I think that it's a complex social situation that can't be summed up or really understood any more easily than something like economics or any field that concerns itself with studying the aggragation of large numbers of individual decisions. So, I'm giving you my ideas on how this change came about.
The SF Fandom subculture is a changing thing. We no longer say, "The Minicon" or "The Denvention" though those locutions used to prevail. Even people who consider themselves trufen use the new phrasing of dropping the definite article as in "Con" or "Consuite."
But the subculture was deluged by new people, could not assimilate them, and honestly hunkered down against the flood (examples abound, from the Permanent Floating Worldcon Committee to the special-committed suites for the fannish at large conventions; I think it was Moshe Feder who named this "Fortress Roscoe"). The result was first that those new people used parts of the original SF fandom to suit themselves and ignored the rest.
I didn't mention the obvious events that changed SF Fandom irrevokably: the increasing easy of communication, starting with more people being able to travel to more conventions in the post-war years, to the Internet, which influence is immeasurable, but has certainly destroyed the relevancy of all paper-based forms of fanac.
At some point, SF Fandom as we know it sank below the radar of new people coming in. And it's too late now. The new people can't find SF Fandom, and the group is too old and grey to bother with, even if they could.
The well-rounded fan who makes and wears hall costumes, pubs his ish, runs a convention department, writes filk songs, and all that seems to have died with Bruce Pelz and Joni Stopa. Fandom is fragmented. We are out-numbered, and this conflict has been lost.
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Date: 2007-02-15 03:43 am (UTC)The SF Fandom subculture is a changing thing. We no longer say, "The Minicon" or "The Denvention" though those locutions used to prevail. Even people who consider themselves trufen use the new phrasing of dropping the definite article as in "Con" or "Consuite."
But the subculture was deluged by new people, could not assimilate them, and honestly hunkered down against the flood (examples abound, from the Permanent Floating Worldcon Committee to the special-committed suites for the fannish at large conventions; I think it was Moshe Feder who named this "Fortress Roscoe"). The result was first that those new people used parts of the original SF fandom to suit themselves and ignored the rest.
I didn't mention the obvious events that changed SF Fandom irrevokably: the increasing easy of communication, starting with more people being able to travel to more conventions in the post-war years, to the Internet, which influence is immeasurable, but has certainly destroyed the relevancy of all paper-based forms of fanac.
At some point, SF Fandom as we know it sank below the radar of new people coming in. And it's too late now. The new people can't find SF Fandom, and the group is too old and grey to bother with, even if they could.
The well-rounded fan who makes and wears hall costumes, pubs his ish, runs a convention department, writes filk songs, and all that seems to have died with Bruce Pelz and Joni Stopa. Fandom is fragmented. We are out-numbered, and this conflict has been lost.
K.