't expect was that this would spread the way it has; I expected a handful of people to run the poll, at most. It appears to have gone sort of meme-shaped, which is surprising to me. (Also kind of cool. And it's fun, speaking as someone who has done the poll, to see how people class you.)

Which means that as I skip around LJ looking at the polls of friends and strangers, I'm also getting some interesting data for the other thing I'm writing about the previous poll, which is about how people take polls.

And, finally and unexpectedly, I'm learning that the polling-your-friends thing is really good at picking out people who don't fit any archetype at all. (Most people at least fall into three or so categories, but some people just don't fit anywhere.) They have a distinct appearance to their charts - this weird scatter of results. So now I'm also squinting at those people (and muttering "fantastic beasts" at them).

All in all, I've learned more than I hoped to.

[jadelennox]

Do you have Girlyman's cover of Son of a Preacher Man? It's brilliant.

And Indigo Girl's Romeo and Juliet? I can send you both.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I can send you both.

Oh, please please please do. I don't have either one, and now I want them. Badly.

[elke-tanzer.livejournal.com]

Memesheep says baaaaaaaaaah (http://elke-tanzer.livejournal.com/737483.html). Interesting poll!

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I love the icon. If you're a fannish mudskipper, does that mean you can breathe both air and water? And what is the fannish equivalent of that? Het and slash?

Hmmm. I may be reading too much into the icon. In any case, thanks for doing the poll!

[sdwolfpup.livejournal.com]

My poll is here: http://sdwolfpup.livejournal.com/294610.html

I also added an additional question about how long they've been reading my LJ, because I was a one-fandom kind of girl for a long time, and then when Angel ended I suddenly became more multi-fannish.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I also added an additional question about how long they've been reading my LJ, because I was a one-fandom kind of girl for a long time, and then when Angel ended I suddenly became more multi-fannish.

Ooo, cool. I wanted to do that, but I figured adding any complexity decreased the chances that anyone would do the poll, so I kept it simple. But that just makes it better that you did. (Of course, now your poll is basically guaranteed to be one of the ones I evaluate in depth. The penalties of overachieving are great.)

[retrofit88.livejournal.com]

I am SO enjoying the way the comments on this post have turned into a "gender issues" songfest. I have a couple of cool ones to contribute, but they're apparently not on my MP3 player right now. I'll try to look up some contributions of my own when I get home where most of my music is.

I'm not posting your poll on my journal, because I don't think it'd get any responses. Nobody knows me. And I'm fine with that. :)

[retrofit88.livejournal.com]

Grrh. Turns out I don't have the Lyle Lovett cover of "Stand By Your Man" anywhere rippable.

Sounds like you're looking for songs that are gendered in the lyrics and being sung by someone who is not the same gender as the original artist. What I have is a little different - it's "Jesus Christ Superstar (A Resurrection)", with Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls singing Jesus (a full octave lower than the original-broadway-cast guy.)

Here's two of the songs, one that are mostly Jesus singing - could share more if you're interested.
"Poor Jerusalem" - www.sendspace.com/file/hoex1n
"Gethsemane" - www.sendspace.com/file/6cpl55

[brownbetty]

Poll posted here.

Oooh, boy, music!

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

Oooh, boy, music!

This is precisely my reaction.

You don't know me but,

[allira-dream.livejournal.com]

I'm doing the poll. :D it's an amazing idea.

Re: You don't know me but,

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Thank you! (Both for liking the idea and doing it.)

[just-eunice.livejournal.com]

cool idea. posted poll here: http://just-eunice.livejournal.com/183699.html

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Thank you! (And, wow, you have a weird distribution of answers - people seem unsure about what you are.)

[caia-comica.livejournal.com]

The poll's been popping up on my flist, so I posted it myself here (http://caia-comica.livejournal.com/47548.html).

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Thank you! (And I love the icon, by the way.)

[hannahrorlove.livejournal.com]

This is a link to an example website (http://hannahrorlove.livejournal.com/367083.html). I feel more than a little embarassed.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Thank you for doing the poll. (And, wow. Yours is yet another cool icon. I am seeing everybody's nifty icons today.)

[lafemmedarla]

Posted poll in my journal.

http://lafemmedarla.livejournal.com/408745.html

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[lasergirl.livejournal.com]

http://lasergirl69.livejournal.com/851236.html

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[jenna-thorn.livejournal.com]

As requested, I posted the poll.
http://jenna-thorn.livejournal.com/361195.html

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Thank you! (And as long as I have you here - thank you so much for keeping your old name in your LJ name. I'm doing better with your change than I usually do with name changes on my friends list, but it takes me forever to adapt to these things.)

[baked-goldfish.livejournal.com]

malnpudl pointed me to this, and also pimped My Lover Man, so I had to join in.

Here (http://baked-goldfish.livejournal.com/1570665.html).

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

malnpudl is the best pimp ever, really. And she's right about My Lover Man, too. Is there anything she's not right about?

Thanks for doing the poll! (And you have a great LJ name, by the way.)

[6beforelunch.livejournal.com]

You don't know me, but I've seen this on my friends list several times and it looked like fun. Poll is here (http://6beforelunch.livejournal.com/54485.html).

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Thank you for doing it (and for telling me about it)!

[shehasathree]

my poll. :)

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[tellitslant]

Poll: http://tellitslant.livejournal.com/937196.html

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[greyminerva]

Just a little lurker, haven't posted a poll (don't think I can, what with the cheapass LJ account and all,) because nobody knows me. Don't know the netiquette of these things, but I've added you to my friends list because I luuuurve your posts and want to be able to find my way back. :) Still haven't gone through all your recs either - don't agree with _all_ of them, but your writing so totally rocks that I read them just for that.
Seriously.

Ta-ta!

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

You totally don't have to ask to friend me, but I'm happy you introduced yourself. (And always delighted to be friended.) Hi!

Still haven't gone through all your recs either - don't agree with _all_ of them, but your writing so totally rocks that I read them just for that.

Wow. Thank you. (And, hey, if you ever want to chat about the ones you don't agree with, I'm always up for that, 'cause it's interesting to see what people think about the stuff I rec. Although, of course, no recommender is going to hit every time.)

[odditycollector.livejournal.com]

I've got the poll up here (http://odditycollector.livejournal.com/119996.html).

The utter lack of consensus is kind of interesting...

wherein all is at last NOT of Teh Drama and Woe :D

[researchgrrrl.livejournal.com]

Hey, busy lady. I just wanted to swing by and let you know we had some good news about Dad (http://researchgrrrl.livejournal.com/67091.html) because you've been such an amazing source of support.

(Oh, and I'm pretty sure this (http://researchgrrrl.livejournal.com/66584.html) will make you laugh when you're in the mood for brain-candy.)

Cheers!

[linabean.livejournal.com]

I think what I mostly am is a fannish leech. For probably, I dunno, fifteen years now, there've been many, many fandoms where I'll read piles and piles of fic, but do very little to nothing to get involved with the fandoms (including, often, not watching much if any of the canon). Once in a while I get pulled into the fandom I'm leeching off enough to actually participate in it--and, perhaps, turn from a leech into a tapeworm or something? getting pulled in, attaching, and producing stuff to leave behind?--and I'll settle in for a long while, though while still lurking and leeching in other fandoms.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

This just started playing, and I went "hah!" because I think it fits the bill:

the Save Ferris cover of Come On Eileen (http://www.sendspace.com/uploaddone.html?i=95845fe9e4bebe5b1ffde024695fe539&l=fg5cwv).
We can sing just like our fathers
Come on Eileen
Oh I swear (what he means)
at this moment, you mean everything
you in that dress, oh my thoughts I confess
verge on dirty

... heh.

[data-warrior.livejournal.com]

Yeh, ok, I'm late to the party but Relient K covered Manic Monday (http://www.sendspace.com/file/6c5htd) and gave it a wee twist. It's from the Punk Goes 80s album.

[svmadelyn.livejournal.com]

http://svmadelyn.livejournal.com/396677.html

I'm a magpie! *beams*