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taharielSo I just finished reading Charlotte Lennox's account of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
msscribe's machinations and manipulations behind the scenes of the HP fandom to get her own ends and basically fucking everyone over to get herself attention and BNF status. (You can find it here.) It really is scary the lengths people will go to, isn't it, to get popularity? I wasn't even peripherally involved - I've always been more of a fanfic-reading fan than an active one in any fandom - but even I've wished, sometimes, to be a Big Name Fan. Somebody who everyone has read, whose fic everybody likes and talks about. It's a very egotistical thing to say, but I know my fic is better than some of the stuff that gets huge recognition in fandom. Yet I wouldn't go to the lengths this woman went to to get it - that's not me. My eyes may be bigger than my stomach, but at least I keep my grubby paws to myself.
Then I got to thinking about the ljs of the BNF's, in any fandom. Are their posts really all that interesting, or do we read them because they're sort of our own versions of celebrities, and ones we feel we could become friends with? There are BNF's I know I'd love to be friends with, that I really admire. Do they have some undefiniable something that the rest of us lack? Or do they just get lucky, whether by being noticed or by having a large network of friends already? And why does this sound like one of the Carrie Bradshaw article things they used to do in Sex and the City?
I like to think that I'm an interesting, fun, good-to-know person. I like to think that I'm the sort of person people like to talk to. But am I really just a small fish in a big pond, swimming around with all the other little fishes and watching the dolphins playing around near the surface? And is that really such a bad thing?
msscribe's machinations and manipulations behind the scenes of the HP fandom to get her own ends and basically fucking everyone over to get herself attention and BNF status. (You can find it here.) It really is scary the lengths people will go to, isn't it, to get popularity? I wasn't even peripherally involved - I've always been more of a fanfic-reading fan than an active one in any fandom - but even I've wished, sometimes, to be a Big Name Fan. Somebody who everyone has read, whose fic everybody likes and talks about. It's a very egotistical thing to say, but I know my fic is better than some of the stuff that gets huge recognition in fandom. Yet I wouldn't go to the lengths this woman went to to get it - that's not me. My eyes may be bigger than my stomach, but at least I keep my grubby paws to myself.Then I got to thinking about the ljs of the BNF's, in any fandom. Are their posts really all that interesting, or do we read them because they're sort of our own versions of celebrities, and ones we feel we could become friends with? There are BNF's I know I'd love to be friends with, that I really admire. Do they have some undefiniable something that the rest of us lack? Or do they just get lucky, whether by being noticed or by having a large network of friends already? And why does this sound like one of the Carrie Bradshaw article things they used to do in Sex and the City?
I like to think that I'm an interesting, fun, good-to-know person. I like to think that I'm the sort of person people like to talk to. But am I really just a small fish in a big pond, swimming around with all the other little fishes and watching the dolphins playing around near the surface? And is that really such a bad thing?
