Snowflake Challenge #15: Predictions

[rodo]

snowflake_challenge: Challenge #15:
In your own space, opine on the future of fandom.

So, this is a bit difficult for me, since I haven’t really had my finger anywhere near the pulse of fandom in over a decade, and I’ve happily been doing my own thing at the fringes every since, but I’ll give it a try.

1. Fandom will continue to mostly congregate around franchises and/or remakes. This is partly due to the fact that genuinely original canons seem to get more and more rare these days, but also due to the fact that the built-in sense of community an existing fandom provides helps organise people.

2. East Asian live action canons are going to increase in popularity. This is going to happen in bursts, whenever there’s a new canon coming out that hits the nerve of fandom, as has happened in the last couple of years. Western producers are going to try to cash in on the hype and miserably fail to adapt one of these canons in a western way at least once, because they don’t get why people love the original in the first place.

3. At some point, the social media fandom sphere might collapse or at least diminish because the business model of social media is going to come into conflict with political and legal realities around the globe, such as consumer protection laws, worker protection laws, laws against certain types of hate speech and so on – and managing those types of requirements would require more money than the advertising-based business model brings in (and no, algorithms aren’t going to solve the problem because they’re not good enough to keep pace with humans yet.)

Take all of these with a huge grain of salt because I’m shit at predicting stuff, and also, things might turn out very differently if there’s a war with China.

Comments

Re: Thoughts

[rodo]

I mean, something can follow a worn plot structure and be an original work of fiction, rather than an adaptation, a remake, or a spin-off about a minor character.

Amazon: In addition to the thing you actually asked about, here are 20 books that all sound the same.

I wish Amazon would do that, because I can absolutely read the same trope/general plot structure twenty times, if it's something I'm into.

Well, that's because Eastern and Western entertainment is totally different.

I'm going to have to disagree here. Of course there's differences, but there's also a lot of differences between Eastern canons from various countries, same as there are plenty of differences between Western canons from different countries. But those differences don't amount to "totally different", and if they didn't translate, people wouldn't consume those canons outside of their original cultural context. No, what ultimately makes an adaptation difficult is that a lot of Western executives just don't get what attracts people to an Asian canon in the first place - maybe it's a high level of drama, maybe it's the more open critique of capitalism you often find in Korean works. Instead, they focus on the superficial elements, such as "battle royale storyline" or "zombies".

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>I mean, something can follow a worn plot structure and be an original work of fiction, rather than an adaptation, a remake, or a spin-off about a minor character.<<

True. There's a limited number of really popular plot structures. It's just that some things have been done to death, and people are often more interested in repetition than novelty.

Yet over in crowdfunding, one friend wrote about an alien cat kidnapping a human, and another wrote about a sapient building. MOARRRRR!

>>I wish Amazon would do that, because I can absolutely read the same trope/general plot structure twenty times, if it's something I'm into.<<

Options include:

* Search a favorite author's name.

* Search for "book" or "novel" plus any phrase like a trope or subgenre.

* Use the "also bought" menu bar underneath the description of whatever you're looking at. This is most effective with nonfiction but also works with fiction.

* The more things you buy through Amazon, the more they make recommendations of similar things. It's still kind of a kludge but does get better over time.

Also, if you want lists of similar things, Goodreads Listopia is awesome. Type those two words into your favorite search engine and follow with a trope, subgenre, or whatever. Some people use that service to make lists of surprisingly specific things, so it's great if you just want to binge lost prince or pirate romance or whatever.

>>Of course there's differences, but there's also a lot of differences between Eastern canons from various countries, same as there are plenty of differences between Western canons from different countries.<<

I was thinking of things like how Western writers really don't tend to use a spiral plot structure. But I'm sure you know more about Eastern content than I do, so that makes it easier to spot similarities.

>>No, what ultimately makes an adaptation difficult is that a lot of Western executives just don't get what attracts people to an Asian canon in the first place - maybe it's a high level of drama, maybe it's the more open critique of capitalism you often find in Korean works. Instead, they focus on the superficial elements, such as "battle royale storyline" or "zombies".<<

Well, that makes sense.

The most open criticism of capitalism I've seen here was the TV version of "Brave New World." I still use taglines from that to snark at capitalism: "Work! Earn! Buy!" and "If you want it, you can have it. Reach out and grab it! You deserve it." It was so over the top, it was just poking fun at the whole economy.

As for superficial, it turns out that most people create content from the surface in. I create content from the core out if original, or for fanfic, derive in and extrapolate out. Scott McCloud explained it really well with the Six Layers. This explains a lot about why so much media fails to entertain me. Once in a while I find something more solid, though, and I really like that.