revdorothyl (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
revdorothyl) wrote2003-09-30 11:43 pm
revdorothyl) wrote2003-09-30 11:43 pm
Entry tags:
Fandom paradigm shift?
Recently (okay, it was just an hour ago on AIM), I made this offhand comment to a friend who'd had help from another fan friend in improving her website, "It's good to have friends in all corners of fandom." Her response was: "I suppose. Lots of those corners are like boxing rings right now, with the Spuffy people arguing with the slash fans. It's very silly."
For some reason, her characterization of the current state of BtVS fandom online made me think of that old standard of graduate education and corporate retreats, Thomas Kuhn's THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS. Being tired and somewhat over-full of spanakopitas from my evening's entertainment (killer Scrabble with a fellow grad student), I started to prate along the following lines, and afterward decided that my friend might be right in suggesting that there was some method to my madness. Here's the gist, so that you, dear friend and reader, can make up your own minds about the method/madness question:
"That silly arguing sounds like what precedes a paradigm shift, if Kuhn is to be believed -- everybody gets busy arguing about the rules and trying to slice the pies a little thinner, draw the boundary lines a little tighter. Maybe Buffy Fandom is in for a paradigm shift, a la Quantum physics, any day now? It seems as though the big questions (redemption, meaning of life, something to sing about, nature of love and vocation, etc.) aren't being asked and answered much right now, because we're on the verge of coming up with a new way to look at things. '...And the world ain't comin' to an end, my friend; the world's just comin' to a start...'
"Maybe that's what's happening, really. Or maybe, if we say it, it will become fact -- this being a quantum mechanics universe in which observation affects what's observed, and all."
While I'm waiting with great hopefulness to see what the new season of "Angel" (with Spike!) brings tomorrow night, I'm going to hold on to my paradigm shift idea as long as I can. I mean, I can't believe that all the creative energy and forward momentum of BtVS fandom has dried up or reached a dead-end with the ending of the show. All that good, creative, life-giving energy has to have something up its sleeve, something that's about to be born. 'I feel it in my heart: the world is comin' to a start.'
['...' lyrics quoted from the musical "Purlie"]
For some reason, her characterization of the current state of BtVS fandom online made me think of that old standard of graduate education and corporate retreats, Thomas Kuhn's THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS. Being tired and somewhat over-full of spanakopitas from my evening's entertainment (killer Scrabble with a fellow grad student), I started to prate along the following lines, and afterward decided that my friend might be right in suggesting that there was some method to my madness. Here's the gist, so that you, dear friend and reader, can make up your own minds about the method/madness question:
"That silly arguing sounds like what precedes a paradigm shift, if Kuhn is to be believed -- everybody gets busy arguing about the rules and trying to slice the pies a little thinner, draw the boundary lines a little tighter. Maybe Buffy Fandom is in for a paradigm shift, a la Quantum physics, any day now? It seems as though the big questions (redemption, meaning of life, something to sing about, nature of love and vocation, etc.) aren't being asked and answered much right now, because we're on the verge of coming up with a new way to look at things. '...And the world ain't comin' to an end, my friend; the world's just comin' to a start...'
"Maybe that's what's happening, really. Or maybe, if we say it, it will become fact -- this being a quantum mechanics universe in which observation affects what's observed, and all."
While I'm waiting with great hopefulness to see what the new season of "Angel" (with Spike!) brings tomorrow night, I'm going to hold on to my paradigm shift idea as long as I can. I mean, I can't believe that all the creative energy and forward momentum of BtVS fandom has dried up or reached a dead-end with the ending of the show. All that good, creative, life-giving energy has to have something up its sleeve, something that's about to be born. 'I feel it in my heart: the world is comin' to a start.'
['...' lyrics quoted from the musical "Purlie"]
no subject
:laugh: Not tonight, I don't think. But I'll definitely take a rain check on that, and call you on it another time, when I'm more awake.
I was thinking of posting the above question (about slash debate) on my LJ to ask more people-- do you mind if I include your answer, too? I could easiy make it a friends locked entry, if the topic is sensitive to you. Somehow I think you'd be fine if I shouted your opinion about naked Wes/Angel to the sky and beyond, but best to ask anyway. :)