Did you read Henry Jenkins' recent post, Fan Fiction as Critical Commentary (http://www.henryjenkins.org/2006/09/fan_fiction_as_critical_commen.html)?
I've been feeling really dispirited lately over what seems like a constant influx of derision directed at fanfic. (Random anti-fic nonsense keeps appearing on my flist from unexpected places, the latest being "Colbert Report" and "Song of Ice and Fire" communities, not to mention the ickiness you find over at Fandom Wank.) It seems like the "mainstream" is becoming increasingly aware of fanfiction, but not really understanding what it is or what it's for. (Is it all porn, is it all slash, is it all written by 12 year olds? etc.)
Part of that is plain ignorance (I looked down on fanfic when I first heard about it, too, but my opinion certainly changed when I was exposed to good fic!) but I think you're right that it may be a basic difference in ways of looking at the world. Ever since I can remember, I was making up imaginary worlds, and the building blocks for those worlds were whatever fiction I'd been exposed to. Originally these took the forms of "imaginary games" my brother and I would act out (the jungle gym was the Millennium Falcon, or anything green was Kryptonite and would kill us), or we'd come up with all kinds of stories for our action figures to work out (a Ninja Turtle/Barbie/GI Joe crossover!). When we got older, we stopped playing them out, but the impulse to make up stories is still always running in the background of my brain.
My dad is the opposite, one of those people who just doesn't get it. I've tried quizzing him, trying to figure out how his brain works, if he gets *anything* out of fiction (nearly everything he takes in is non-fiction; I don't think there's *anything* fictional that he really likes, let alone would make up his own stories about). I'd really like to understand how his brain works, just because it is so different from my own experience.
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Did you read Henry Jenkins' recent post, Fan Fiction as Critical Commentary (http://www.henryjenkins.org/2006/09/fan_fiction_as_critical_commen.html)?
I've been feeling really dispirited lately over what seems like a constant influx of derision directed at fanfic. (Random anti-fic nonsense keeps appearing on my flist from unexpected places, the latest being "Colbert Report" and "Song of Ice and Fire" communities, not to mention the ickiness you find over at Fandom Wank.) It seems like the "mainstream" is becoming increasingly aware of fanfiction, but not really understanding what it is or what it's for. (Is it all porn, is it all slash, is it all written by 12 year olds? etc.)
Part of that is plain ignorance (I looked down on fanfic when I first heard about it, too, but my opinion certainly changed when I was exposed to good fic!) but I think you're right that it may be a basic difference in ways of looking at the world. Ever since I can remember, I was making up imaginary worlds, and the building blocks for those worlds were whatever fiction I'd been exposed to. Originally these took the forms of "imaginary games" my brother and I would act out (the jungle gym was the Millennium Falcon, or anything green was Kryptonite and would kill us), or we'd come up with all kinds of stories for our action figures to work out (a Ninja Turtle/Barbie/GI Joe crossover!). When we got older, we stopped playing them out, but the impulse to make up stories is still always running in the background of my brain.
My dad is the opposite, one of those people who just doesn't get it. I've tried quizzing him, trying to figure out how his brain works, if he gets *anything* out of fiction (nearly everything he takes in is non-fiction; I don't think there's *anything* fictional that he really likes, let alone would make up his own stories about). I'd really like to understand how his brain works, just because it is so different from my own experience.