Fangasmic

Now that Monday is here, it's time for some Deep Thoughts with Fangasmic. Today's essay is one that was promised you last week: reboots- and no, we don't mean that tragically underrated 90s Canadian cartoon.

The ongoing trend of remaking old properties has been well documented in the mainstream media. Every day seems to bring the rumors of another one; they're everywhere. Off the top of my head I can think of several: Sherlock Holmes, Star Trek, Bewitched, Get Smart, The Brady Bunch, The Mod Squad, Starsky and Hutch, Charlie's Angels, Battlestar Galactica, the upcoming movie of The A-Team, and the list continues. Most recently we've heard that Gilligan's Island is getting re-heeled, and Man From U.N.C.L.E. possibly not far behind. It begs the question, what else is left to reboot? (If you thought I Dream of Jeannie was safe/too problematic thanks to its 1960s gender politics, think again.)

It's easy to see where the trend comes from. Viewing past pop culture through the ironic lens of the present is what makes the successful VH1 franchise I Love The Decadewhateverthefuck tick. And forget individual shows, there's a whole cable channel devoted to nostalgic television that does pretty well for itself. There's obviously a market for this stuff.

Reboots may be a one-trick pony with limited narrative scope- look at that list above, you'll notice that BSG is the only non-movie up there with more than 2.5 hours of material- but that doesn't seem to be stopping anyone. Just recast it with younger, more attractive people, throw in some explosions and a few winking nods at the silly conventions of the original and boom! You've got yourself a remake.

And sure, maybe no one has ever considered The Brady Bunch sacred territory, but what about shows that Fandom has embraced? What happens when an old fandom gets rebooted, not just a franchise?


( What happens? People stop being polite...and start getting REAL. )

Has this ever happened to you? I was strolling through the recs page of someone I trust, humming along, mainlining Psych fic like it was my overworked/unpaid job, and then I was linked to a story that instantly made me hit the back button.

Did it have a terrible manip banner? Or, worse, hideously formatted bright pink text on a neon yellow background? Was it written by someone whose fic always makes me want to claw my face off and scream, "WHY IN THE NAME OF GOD IS THIS STORY HAPPENING?"

Nope. The fic was- prepare to shudder- hosted on ff.net. Yeah, I practically broke a finger clicking the hell away.

Fanfiction.net occupies an bizarre place in Fandom. Despite being the largest fanfiction archive on the internet, the site is generally regarded as mediocre fic magnet at best, a Pit of Voles at worst. FF.net's infamous history of purging and censoring is certainly a matter of public record. It even has a number of hate communities devoted to it. But is fanfiction.net's reputation as a Fandom wasteland really deserved?

Like many people, I hadn't logged serious hours on ff.net in years and years. But in an effort to answer this question, I took a trip back down memory lane to see what had changed, and if my (negative) impressions of the site still held water. What I found surprised me.



( Cover me, ladies. I'm going in. )

But regardless of what we think of fanfiction.net- or why- it's not like it needs our stamp of approval anyway. According to 2009 figures, there are currently 2.2 million users on ff.net; god only knows how many new fics were added just while you were reading this. A 2007 article listed it as the fourth highest site in terms of average time spent on the entire freaking web. (I would say this just proves the internet is for porn, but that's so ironically not true in this case.) It even has a facebook fan page; we all know that means it's not going away.

I'm willing to bet, long after we've moved on from Livejournal and Dreamwidth to whatever is coming next, ff.net will still be happily chugging along as a Fandom gateway and House of Dreck.

As for me? I'm perfectly content to let it. And while I will never go there on a regular basis, I might be less likely now to automatically hit the back button.