Susan Beth wrote:
And that is, truly, an accurate statement going by my experience. There are a lot of fans, particularly slash-friendly ones, who don't at all like having a spotlight shown on their hobby. It has nothing to do with whether they thought his study was accurate, or whether or not they liked the conclusions/theories he drew from it. They simply *like* having fandom be their little secret cabal, safely hidden away from the eyes of mundanes.
Does anyone have any idea of the readership of Jenkins' book (in terms of numbers and composition)? I very much doubt if it was aimed at the average non-fan (I hate the word 'mundane'), and I also very much doubt that it had any effect on the average non-fan's (rather unfriendly) opinion of fans.
IF your experience is that Attention to Fandom = Mockery of Fans then you, too, might very much prefer to be left quietly alone and dislike *anything* which draws attention to fandom's existence.
While I can understand the feelings that you are relaying, there's really not a lot that fans can do about the fact that non-fans know about fandom's existence, and have a *very* low opinion of fans (at least that's my personal experience of 'coming out' as a B7 fan to various people I know in a non-fan context -- to quote one of the more positive views expressed by an intelligent and broadminded woman with whom I work, 'Do you realise how *sad* that makes you sound, Tavia?').
It seems to me (based on my personal experiences) that fans are being used as a scapegoat. Someone (Betty, I think) perceptively suggested that might be because of a need among some non-fans to convince themselves that their overconsumption of television was 'normal' by demonising others who had an 'abnormal' consumption.
Tavia