Episode 162: Ways of Seeing
In episode 162, “Ways of Seeing,” Flourish and Elizabeth dig into their recent respective fannish experiences—and how those experiences differ from the way they’ve “done fandom” in the past. Flourish considers whether their masked conga-line participation at four consecutive Harry Styles concerts counts as “community”; Elizabeth manfully resists saying Lee Pace’s name out loud while describing her descent into obsession with AMC’s Halt and Catch Fire; and they both talk about breaking patterns of feeling and behavior, and what it means to be a different kind of fan. They also respond to a letter from past guest Anisa Khalifa on what reader-insert fic can—and can’t—do for diversity and representation.
Show Notes
[00:00:00] As always, our intro music is “Awel” by stefsax, used under a CC BY 3.0 license. This time, we use it for the interstitial and outro music as well.
[00:00:34] If you haven’t watched Ways of Seeing, it’s interesting! The whole thing is on YouTube:
[00:01:40] Anisa Khalifa was our guest in Episode 147; her question refers to Episode 160, “The Original Character.”
[00:10:25] Bean Dad was such a Twitter main character that NBC News reported on him. Kyle Chayka’s piece on a different framing of “main character energy” was published in his New Yorker column, “Infinite Scroll.”
[00:16:22]
[00:28:22] The conga line in the Harry Styles pit:
[00:31:05] Yes, Flourish and Elizabeth argued about how participatory one needed to be to count as being “in fandom” in Episode 8, “One True Fandom.”
[00:31:45] Elizabeth may have resisted talking about Lee Pace while discussing Halt and Catch Fire, but nothing can stop her from including a gif of him here (s3 Joe: 🙏🏼):
[00:34:32] If you’re curious about Spirited, there is apparently a site called AustralianTelevision.net that can satisfy that curiosity.
[00:42:58] Our last anniversary episode, where people were talking about their fannish world getting smaller, was Episode 155.
[00:44:10] The “Lights Up” fan project at Madison Square Garden:
[00:50:27] Just in case you have “Orinoco Flow” stuck in your head now too:
[00:50:35] Elizabeth’s favorite Loreena McKennitt song, “The Lady of Shalott,” in a YouTube video with a truly incredible/specific aesthetic:
[00:51:48] Ladybird actually DOES briefly feature the Tower Theater! Flourish cannot remember anything. Thanks, A. Yourd, for the correction.
[00:58:31] We talked about Elizabeth’s fan tourism in Episode 69.
Transcript
[Intro music]
Flourish Klink: Hi Elizabeth!
Elizabeth Minkel: Hi Flourish!
FK: And welcome to Fansplaining, the podcast by, for, and about fandom!
ELM: This is Episode #162, “Ways of Seeing.”
FK: It’s a heavy title.
ELM: [laughing] With apologies to John Berger.
FK: [laughs] I don’t even know how to describe what we’re going to be, like the main body of this episode, I feel like it’s something that maybe we’re gonna just have to ask people to like, trust us and come along with us on this journey.
ELM: I don’t know if I trust us, we’ll see where this winds up. But I mean, tl;dr, I think this is especially about you, this is instigated by you but also I’m experiencing some of this too. We’re having some fannish experiences that are like, not a part of our usual patterns.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And so, kinda want to dig into those and maybe you can talk about the idea of having patterns and cycles of behavior and assumptions about what fandom is to you personally, even when you know it’s not that to everyone else, and what happens when you do fandom differently and feel it differently.
FK: Exactly.
ELM: And see it differently. [chuckles]
FK: See it differently! OK. But before we get into that can of worms, we have a letter to read.
ELM: Yeah! It’s from one of our most recent guests, it was like in the spring, but still technically one of our most recent guests, Anisa Khalifa.
FK: Yeah, within the past year. Yeah yeah, OK, shall I read it?
ELM: Yes please!
“Hi Flourish and Elizabeth,
“Hope you're both well, and Flourish, I hope your studies are everything you imagined them to be and more!”
Thanks Anisa, they totally are! OK. Back to the letter.
“I really enjoyed your latest episode on OCs and Reader fics, and the complicated feelings many of us have around the ‘self-insert.’ Definitely agreed with a lot of your points. The self-insert was often done via OC back in the time of the Tenth Walker fic, around fifteen years ago (I remember their heyday too, Flourish!) because we could never have dreamed of being as transparent about putting ourselves into the stories we love as people do now. And I don't mean this in a ‘get off my lawn’ sort of way; the change is positive. These kinds of OCs were way more stigmatized back then—they were often called Mary Sues, and ‘self-insert’ was almost a dirty word, whereas I’ve honestly been stunned to see many people writing fics that are explicitly ‘X character/Reader’ on AO3 in the last few years.
“One one hand, it’s good to see people unapologetically including themselves in the narrative—after all, fic is often about getting something out of the story you couldn't in canon. And whether OC fics back in the day were about the writer putting their own identity and experiences into the story or not, it could be a way to make a beloved but very white-male-dominated property look more like the world we actually experienced.
“I do have to agree with the letter writer, though, that the format of most Reader fics tends to trip me up rather than help me get immersed in the story, even though immersion seems to be the intention. The ‘white vapor’ (such a great term!) type of character that uses a limited second person perspective, with bracketed spaces to insert [Your Name] or [eye color], etc, tend to interrupt and ruin the reading experience for me, regardless of how well-written the fic is. And while that’s obviously my personal preference in fics and I'd never impose it on someone else, what concerns me about this trend is the implication that in order to be relatable, a character has to be a complete blank that the reader transposes their own specific race, gender, appearance, even name on.
“As culture critics, we talk a lot about representation, and I firmly believe that everyone deserves to and must see a reflection of themselves in the media they consume. But the need for more diverse representations doesn’t mean that we can’t relate to someone who is different from us. It means the exact opposite: universality through specificity. More and different types of representation means we aren’t all forced to relive a specific subset of the American white dude experience on repeat in our entertainment, that we stop regarding that experience as neutral and accept the reality that we are all equally able to relate to each other's experiences. The only way to fulfil the full potential of that idea is by creating multifaceted, authentic portrayals that come from the communities being represented. But the shift I’ve seen in the last couple of years from OCs to more reader fics, where the specific is completely dropped in favor of a choose-your-own-attributes main character, makes me wonder whether we’re losing the empathy required to put ourselves in each other's shoes.
“Sorry for the long essay! This may be unnecessarily doomsday-ish and cynical, and who knows, maybe I’m just overanalyzing a thing that people enjoy doing! I’m by no means trying to ruin or criticize something that others find meaningful. Would love to hear what y’all think about this.
“Thanks as always for a great show,
Anisa.”
ELM: Anisa, thank you so much for writing in, such a good letter.
FK: Yeah!
ELM: Also, great to hear from Anisa again.
FK: YEAAAHHHH we always love hearing her thoughts.
ELM: [overlapping] Such smart thoughts. I, this puts me in mind of a whole bunch of things, and I’m not quite sure where to start. One of the very first things I think about is like, the “bad rep” conversation, particularly in certain genres of books, especially YA. Which like, here’s my summary, you tell me if this matches your summary. For example, I don’t know, pick an identity, bisexuality? An author writes a bi protagonist and they make certain choices and feel certain ways about themselves and their sexuality, and it doesn’t match what some readers have experienced, some bi readers have experienced in their own lives or their ways of seeing themselves. And so they are then accused, the writer’s then accused of writing bad bisexual representation, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: This isn’t the only reason bad rep is, like, people also do this when they think that a morally problematic character, that’s a whole other related can of worms, right. But so there’s this kind of idea of, if it’s not an exact one-to-one of your precise experience, it doesn’t matter if it’s more diverse different kinds of characters in these published works. It’s like, throw the baby out with the bathwater because it doesn’t exactly match your experience. Despite the fact that people’s experiences are so varied and there’s never exactly one way to have any kind of identity, right?
FK: Yeah yeah, I mean I think that there’s that, and then I think also like, I have occasionally felt this, and I suspect that other people have felt it too, but the more that people talk about, on the one hand I’m very much in support of Own Voices, and people sharing their own experiences and so forth, but one of the corollaries to that, especially if you’re in a fannish space, it feels like “Oh, am I allowed to identify with this other experience that somebody else has?” Is that somehow weird and appropriative for me to feel like, “Oh yeah, I really do, I really identify and feel like we’re having the same experience even though we’re different.” In the stories you’re reading, not the stories you’re writing, right?
ELM: Yeah, yeah.
FK: And obviously that’s exactly what Anisa is saying, is the goal is for people to like, relate across all sorts of categories that way. It’s like the exact opposite of what is intended. But I would be shocked if other people didn’t also occasionally feel like, “Well should I admit that I really love this story which is about somebody who’s very different than me? Doesn’t that feel like, you know, too much? Doesn’t it feel like, kind of appropriative?” You know?
ELM: Right, right, right.
FK: [laughing] And it’s like, no, actually that author would probably be thrilled to find out that somebody with a different life experience really related.
ELM: Yeah! No, I think those two things are totally connected, right? I mean, you’ve seen, this is not about fanworks, right, but I guess there is some crossover into it. But with the Own Voices conversation, it’s been really interesting to see writers kind of distancing themselves from it in the last year or so.
FK: For sure.
ELM: Even some people who were very actively involved in the start, saying like, “This is not what I intended.” [laughs] You know? Because it’s gotten to be this, such, so transactional so often, right? And like exactly what you’re saying, people feeling like they don’t have a right to enjoy a story or relate to it if it isn’t their exact story. Or the converse, feeling like if it’s not their exact story they’ll never enjoy it or relate to it. And it feels so antithetical to what fiction’s about!
FK: Yeah, yeah. You know, I think about younger people, and maybe this is just me being an old person and bloviating about “The youths, the YOUTHS!”
ELM: [overlapping] You’re pretty young to me, to be honest.
FK: Aw, thanks, that’s so nice. Those few months make all the difference.
ELM: You are like, several years younger than me.
FK: Okay, whatever, it’s still like, few enough months that a parent would call their child “x months” maybe.
ELM: Technically I was born during the first Reagan administration. You’ll never know what it’s like to live in the world—
FK: [overlapping] OK, anyway, I’ll never know what that’s like, I’ll never know.
ELM: [overlapping] I mean, technically he’d already won reelection when I was born, but.
FK: But. It’s true.
ELM: Now everyone can narrow down my birthday to an exact two-month span. It’s cool, it’s not a secret. It’s fine.
FK: [overlapping] Yeah, great, anyway. Anyway, maybe I’m just worrying about the youths and the youths should write me and be like no, this is not what the deal is, but I do sometimes worry about like, not worry, because everybody gets through it, right? The world gets through things, that’s how it works. But I do think about what it would be like to have started reading YA in the middle of that Own Voices conversation and be following it, you know what I mean? Like be into it and be looking at what writers are saying and looking at the controversies, and have never experienced other ways of thinking about it. And maybe not having the, the writers who are part of that conversation and saw the tone changing, they have like, a broader experience of reading and writing and thinking about this stuff.
ELM: Yeah, right, right.
FK: And so they’re able to bring into that, “No no guys, actually wait.” But you might not have that same experience if you’re a teenager, and I really do wonder with a lot of these stories, I think they tend to be more popular with teenagers and younger people—
ELM: Oh, like, x Reader fics and stuff like that?
FK: Yeah, exactly, exactly. And so I wonder if that’s correlated in any way. I don’t know.
ELM: Yeah. It also, I feel like there’s some threads that you could connect too. Well, I’ve seen this term used different ways so I should be specific with it, but Main Character Syndrome? Which is something that people talk about on the internet these days—
FK: Define it, please.
ELM: Well, I’d often taken Main Character Syndrome to be the like, old Twitter adage that every day Twitter has a main character and you do not want to be it.
FK: Yup. Yup.
ELM: You know, like, examples include Bean Dad—
FK: [laughing] Bean Dad is the perfect example!
ELM: [laughs] That’s the only example I need! Most famous Twitter main character in the last few months. I think that was like, in January maybe?
FK: It was kind of a long time ago, but we all know about Bean Dad. He certainly was the main character of Twitter.
ELM: [overlapping] This was the year of, the year of the Bean Dad. But I’ve also seen it described somewhat differently, there was an article that Kyle Chayka wrote in The New Yorker about this, talking about, more about Instagram, I don’t know if he talked about TikTok too but I definitely see it on there, this idea of, like, you are a one-man influencer shop basically, right? Everyone is living and sort of framing themselves as the protagonist, and trying to create this sort of digital persona that way. Which I feel like has long been said about social media, but I do feel like there’s a really specific flavor that is happening right now, you know? It’s not just you creating a perfect persona on Facebook ten years ago with all the right things and all the right pictures, it’s like—
FK: [overlapping] Right, it’s more performative, yeah.
ELM: You’re presenting a narrative of your life that you’re living in public, you know?
FK: Right. And it’s a very specific, narrative narrative.
ELM: Right. So like, it has me thinking a lot about the way people even conceive of themselves, and I think there’s some element, and I don’t want to be too heavy handed and negative about x Reader fics, but like, that does seem to have some connection, right? If you, because you are the star of the show. And the flip side of this that I was praising when we were talking about this is like, I find it so moving and charming to see people describing, in very vague terms, different kinds of bodies as being the reader, you know? And like, that’s wonderful. And I think some of the stuff Anisa’s saying in the positive, it’s not just you pretend you’re these two white guys, right? You really truly feel like, yeah, I deserve to be the main character, I should go in here right now. But I think that it has those limiting effects in the same way that I think it does on social media in general. If you’re all just out performing at each other, you know?
FK: Yeah. Well, there’s also a need to make the main character attractive in these contexts, right?
ELM: Well…
FK: Like, it’s much harder to make an x Reader fanfic in which the reader is an unlikeable person.
ELM: Oh, that’s the kind of attractive you mean. Cause I think that physically, that’s what I’m saying, sometimes it’s like—
FK: [overlapping] Yeah, yeah, no, I hear what you’re saying physically, I meant like, you know, sort of—
ELM: [overlapping] I’m not saying there are unattractive bodies but I do think I have seen elements of like, people who think they’re, yeah.
FK: [still overlapping] Yeah, yeah yeah yeah, no. I was, I meant in a different way, I meant attractive as in a like, a character that you would want to be. Then that’s something that is, that we talked about last time also, how on social media everybody is trying to make themselves into a character that somebody else wants to be.
ELM: Right. But like a positive, now you have me thinking about the x Reader stuff that I’ve looked at for research purposes, it’s never like, “you, evil reader,” you know? [laughs] and that’s really interesting, like “you, manipulative asshole reader,” whatever, whereas there’s such, such pleasure in writing and reading asshole characters. At least for me, you know? But there’s a kind of innocuousness, a “likeability” that I feel like you see in all these, and a lot of that comes from a sort of, I think a default attempt to make them seem like an attractive character in the way that you’re using the word attractive.
FK: Yeah, and I don’t think that’s, that’s obviously, that is a pleasure. I’m not against that pleasure at all. But I think that ties back into some of what Anisa is saying about like, one of the things that I value about fiction is, you know, fiction makes you get into the heads of people sometimes who are unlikeable or unattractive mentally or behaviorally or whatever. I don’t know, Humbert Humbert is absolutely despicable and one of the great things about that book is that it makes you like, halfway, you know, it slightly seduces you and then you’re like “NO, what the fuck is happening, no, get the fuck out of my brain you filth!” You know? So like—
ELM: That’s, for anyone who doesn’t know, Flourish is talking about the protagonist of Lolita.
FK: Yes. Who is a pedophile. Anyway—
ELM: I think people know that part, when I say Lolita. They’re familiar with the broad strokes.
FK: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But I mean, you know, if you’ve never read it, you might not, you might just have vague associations. Anyway the point being, that is something I value in fiction, and that is something that this particular kind of fiction does not currently seem to be doing. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, it just means that it’s like, I like that there’s other stuff too. [laughs]
ELM: Yeah. It does have me thinking about what the medium to long term of this is, right? Like, especially, I don’t think we’re wrong to be framing this as a younger person’s practice. And I’d be curious what it looks like, if it’s something that stays with people, and it’s, you know, this current generation of teens and people into their 20’s love it so much and keep doing it. I don’t think we should necessarily frame it as something that you graduate out of, into classic…[laughing] classic third person limited or whatever, you know?
FK: [overlapping] Oh, no, definitely not!
ELM: But I also wonder what that looks like when you have more experiences, maybe when you meet more kinds of people, right? I don’t know.
FK: And you know, to be clear, even if it continues to be exactly like it is today and that ends up being like, maybe we see airport novels start being x Reader or something, you know what I mean? I don’t think that that’s necessarily any worse than my grandpa’s Westerns that he read, you know, popcorn novels or like, a romance novel, or, you know? I don’t know, thrillers. I don’t think that it’s fundamentally worse than any existing genre where the point is to have fun and to be escapist. I don’t think that most of those books are doing the thing Anisa’s talking about. I’m not really, some people say that they are seeing other people’s perspectives but I don’t know, I pick up a Louis L’Amour and [laughing] I’m not really seeing other people’s—that’s not the point of that book.
ELM: See, unlike Nabokov, I don’t know what genre that is.
FK: Louis L’Amour is a Western.
ELM: I could have guessed. It has a Western kind of vibe.
FK: Yeah, right?
ELM: Yeah. [laughs]
FK: Anyway.
ELM: Western writers, I feel like, have similarity name-wise to like, mid-century film stars. Or even a little earlier than mid-century, 30s and 40s.
FK: Yeah, yeah.
ELM: So if you told me that was a silent film actor I would have absolutely believed you.
FK: Oh yeah! For sure! Louis L’Amour.
ELM: [laughs] Well, I feel like if we don’t cut this off then we will do an entire other episode about this topic. So, clearly…[laughs]
FK: Indeed. Thank you so much, Anisa, that was a very very good question.
ELM: Yeah, thank you.
FK: All right, shall we take a break?
ELM: Yeah, let’s do it!
FK: All right, we’re back, and before we get started we should probably mention a couple things about our Patreon.
ELM: What things do you want to talk about?
FK: The fact that you can donate to our Patreon and help keep this podcast on the air! Patreon.com/fansplaining, there are a variety of levels from down to $1 a month up to, you know, realistically probably $10 a month, but you could go higher if you felt like it.
ELM: I think there’s technically a tier, there’s a $25 tier.
FK: Yeah, see, look at that! If you’re feelin’ like that, there’s room for you up there. Anyway, each of the tiers has exciting rewards that come with it.
ELM: [laughing, overlapping] There’s room for you up there.
FK: Ranging from, there’s room for you up there! Ranging from getting access to our special episodes, of which there are a bunch, to getting a really cool enamel pin, to receiving our Tiny Zine, which we put out every once in a while. So, go over to patreon.com/fansplaining and consider helping us out!
ELM: But as always, if you do not have the money to spare, you don’t want to spare the money, there are a lot of other ways you can support us. One is by sharing the podcast, subscribing on the podcatcher of your choice, sharing our transcripts to folks who don’t like audio, basically getting the word out about the podcast. And you can write in, like Anisa—
FK: Yeahhh!
ELM: Anisa wrote to fansplaining@gmail.com, sorry Anisa, blowing up your spot about your method of communication, which is the best way to write long thoughts like that. You can also leave comments at our website, fansplaining.com, or you can leave an ask on Tumblr if you’re a Tumblr user, you can remain anonymous if you wish, just please don't be mean, as we always like to say, ‘cause anon is on. Or you can leave a voicemail at 1-401-526-FANS, and finally you could follow us on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, all @fansplaining. That’s less for communication to us and more about communication from us.
FK: Speaking of getting in touch, in our last episode we talked about a couple of different things that are coming up for us, and one of the big ones is, we are going to do an episode about people who are writing characters as trans, especially if those writers are trans themself but also just in general. So if you tend to like writing or reading trans characters who are not trans in canon, then we would really encourage you to reach out to us, we’re looking for people to share their thoughts.
ELM: And just to clarify, not that narrow, I think that more broadly any sort of trans, nonbinary, gender nonconforming, you know what I mean?
FK: [overlapping] Oh, yeah yeah yeah, I was using trans in a, I was using trans in like a trans umbrella way, but yeah yeah.
ELM: [overlapping] Yeah, right, but not everyone uses it in an umbrella way, as you well know, so. [laughs]
FK: [overlapping] That’s very wise, Elizabeth, very wise, very wise! Broad trans umbrella.
ELM: [overlapping] Yeah. I mean, honestly there’s a lot of different terms that could fall under this broad, broad umbrella, and people don’t like some of them, etcetera. If you are writing characters this way, whether or not it relates to your own personal identity, and actually in light of the conversation we just had, I’d be curious to know, like, I think we were explicitly asking for folks who are trans, nonbinary, gender nonconforming, etcetera, writing characters that way as it relates to themselves, but I don’t think we’re necessarily that limited, I’m curious if—you don’t have to talk about your personal identity at all, if you just want to talk about what you’re doing with those characters and why you’re doing it, basically.
FK: Agreed.
ELM: So!
FK: Cool.
ELM: The best way to send in your thoughts on that are our email or leaving us a voicemail, once again 1-401-526-FANS.
FK: Woohoo!
ELM: And you can totally remain anonymous, just say so in your email or don’t give your name when you call in.
FK: Cool. All right. Now, are we ready to get into the heart of the episode?
ELM: All right. I’m ready. I’m ready to do this, I’m not exactly sure where we’re gonna wind up with this, but I’m, ah, eager to try.
FK: OK OK OK. So you were the one who initiated this episode because of things I was saying to you, so I think you have to start by asking me questions.
ELM: OOOK. So, ah—
FK: [laughing, overlapping] You’re like, OK, I’m now on the spot—
ELM: [overlapping] All right. All right. Um...so here’s what I’ve observed, stop me if something sounds wrong to you.
FK: OK.
ELM: I think over the last even, couple of years, I’m gonna go a little deeper here, I’m gonna go back a bit, I feel like you’ve had a few periods of like, really hot flash bursts of fannish interest in things, right?
FK: [laughing] Yeah, yeah, yeah, there’s been a few hot flashes.
ELM: Yes, some hot flashes of fandom. And they like, burn bright and burned out real fast, right? And I was just like—
FK: Real fast.
ELM: All right, Flourish is gone now, that’s fine. And like, I love that for you, always happening. And I got the sense that, I don’t know, I got the sense that you didn’t necessarily love the fleetingness of that.
FK: Yeah, I would say that I wished that I was able to have a more sustained, like, fannish experience.
ELM: Right. And then I also got a sense from you that you were, maybe burned out is too strong of a word, but like, feeling a bit weary about media properties in general as you neared the end of your time working in Hollywood.
FK: Yeah, I would definitely say that, I would say that if you make something that you love for your job, then it’s your job! And then when you’re ready to leave that job, you’re like, euugh! [laughs]
ELM: Well, I also have to say, I was thinking about, I wasn’t directly in it, I was mostly observing it, but I was just thinking about when I started writing about fandom in the media in 20...14. And I feel like it felt like a much more, maybe not hopeful, but more open and interesting time, being like how’s this all gonna, what’s gonna, they’re learning about fans, they’re interested in them—
FK: [overlapping] Yeah, yup, that’s very true.
ELM: And now it’s just like, oh god, everything’s so bad, you know?
FK: How did all of this turn out so shitty?
[both laughing]
ELM: So I can only imagine actively being involved and trying to fight that on the inside instead of just observing it.
FK: Yeah, yup. Yup. Yeah, absolutely.
ELM: So there’s that.
FK: I would say that I have been feeling disconnected and/or down about the things that I have most enjoyed fannishly for the past, certainly over the pandemic and a little bit before that.
ELM: Yeah. I mean, I feel like people aren’t alone, too, there’s some element of overexposure with some of this stuff. I can’t remember what property it was but there was some tweet a while ago that resonated with me, it was something like, I think it might have been Star Wars, and they said like “If you told me as a kid that there would be brand-new Star Wars material ever single year, I would have been like, you know, felt like I’d died and gone to Heaven, and now I’m just really tired.” You know? [laughs]
FK: Yeah, yeah yeah. I will note that none of this has to do with my enjoyment of Star Trek, but my enjoyment of Star Trek feels like, almost...on the one hand it’s...well, we can get into that later, but it’s a different thing.
ELM: Right. OK, so, then I felt like you were moving into this very old-fashioned career path somewhat, right, not to say that the Church is in the past but it is definitely like, [FK laughs] a job that existed before Hollywood existed—
FK: It is.
ELM: And so there’s some element of that too, where you’re like, “Well I’m ascending into a different level where I don’t care about these Earthly media properties.” Right, you know?
FK: I’m not sure that I would put it that way, [ELM laughs] but maybe.
ELM: I think everything that I’m saying so far is clearly 100% accurate and I don’t know why you doubt me now.
FK: [overlapping, laughing] Oh my God Elizabeth, oh my God Elizabeth…
ELM: [laughs] Do you like how you thought you were gonna get asked questions and I’m just narrating your life to you right now?
FK: [laughs] I did, I really thought there were gonna be some questions in there, but it turns out it’s just Elizabeth’s viewpoint on my life.
ELM: [laughing] Nothing, nothing has been wrong so far!
FK: [simultaneous] Which isn’t that wrong…
ELM: All right.
FK: Ascending, ha.
ELM: [laughs] Sorry, is that some loaded language for a priest in training?
FK: [overlapping] Anyway, oh my God, so much.
ELM: And so, I got the sense that you weren’t even sure about your continued participation in this podcast because you weren’t sure about who you were as a fan or what it meant if you were not like, being caught by fannish things anymore, fannish feelings.
FK: Yeah, yeah, I mean I think I was really feeling like—I mean I still am to some extent—really feeling like there’s just a bunch of stuff that sort of has been put away in a drawer and I don’t know when it’s gonna come out again.
ELM: Right. So then, you went to these Harry Styles concerts.
FK: Yeah, so past me did present me a real solid by purchasing four Harry Styles concert tickets—
ELM: [overlapping] Four?! I didn’t know you had four!
FK: [overlapping] Four shows, yeah I went to four shows.
ELM: Wow, you uh, you tried to play it cool, you only mentioned two of them to me.
FK: Oh no, oh no, there were four, because I, originally there were two and then two, they were supposed to be at different times, but then they all got rescheduled [ELM laughs] to within one month. I was really proud of myself, he actually played a fifth show that I did not go see in New York City. And there’s more near New York that I’m not going to, I’m only going if I can walk there.
ELM: [overlapping] Excuse me, I gotta say, perfect marriage of both our interests, I got served an ad for a Harry Styles concert which seems a little...thirsty, that he needs to advertise, so it’s a little weird to me—
FK: He added a new date.
ELM: At! At...the racetrack.
FK: Yeah yeah yeah, he added a new date, and I think that’s why people are getting ads.
ELM: [overlapping] Flourish, if you would like me to take you to the racetrack, teach you how to bet and then I’ll drop you at the, at the venue—
FK: [overlapping, laughing] Harry Styles concert! No, I’ve already committed that I’m not seeing any more. I’m only going to ones that I can walk to. So anyway, point being—
ELM: You can walk to Elmont, New York. It’s not that far.
FK: I am not doing that. [ELM laughs] Yes, people informed me that there was a show in Elmont, New York.
ELM: Yes. I mean, it’s just over the border from Jamaica, Queens.
FK: I know where it is! I’m still not going. Anyway, long story short, past me did current me a real solid because even when I went to the first show I was like, “Yeah, you know, I’m gonna enjoy it obviously, but you know, I dunno how I’m gonna feel.” And then I was like, right back in it! Going to a Harry Styles concert is great every time! Every time it’s great! I’m delighted! I’m thrilled. I’m having a wonderful time. And I had a wonderful time each of the four times I saw him. And it was a super pure fannish experience for me, and it was totally unlike the stuff that I was like, feeling disconnected from, and...I don’t know, it was just sort of delightful to be like, “Yeah actually I can have all those emotions.”
ELM: Right, right.
FK: But it’s not like, I haven’t since then been writing Harry Styles fanfic or, I mean, I guess I follow a couple of Harry Styles fashion Instagram accounts or something like that, but not in what I would consider a deep fan way. Like not even in the way that I did around the time One Direction broke up or whatever. But certainly not the way that I would for any media property. But I still had this very very pure, very very deep, very very wonderful fannish experience at these concerts!
ELM: Sure! I mean, it feels a bit like...what you’re describing is like non-participatory fandom.
FK: Yeah! That’s it! It’s weird! I’ve never done non-participatory fandom before! And I’m kind of doing the same thing with Star Trek! Like, not that I’m not every once in a while tweeting with people about Star Trek, but I’m just watching Star Trek and sometimes reading the books, you know what I mean? It’s so weird not to be wanting to do this in community, but I really have no desire to do that right now.
ELM: Well, define “community,” because that’s interesting. Like, inherently, going to a Harry Styles concert, you are doing something within community, it’s not like you’re sitting in your room listening, right?
FK: [overlapping] Oh, that’s true, that’s very true, that’s very very true, yeah.
ELM: So I think it’s the participatory part, right, it’s not necessarily the other people part.
FK: Well, you’re part of the story in the concert. Like, at the concert, I don’t know, I was in a conga line in the pit, I was interacting with other people, you know what I mean? Yeah, conga line in the pit, it was amazing.
ELM: [overlapping] Wow. All masked though, right? Masked and vaxxed?
FK: Oh yeah, masked, masked and vaxxed, it was great. No I actually felt really good about the level of like, checking on that that was happening, it was clear you were not getting in without, you know.
ELM: I gotta say, not to diminish the thoroughness of Madison Square Garden, but I feel that New York City is truly taking it seriously, like people are not letting you in without checking.
FK: No, they’re not, they are not.
ELM: Which is like, I guess, it benefits them too in the sense that it protects their employees—
FK: Yeah, for sure!
ELM: I was gonna say that maybe the city really made it clear that they needed to and there’s some kind of threat, but actually it’s a benefit to everyone, so. But it’s something that’s made me feel really good and I’m not like, trying to…
FK: Yeah, yeah. I will admit I was not 100% sure how I was gonna feel about the pit when I went, and then it turned out I felt great. Totally fine. So...anyway, so that’s participatory in that like, it is interactive with other people, you know what I mean? There you are, even if you’re in a seat you’re still, there’s people around you, you’re talking to them, everyone’s excited. There’s an element of interaction. So you’re right, it’s not about… I think it is but that’s not community, right, that’s interaction, that’s participation, but it’s not community. It’s not like I’m gonna get back in touch with those people in the pit ever again.
ELM: Interesting, so you’re defining community as something that’s somewhat sustained. That makes sense.
FK: Yeah, exactly, exactly. I’m into the engagement with people but like, I don’t need to bring it with me and have...you know? [laughs]
ELM: Right. And community is something that exists, with platform, whether that’s an analog one or a digital one, right?
FK: I think so, I think so.
ELM: If you went to a Harry Styles meetup with the people you met there and never spoke to them online, I think that would be a participatory act, right?
FK: Yeah yeah yeah, yeah. Absolutely, and that might be a community act too. To be fair, I did meet up with some people from my “One Direction For Olds” Slack. But then it was also like, that was not the same, that was not where I got my fannish excitement. Not that it wasn’t lovely to see them, but that wasn’t the joy of the experience for me.
ELM: [overlapping] That’s really interesting.
FK: [overlapping] And for me that’s really weird! I mean, you know, because my entire fannish life has been entirely about community and engaging with people and like, all this is super different and strange to me to be having these feelings.
ELM: Yeah, I mean there was a time that, perhaps within the first several months of this podcast, where you believed that’s what fannish life was.
FK: OK, that’s…
ELM: I’m teasing.
FK: AAAAHHHHHHH!! [both laugh] All right, I’m just gonna leave that raptor noise as my response, OK?
ELM: We’ll link to it in the show notes.
FK: Oh my God, Elizabeth. Anyway, anyway, but you were saying that you were having some like, shifts in feeling yourself.
ELM: I’m not necessarily having shifts, I guess what I’m experiencing right now... So I am, I recently, in the last month, I think I mentioned it last time, but I watched the show Halt and Catch Fire which had been on my list for a long time. And I wasn’t anticipating it becoming the only thing that I care about, but it is. [FK laughs] And, you know, it’s a show that, as everyone in every YouTube comment under any video about it says, criminally underrated show. [both laugh] It’s just a show that I think hit at the wrong time, but is like exquisitely made, and about themes that are very personally important to me, and about a topic that I went to grad school for, [both laugh] so it’s a little bit like, “Oh, wow, this is a show that was literally made for me.” In a way that I often felt like, to some degree Black Sails felt too, ‘cause that was like, an intellectual area, a subject area that I went to undergrad for. So it’s like, wow these are shows that, or things that I was already interested in to the point of obsession, that I would devote all of my studying time to. Because...all of my schooling, I think like yours, is like, we studied things we really wanted to, really liked, you know what I mean? That was our experience.
FK: [overlapping] Yeah, yeah yeah, for sure. Yep.
ELM: But then also add on top of it like, really well-made shows with a lot of themes that personally resonate with me, that are somewhat connected to the subject but not necessarily, you know what I mean?
FK: Yeah, yeah yeah yeah. Totally.
ELM: And so like—
FK: Perfect fit.
ELM: Yeah, and it’s interesting, so Halt and Catch Fire has very little fanfiction, and I was looking at it, and most of it is not for me, and...you know, it’s like, what do I do? Because all I want to do is think about these characters but like, the show ended deliberately, it had an ending. And I don’t want to change anything, I don’t want to fix anything. [FK laughs] And these aren’t the kind of characters—X-Men definitely changed my whole perspective on AUs, and I’m still writing X-Men AUs. But what do I do with the thing that I feel so deeply about but like, there’s no…[FK laughs] you know? There’s no real rabbit hole to fall in, unless it’s one of my own making. I’m literally considering writing fanfiction for this, like, just for me—
FK: And no one else! [laughs]
ELM: I know, well it’s like, I’ll read a few fics that I do think are good, and then literally they have a hundred hits and it’s like, I’m not in it for the hits but it’s also like, would I even put it online? I have a friend who also really loved a lot of the same things about it, maybe I’ll just write it for them. You know? I don’t know, it’s kind of weird to think about. This mismatch between the way you feel about a piece of media and the potential like, other, the way that other people are engaging with it I guess. You know what I mean?
FK: Yeah, I do know what you mean. And that’s a different...it also has to do with like, when it came out and all that, right? Feeling like you’re out of time in a certain way. Not that that would ever have been, even at the time, but… I don’t know, I was really into, for a while, this Australian TV show called Spirited, a long time ago.
ELM: I’ve never heard you mention this before, it’s like a secret from your past.
FK: [overlapping] Well, it’s just because nobody knows what it is. And like, nobody cares, right? It was just, there was a brief period, it was still in Livejournal era, where one of my friends—in fact, you know this person—got really into this and was like, “You have to torrent it right now and watch it!” And I torrented it and watched it and I was like, “Oh yeah, I see exactly why you love this.” Only there’s like maybe twenty people on Livejournal who really love this show, and are torrenting it from Australia, because it’s not available anywhere else, and that’s it! You know? And now every once in a while I think about going back and watching it, but then like, I’m gonna want to write or read fic about it, and there’s not gonna be anybody there. [laughs] So like, do I even want to torment myself with this? It wasn’t the same because you feel like Halt and Catch Fire is perfect and I did not think this show was perfect.
ELM: [overlapping with dissenting noises] Well, I...I don’t think it’s flawless. Yeah, no, but it’s not the kind of thing, and I mean, I also, there are some similarities for me with this with Black Sails too, because I didn’t feel like Black Sails needed to be fixed, and it’s interesting, one of the reasons I found the fandom pretty tiring is because it seemed like a lot of the people who really invested in fics, there was a big subset that wanted to fix something. People who, spoilers, people who really shipped Flint and Silver, right, and thought that it was a mistake that they hadn’t gotten together in the end or whatever. I could see why those people would think that this was a show to be fixed. Or like, people who really like their dynamic as a ship and write AUs about them, and I’m like, no, that’s wrong, [FK laughs] this is not a fandom where you should write AUs, it’s completely inappropriate, right? Like, I get it, but for me the characters were, their actions were well-earned. The writing earned it, right, and that’s how I feel about this show too, is, you know, I’m not saying this show is without its flaws, I could certainly discuss them, but I feel like they earned the end so, so much that it’s like, you know? It feels a little blasphemous, and that’s against my fannish self, I’m like “Anything can be rewritten, anything can be.” You know? Sure! It could be!
FK: But you don’t wanna read it, is the point.
ELM: And I think this comes down to also the way I feel about the things that I do and have written fanfiction about, I felt like there were a lot of things in those texts that they hadn’t earned, right? Or that they wasted, you know? Everything I think about the X-Men films is like, “What squandered potential!” And that’s the space that you kind of want to fertilize and water.
FK: Yeah, OK. [laughs] Yeah.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: It took me a minute to get—
ELM: Like a plant.
FK: Yeah. Yeah, now I got it. Now I understand.
ELM: [overlapping] Not like a, not like an animal sex act.
FK: Yeah, that’s, thank you for making explicit what I was not going to say out loud, where my brain went there. [laughs]
ELM: Incredible. Incredible.
FK: I was just thinking about like, you know, the 8th grade sex education, little illustration.
ELM: Amazing. Yeah, that’s how I feel about writing fanfiction.
FK: [laughs] I mean I am in seminary, so, you know.
ELM: [whispering] Woooow.
FK: I was joking about how, as a prank—this is an aside—as a prank I was going to change all the signs that said “seminary” to say “ovulary.”
ELM: Wow.
FK: I might still do that.
ELM: Wow.
FK: You heard it here first if I do. OK!
ELM: I’m gonna tell the Dean.
FK: The Dean’s gonna think it’s funny. [ELM laughs] So, you know, good news/bad news about a small campus is that I’m pretty sure the Dean would laugh. Apparently every once in a while somebody comes out to preside at Mass wearing a full-body penguin suit, because the mascot of the school is a penguin, so I’m looking forward to the first day that happens.
ELM: I want you to do that.
FK: I can’t preside at Mass, so it’s not gonna be me.
ELM: Oh, ‘cause you're not a priest?
FK: Yeah exactly. Anyway, anyway, anyway.
ELM: Goals.
FK: Getting back to the—goals. [laughs] Yes, that’s, that’s goals. [ELM laughs] Getting back to the point of the episode though, the thing I think is interesting about what you’re talking about in your experience and what I’m having is it does seem like we’re both...hmm, how can I put this? We’re having really intense relationships to the object of fandom, right? In your case I’m not sure that it’s any different—well, the one way that it’s different for you is like, wanting to fix it or not wanting to fix it, but in your case it’s more like, where are the other people who share my vision of this.
ELM: No, not necessarily.
FK: No?
ELM: No, I don’t think so. I just, I have a lot of feelings about it, and it’s like, well, I guess I’m gonna have those feelings. I mean it’s so validating to be able to talk to my friend about it, and such a delight to discuss it, but like, in my experience, other people’s opinions just make things worse, right?
FK: [laughs] Well maybe—
ELM: [overlapping] I gotta say, I’m not, you know, the weird thing with this show is, a lot of the critics in the second two seasons, the latter half of the show, they were the ones who were like, “This is criminally underrated,” like, “This show just gets better and better,” and I read a few of their recaps, and a bunch of their opinions annoyed me even though we all agree that that episode was great.
FK: [simultaneous] That it was really great?
ELM: And I was just like, oh, come on buddy, you know? Specifics that won’t make any sense to you if you don’t actually watch the show. And so I was just like, why am I doing this, why am I ruining some of my reads on this by, what I thought was some kind of cheap commentary. And again, not necessarily negative commentary, but like.
FK: That’s interesting, yeah, you saying “Why am I ruining some of my reads on this by other people.” That I think maybe gets to it.
ELM: [overlapping] You know, but you’re like, I have so many feelings inside about this and, what do I do with them? But it’s like I’m not getting anything actually out of reading other people’s opinions, we’re not having a conversation about it, you know what I mean?
FK: Yeah, yeah for sure, I think that kind of puts the finger a little bit on sort of how I’m feeling with Harry right now. It’s not that I don’t like being with other people in that immersive moment of being at a show, but afterwards I don’t wanna, I don’t want to hear your theories! [ELM laughs] I don’t wanna read your fanfic! I don’t want any of that stuff. I want information, sure. I wanna know did he add a show at the racetrack. And I wanna know so I can decide not to go.
ELM: I could have told you that.
FK: Or I wanna know what he was wearing, or this or that or the other, you know what I mean? But like, I don’t want your commentary on it, I just wanna like, have my feelings and then I wanna go and experience that moment together in which we’re sort of all...we’re not all having the same feeling but we’re all at least having the same overwhelming experience, you know what I mean? And in that moment you don’t have to talk to me about what you think is happening, we just can form a conga line and we can experience togetherness in that way. And we don’t have to experience togetherness on any other level. So maybe it’s like, prizing my...for me at least, I think that you have been doing this for a long time, but for me maybe it’s just like prizing my own way of experiencing this and not needing to have that be something that’s shared.
ELM: This is making me think…[sighs] What do you feel you got out of—this is so broad a question, I don’t know how you’re gonna answer it, but like. When you had strong instincts, when your default instinct was to say I’m gonna go shout about this with and at people in past fandoms, I’m gonna create these fics, I’m gonna read these fics, I’m gonna participate, was there an element of wanting your feelings validated? Was there an element of wanting to see how you felt reflected in other people’s feelings? Looking for that commonality? Do you think you can articulate that, or is that too hard?
FK: I think it was wanting to see feelings reflected and so forth and also just wanting more...content? You know what I mean? Being like, OK, I’ve enjoyed this thing, now I need to find more things that help me feel that way longer. And more.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: And then, the moment that I was in there, then it started becoming a thing where I was making friends and I was connecting on those levels and it was like, OK, yeah, obviously this is giving me all these things, why would I do it any other way. But I feel like at this moment maybe the difference is that there’s...not that I haven’t had other ways that I’ve made friends, but there’s like a whole chunk of my life, we’re in person, and I’m meeting new people and doing these things, and making new connections, I’m like, experiencing all of this stuff, and I don’t need fandom to be that thing for me right now. So then, when I go back to just my own feelings I’m like, OK well do I need to extend my feelings of joy at the concert? Is it possible for me to extend those feelings? By reading fanfic, or by listening to somebody’s conspiracy theories, or talking about our feelings? And the answer is...no, the thing that I’m experiencing in that moment is so specific to that place, right? I guess I could go and see a lot more live music and I might be able to have some elements of that joy, but it’s not something that I can recreate outside of it. So I don’t need to try!
ELM: Right. That’s really interesting. It has me also thinking about like, I feel like in our last anniversary episode we had a few people talking about how their fandom worlds had gotten smaller, ‘cause they’re trying to—I mean I feel like this is a theme we’ve seen more and more over the last few years, people saying this and us feeling this way too. And saying like, I can’t open my heart up to a bunch of randos, who may...
FK: [overlapping, laughing] Right.
ELM: You know, I wonder if this is partly borne of experience. You say you just want more, but maybe I’m just thinking about myself and I’m projecting right now but the second I go and read a bunch of other people’s opinions about something, even again things that, they’re praising this episode, I’m praising this episode, but then I have to take in some of their stupid opinions too. And I’m like, this chips away at my pleasure in sitting with this, right? And I feel like when I think about... Sorry to bring it up but being in Sherlock fandom. [FK laughs] There were a few people that like, we were following each other, and then we wound up on opposite sides of a fandom-ending conspiracy theory, and it’s funny to think, I don’t know, we were all brought in by one thing, and maybe I’m following this metaphor too far.
FK: No, I don’t think you are at all, because I was actually just thinking about the exact same point, the fandom conspiracy theory end of things, that even chases you in the concert a little bit. So there’s a fan project to, during the song “Lights Up,” to make the whole arena have a rainbow of lights in it. And when I got the slip that they hand out to you, because that’s how they, you know, they have people handing out slips of paper that color your phone light? That’s how you do it. So when they hand the slip to me I’m like looking at, I’m like is this an awful Larry thing?
ELM: Yeah, is it a tribute to the rainbow bondage bear?
FK: [laughs] Right? Like, I don’t know! And I mean, ultimately the first night I didn’t do it, the second night I went that they were doing it I did do it, because I was like whatever, it’s really beautiful, most people don't know what it is, if it is a gross Larry thing, it’s just a rainbow on the song which is extremely explicitly possibly about coming out. Or, clearly intended that you could read it that way. So fine. Whatever! Here it is. [laughs] Right? But like, it was annoying to have that chase after me and be like, is it? Is it? Is it this thing that you don’t want?
ELM: Right, right, whereas if you had never been a part of the fandom, I think it would be impossible in this example to avoid that, but you never...I think it’s important to not only be in your own head, this ties back to the beginning of this episode and that conversation, right, but I also think there’s a world in which you were never in the same space as conspiracy theorists, and you would be able to interpret any of the like, queer subtext or overtext of a current Harry Styles show as something that is about you and maybe about him, and maybe about other people in the crowd, assuming they feel the same way you do. Right? And you never would have had to take in this other input of...you know what I mean?
FK: Exactly, exactly.
ELM: And I feel like...maybe some of our—
FK: I could have enjoyed Harry Styles, Queer Icon without constantly thinking “Is this a gross Larry thing?” [both laugh] I even like Larry as a thing, but there’s a lot of gross Larry stuff out there.
ELM: Oh, I totally get it, conspiracy theories in fandom can make you start anti-shipping the ship you once shipped! So, like.
FK: Exactly, yeah yeah yeah. Yep.
ELM: It’s interesting, because I feel like this kind of, trying to break the patterns because you don’t...it’s like we’re maybe trying to not let things that we feel deep connections to be ruined? It has me thinking about how I also feel like so much of fandom right now is just repeating patterns in a way that I find pretty tiring. Like, it’s gotten so trope-heavy, so like, people recommending new media and saying “This is the sunshine one and this is the grumpy one” and it’s just like, how many times can you redo the same thing? In that way, right? It just becomes this kind of, this thing that you overlay onto everything, and the same patterns, and the same fights, and the same, you know? And I understand why so many people feel really tired of it and have long argued about fannish lenses as ways of seeing media. But I feel like after years and years of these patterns, it often feels like those lenses are completely overpowering this media or this art or whatever, and I think that’s, that hits at some of what we’re feeling right now, because it’s like, what if you could strip away a lot of that and actually just feel? And just see the thing for what it is and how it makes you feel? You know what I mean? Does that make sense?
FK: It makes perfect sense. It makes perfect sense. It really...I think also you have sometimes been like, “Flourish you over-intellectualize all of your feelings about this,” and it’s true, I do.
ELM: [simultaneous] Sorry. I’m sorry.
FK: No no no, you’re not wrong, but I think that that also, maybe for me, and I don’t mean this for anybody else, but for me, some of this also is getting some of that out of my system and not needing to do it anymore. You know? Like, when I first got into One Direction I wrote this extremely thinky fanfic, and I got it out of my system! And now I’m sorta like, I can just feel the feelings! [both laugh] I can just feel that, that’s OK, I don’t need to think too hard about it. The thinking was enjoyable when I needed to do that, but not thinking is also very enjoyable. So I don’t know, I’m, you know, it’s funny, I was feeling really down about being disconnected from fandom, and as you noted I was feeling like what does this mean for me as a person? Am I leaving it behind? Obviously I know intellectually that I’m not going to because I’m a human being who has always been into this stuff, [laughs] I knew that I was never gonna really leave it behind. But I was feeling down about it, but now I think I’m like, actually this is okay, this is just a different form of...yeah, maybe Flourish is becoming a lurker and maybe that’s all right.
ELM: First of all, delightfully put in the third person.
FK: [laughs] Yeah! Yeah. Because I gotta distance myself from it a little bit still.
ELM: Amazing.
FK: You know? Yeah. I’m still on my bullshit, I’ll never stop.
ELM: Obviously I stand up for lurking, I don’t think this would be a bad direction for you. Direction. There’s several directions.
FK: [overlapping, delighted] Directioooooooooooon!
ELM: [overlapping] Yeah. I don’t know, it’s sometimes hard for me to sort some of this stuff out, because my lurking period was also my adolescence and my 20s, right, which are like...you know? Those were very different times, the web was very different.
FK: Oh yeah.
ELM: Very different. Right? So I think it was much easier to feel kind of cocooned with your feelings and reading tidbits J. K. Rowling had to say or whatever, you know?
FK: [laughs] Back when they didn’t make you want to weep.
ELM: Right? And just...being on the desktop in my parents’ kitchen in a cold, dark November afternoon, right? Listening to fucking Celtic music ‘cause that’s what I was when I was sixteen years old—
FK: [laughing] That’s what you were!
ELM: Yeah! No offense to me, I still love Celtic music.
FK: [overlapping] No, it’s OK, I was listening to Enya, so that’s fine.
ELM: [overlapping] I was also listening to Enya, there’s some crossover.
FK: [overlapping] I mean to some extent it was just of a time.
ELM: [overlapping] Clannad. Yeah, um, I still listen to Enya sometimes, don’t you worry.
FK: Yeah, she’s a vibe. Who can say?
ELM: [overlapping] You know, in that movie Eighth Grade, which was made a few years ago, so about current young people, you may remember the, I almost said “seminal” and I’m not gonna say “ovular.” [FK laughs] The vital scene with “Orinoco Flow,” do you remember?
FK: Yeah! Sail away, sail away. Sail away.
ELM: No, my favorite artist at the time was Loreena McKennitt. Who I don’t disavow! Love her. [FK laughs] A little while ago I went on Spotify and was like, “What’s she been up to for the last 20 years since I stopped listening to her regularly?” She’s put out a ton of new albums, all real solid.
FK: I was really into this, I have no idea how I got my hands on their...I have weird, I had weird music that I was into. I think because I would go to a record store, because there were record stores at that time, and have someone shove something at me and then I’d get really into it but I would have no context for it. So there’s this sort of indie band called The Velvet Teen that I really liked. This I am embarrassed by, I loved Michael Franti and Spearhead. [laughs] So, you know, some global world music happening there for me at the time. Do those two things have anything to do with each other? No, they do not. One of them is certainly more embarrassing now than the other, but you know.
ELM: [overlapping] Some record store man gave them to you.
FK: Some record—I mean, it might not have been a man, you know? At Tower Records, because my hometown, home of Tower Records…
ELM: Tower Records is from San Francis—or, Sacramento? I just forgot the name of the town.
FK: [overlapping] It is from Sacramento, it is named after one of the movie theaters in town, the Tower Theatre, which has a tower.
ELM: This wasn’t even mentioned in Ladybird, so I’m not really sure that’s true. [FK laughs] It’s a documentary I saw, on Sacramento living?
FK: Yeah, I kinda think that she wasn’t able to get permission to use the Tower brand [ELM laughs] because it was a really important part of—I am 100% sure—of her, as much as my, teenagerhood. And that character definitely spent time at the Tower Theatre because that’s the only place that you could watch indie movies.
ELM: Yeah, no that tracks, a real oversight in that story.
FK: And anything kind of intellectual, right? So like I have fond memories of going to see Gillian Anderson in The House of Mirth at the Tower Theatre. Another one of my long-running fandoms that I now just have feelings about, Gillian Anderson. [laughs]
ELM: I love a, you know I love a back catalog. It probably wasn’t her back catalog at the time, it was probably her front catalog, right?
FK: [overlapping] Oh at the time it was her current, it was her front catalog. She was, yeah.
ELM: [overlapping] Yeah. Even then. No I mean, that’s delightful, right, when you’re not just doing a back catalog but you’re like, this person’s doing new stuff and I’m gonna see it regardless of what it is.
FK: [overlapping] Yeah yeah yeah, yeah. She was shooting movies in between doing The X-Files and I was like, “Sign me up!” She was great. I recommend that movie, it was good. Edith Wharton. Keepin’ it real. Or something. [laughs]
ELM: [overlapping] Thank you. That was the tagline, that was the subtitle of the book, right? The House of Mirth, subtitled Keepin’ it Real.
FK: [simultaneous] Mirth..Edith Wharton, Keepin’ it Real!
[both laugh, then sigh]
ELM: Anyway, yeah, those—
FK: [overlapping] It’s a sad movie though, be warned.
ELM: So I feel like even just this little nostalgic trip we’re going on right now, I think this happens with a lot of stuff on the web and I was thinking about what the web was, and people of a certain age and older too saying like, it felt simpler, or maybe things felt simpler, and I feel like people in fandom do this now a lot, and… Technically it was simpler, and right now, like, technically it’s a piece of shit right now, [FK laughs] and I’m feeling very pessimistic about the current state of the web. But I think it’s also hard for us because it wasn’t...I mean, we were teenagers and that’s also a very specific time in your life that I think it’s easy to feel like things felt really different. So, I don’t know. I mean we talk about this all the time, but I feel like this kind of way of...that it’s hard to untangle the things that were happening in fandom at the time that you’re thinking of from the things that were happening on the broader web from things that were happening in your own life, right? Or like, the things that were happening with your specific fandom property. Those things are all wrapped up together, and I think it’s so easy for us to make bad…correlations, right? Assume correlation equals causation, you know? Yeah.
FK: [overlapping] I totally agree. Yeah, where none exists, yeah yeah yeah totally. I think that’s true, and I think that that’s one of the reasons why the more years pass, the more skeptical I am whenever anybody talks about like, the way that fans “evolve” or the evolution of one’s experience in fandom, or things like this, you know what I mean? I think that maybe to some extent you can say “Oh yeah, well there’s a honeymoon period.” And then you, like, actually learn about all of the people in the fandom and then you’re like, “OK this is gross,” you know what I mean? Maybe you knew a little bit of that, but sometimes people try and say things like, “Give it a few years and you’ll feel like x,” and it’s actually—
ELM: No.
FK: No, you might not! You know? It’s a very individual, because it’s not just your individual experience and personality and so forth, it’s also what’s happening around you and with other people, all of these things. So. But I do hope that like, by talking about this, maybe there’s other folks who have their own unique experiences with this that it’ll chime with. Maybe not like, exactly the same, but harmonize with.
ELM: You mean like, they are in the conga line in the pit at the Harry Styles concert with no thoughts head empty, just feelin’ vibes, and they’re gonna be like “That’s me too”?
FK: Or like, maybe they’re...maybe they’re...I don’t know, reading their favorite YA novelist and being no thoughts head empty just vibes. Or maybe they’re like, “I used to be no thoughts head empty just vibes, and now I’m like really into the intellectual community things, I’m going the other direction.” I don’t know, I don’t know what! OK, we need to end soon, but I wanna know from you, what do you get out of this? ‘Cause I know what I’m getting out of this, I’m gonna go have my head be as gloriously empty as a beautiful Golden Retriever. But what are you doing with your...
ELM: [overlapping] Oh, you’re saying what is the takeaway from this episode? With what, your one wild and precious fandom?
FK: [overlapping] Yeah, what’s your takeaway? Yeah, what’re you doin?
ELM: I don’t know, for me...well, this isn’t your question but it immediately made me think like, is this even, what is even fandom? Is this just not having fannish feelings, you know?
FK: Yeah, yeah. [laughs]
ELM: I mean this gets so in the weeds and kinda wanky but, you know what I mean? I, I… Part of me feels also like, I feel like we’ve talked about this in the past. But like...you read a really, really good book. A super-immersive, like...you know?
FK: Yeah, yeah yeah yeah. You’re weeping at the end.
ELM: And it ends, and you’re like, “I can’t let go of these characters, this is so important to me, I want more,” right? And maybe, I think we’ve talked about this, I definitely occasionally have been like, “Has anyone written any fanfiction about this?” Then like, “I don’t actually want fanfiction about this book.” I want more pages!
FK: [overlapping] I feel like we’ve both had this experience, I think we’ve both had this experience with A Little Life, which has many pages, and yet at the end it was like, AAUUHHH!
ELM: Yeah, well, I was just thinking about A Little Life as I said that, that’s the book that I will never forget, I think about those characters from time to time, I was just thinking about them the other day, right?
FK: Yeah. Whenever I walk by Lispenard Street I go, aaahhh!
ELM: [overlapping] Oh, there’s no way I’m ever setting foot on Lispenard Street without being like, “Willem!” [both laugh] And Jude. Not just Willem. But I feel like there’s a critique of fandom that people in the cultural media and cultural critics make of being like, “Let it end! Let it go.” Right? “It’s meant to end. You don’t need another sequel, you don’t need a prequel, why do you need this fanfiction, why can’t you just accept the book as it ends, it was meant to end that way?” Or the series ended, right? And I bristle against that sometimes, because like...who cares? So you want more of it!
FK: Yeah! [laughs] Yeah.
ELM: But I also understand it as a...you know, often with these books it’s like, it was meant to end, if it stays with you that means it did its job. It wanted to create characters that stay with you. And so when I think about this show, that I’m thinking constantly about right now, I’m like, “That’s just the sign of a really successful show.” And part of me thinks, I’ve tried this with Black Sails too, where I was very satisfied with the ending but I wanted more time with the characters and I thought about them all the time, and I read some of the fanfiction, and I didn’t like a lot of it, and… I got really interested in the period and then within a couple of months I was mostly just interested in the period. And occasionally I would think about the characters. Someone reblogged one of my posts from like, probably about a year after I first watched Black Sails, where I’d gone on a, my friend had taken me on a tour [FK laughs] of a specific part of London, from a specific era—
FK: Yeah yeah, I remember that.
ELM: Yeah, well she did a few of them for me ‘cause she’s the greatest person on Earth. But I was like, oh shit, these are all things I’ve already forgotten. [FK laughs] I was like, oh man, I knew so much about 1705 at that moment, and now it’s just, it’s like, gone into the deepest recesses of my brain. And so part of me feels like, was that a bad takeaway from that? Absolutely not.
FK: No! Not at all!
ELM: Right? And if the show doesn’t have...sometimes characters can stay with us and we can just let them be, and let them end how they ended, and maybe watch it again. And feel it all over in a different way. Maybe watch it many times, as many as you want, and look at it different ways as you go around, but it doesn’t...if the takeaway is that it just sits in a special place in your heart and you don’t...I don’t know, you know what I mean? Just ‘cause you want—
FK: I do, I do.
ELM: There’s a way of getting more of it that’s not all those fandom things, and sometimes the patterns of those fandom things are actually not what you need, even though you think… I mean going back to what you said earlier, you went to fandom when you were at your least lurky, ‘cause you just wanted more. Right?
FK: Yeah. Yeah.
ELM: And sometimes other people are not a way of getting more.
FK: Yeah, that’s very true. All right, I think that we need to wrap up now. But, I feel like we did it! [ELM laughs] We had the conversation we wanted to have!
ELM: This is the conversation! It’s interesting, I thought initially when we were talking with this, because for context I saw Flourish before the last, it must’ve been the last show you saw?
FK: Yeah. It was.
ELM: You know, and there was a scenario in which we just talked about what it was like for you to return to a Harry Styles concert, and I’m glad that—
FK: This is better. [laughs]
ELM: Yeah, I think this is...it’s more interesting than the specifics of it, you know? Not that your glorious time at the Harry Styles concert isn’t interesting.
FK: [overlapping] No, for sure. I mean, dude, my glorious, it’s the most interesting thing in the world! [laughs] But yeah.
ELM: I think that these shifts are valuable to me in understanding that shifts...really really, not just like intellectually understanding, but emotionally understanding, that...I feel like part of what we’re working out too is, I think we’re both trying to learn from past fandom mistakes, many of which were completely out of our hands, right?
FK: [overlapping] Yeah. [laughs]
ELM: Like, I did not create any of the conspiracy theories we’ve talked about.
FK: Nope. Nope.
ELM: But I still feel like partly it was my fault, I’m like, “I was there, and I allowed this to ruin it for me.” Right? What was I supposed to do, you know?
FK: I know.
ELM: So what I feel like we’re trying to learn from that, and notice the signals, and kind of follow what feels good and understand what’s gonna impinge on that. You know?
FK: Yeah. Well, here’s to doing that successfully in the future.
ELM: Yeah. All right. Good luck.
FK: [laughs] All right. It was good talking with you, Elizabeth.
ELM: [overlapping, laughing] I, I— Yeah, no, I truly mean it, good luck, good luck to me as well.
FK: All right. I’ll talk to you later.
ELM: OK, bye Flourish.
[Outro music]
FK & ELM: Thank you to all of our patrons, and especially Alaine Sepulveda, Amanda, Amy Koester, Andie Cavin, Anna Cook, Anne Jamison, Annie, Beatrice Waterhouse, Boxish, Bradlea Raga-Barone, Carrie Clarady, Chelsee Bergen, Citizen D, CJ Hoke, Claire Rousseau, Cuda, David, Desiree Longoria, Diana Williams, Don’t-stop-her-now, Dorothy, Dr. Mary C. Crowell, E, Earlgreytea68, Elasmo, Eat the Rude, Emily Crone, Emma Couhi, Fabrisse, Felar, Ferty, Georgie Carroll, Goodwin, Graham Goss, Gwen O’Brien, Heidi Tandy, heart of the sunrise, Helena, Ignifer, Jackson Nair, Jamie Always, Jean-Michel Berthiaume, Jennifer Brady, Jennifer Doherty, Jennifer McKernan, Jes, Josh Stenger, Jules Chatelain, Julianna, JungleJelly, Katie Byers-Dent, Katherine Lynn, Kfan, Kiki Lynskey, Kim Rhodes, Kirsteen M, Kitty McGarry, Kristen P., Laura, Lucy in Bookland, Maria, MathClassWarfare, Matt Hills, Meg, Menlo Steve, Meredith Rose, Michael Andersen, M. J. Fiori, Molly Kernan, Myrmidryad, Nary Rising, Naomi Jacobs, Nia H, Nozlee, Paracelsus Caspari, Rebecca Freeman, Sachiko Schott, Sam Markham, Sarah Southwood, Sarah, Sekrit, Selina Packard, Tianna, Tiffo, Veritasera, and in honor of A.D. Walter Skinner and fandom data analysis and One Direction and Harvey Guillén and The Incorruptible Chastity Meatballs and Yuri Katsuki and Captain Flint!
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