Obsession for Geeks

[willow_red]

Normally, I'm not an NPR listener, but they have a really good show posted online here. It's about fandom for Star Wars, Star Trek, LOTR, Buffy, Harry Potter, etc. What makes it most interesting to me is the academic's theory on why fandom has such appeal: in the days of oral tradition, anyone could become part of the story. Stories evolved over time with the storytellers. However, in today's society, books are published as is, movies are unchanging (Lucas's revisionist tendencies aside). In order to connect with the stories and to make them our own, fans (who at one time would have added a verse to the song, or a minor change to the story) go on to cosplay, write fanfic, make fanfilms, filk, roleplay, etc. In this way, for us, the stories do not end.

Comments

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

Now that is extremely interesting. I've noticed the lack of oral tradition in storytelling nowadays; you can't study fairy tales and folklore without running into that pretty quickly. It hadn't occurred to me to connect that to fandom, but it makes a lot of sense.