Random rec and rant

[rivkat]

Little-known fact: back in the day, I read a lot of popslash. I know nothing about the fandom, but I read Helen's stories and expanded out from there; "Cuisine" is probably still one of the creepiest things I've ever read. I did mention that self-destruction for love's sake is one of my bulletproof kinks, no? Anyhow, cathexys pointed to this popslash story, and I don't think you need to know/like/approve of popslash to find this story to be an extremely powerful commentary on modern Internet-enabled fandom. It's AU, I guess, a story about popstars as slashers as writers and stars, and I never thought about the relationship of fandom fame to popstar fame this way before. In the future, we'll all be famous -- not for fifteen minutes, but to fifteen people -- only many of us long for more than that.

So, at Union Station, at the entrance I use, there are two revolving doors flanking a central automatic door. They've put a big sign up in front of the automatic door saying, "Due to inclement weather, please use revolving doors." Does it say "(Except you)"? No, it does not. Then how come half the people who I see approach behave as if they've got a dispensation? Now, anyone who would have difficulty getting through a revolving door -- cane, stroller, wheelchair, big suitcase, arm injury, what have you -- should of course be free to use the automatic doors. But I strongly suspect that most of the people who swerve around the sign in order to use the automatic doors just can't be bothered, and it makes me upset.

Comments

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

we'll all be famous -- not for fifteen minutes, but to fifteen people -- only many of us long for more than that i love that sentence...i just reread the story and i'm still way too touched by it to think about it critically...i'm having kind of a hard fannish time right now and it just raises so many specters of need and desire and all the things we tend to not talk about...

but, yes, i guess if there is a proper fandom to play out the meta thing, it probably is popslash..not just b/c it allows for self-insertion in ways that many other fandoms don't really...not only b/c it already has these different layers of fiction and reality, but b/c it is all about celebrity, isn't it???

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

The fifteen minutes/fifteen people thing isn't original to me, but I can't remember where I saw it.

The story has its own method of distancing, though -- by being told from the perspective of a gay man, which I (and I think most of us, though I don't know popslash) am not. I thought the lack of commentary on that was perhaps the oddest thing, as if it were an AU in which slash was a gay boys' thing.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

that's true. it confused me at first, actually...

and, of course, the various 'events' could be made up/gathered from others...then again, it could be just this personal (i think saving the anonymous hate thread and escapade were the two things that were just too...)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_swallow/]

> In the future, we'll all be famous -- not for fifteen minutes, but to fifteen people

I have to say, I don't understand how this isn't the way it is already: for a lot of people, if not everyone. Not just online, but off. Everybody I know in RL is intimately known and talked about within their little group of friends, except for those rare people who practice solitude. I mean.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

I think it's about performing for an audience -- of course we're all well known to the people who know us well; what I was trying to imply (without any clarity) was that we are moving to a society in which being "known" is more like being famous, more like being on stage, more like self-consciously putting on a persona the way an actor does. But I think we're well on the way there, so "future" was maybe an exaggeration.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

My husband and I have a theory.

Every single sign you see has an invisible-ink addendum: "Except for Assholes". No parking here Except for Assholes. Handicapped Only Except for Assholes. Use other door Except for Assholes.

At some point in their lives, assholes achieve the ability to read the invisible ink. Possibly they are issued special glasses, I don't know. But they're just following the rules, really.