how nerdy are dedicated fans?

[rone]

tongodeon created a poll that asks which TV/movie franchise is the nerdiest, using the "caliber of nerd associated with its dedicated fan base" as the metric.  I am not convinced that this is a helpful exercise.  First off, followers of a particular fandom will attempt to play down their own nerdiness in order to somehow legitimize what they're doing (look at the low Buffy score as proof).  Also, it is difficult to separate the nerds one knows that love a particular creation from one's own opinion of the creation, but more crucially, from one's opinion of such nerds.  For example, i react with intense aversion to the Rocky Horror Picture Show because, holy fuck, that is one goddamned stupid movie, and the subculture that arose around its festering dungheap is inexplicable, massively annoying, and ugly.  I think the Brunching Shuttlecocks' geek hierarchy is missing the RHPS fans below the erotic fanfic furries.  But i digress...

What makes a fandom nerdier than the other?  Well, what's nerdy behavior?  Obsessing about details in the canon, buying merchandise, attending conventions (in costume, for bonus nerd points), writing fan fiction... am i missing anything?  Is a fandom that lacks action figures, for example, less nerdy than one that has them?  (Can i stop asking questions in this paragraph and write an actual statement?)

ikkyu2 speaks truth in the comments: separate the fandom from the nerd and how much nerd do you have left?  It's a very open question.  And his point about needing to be quite a nerd to even attempt to gauge the question hits the nail right on the head.  OW LORD HELP ME THERE'S A BEAM IN MY EYE.

I can't even keep it simple by making something that's more mainstream less nerdy; the Simpsons and Harry Potter are two of the most mainstream items in the poll, but HP is, by almost any measure, much nerdier than the Simpsons.  What's nerdier, being a Vlad Taltos fan or a Wheel of Time fan?  OK, yeah, the Wheel of Time, duh.

Anyway, i revisited my "all 9s and a 10 for RHPS" vote and gave the Simpsons an 8.  Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Comments

[samantha2074.livejournal.com]

the Simpsons and Harry Potter are two of the most mainstream items in the poll, but HP is, by almost any measure, much nerdier than the Simpsons.

If I squinted at this the right way, I could say that in this case nerdier = lower cachet = more female-dominated. This is an over-simplification, however. For one thing, the Simpsons is made up of self-contained episodes played for comedy and this is inherently going to generate a different type of fandom than something with story and character arcs.

Even so, anything that's perceived as manly somehow gets a free pass. For example, sports fandom to me seems to me to encapsulate a lot of the same things as media fandoms: obsessive knowledge of facts related to the fandom, constant arguing over fine points and judgment calls, wearing team jerseys and painting yourself in team colors, going to lots of games, participating in fantasy leagues. But sports have cachet, so this behavior is considered less strange than writing fanfiction about your favorite TV show.

Why do you think Simpsons fandom is less nerdy than HP fandom? Is it that HP is considered more of a children's property? Fewer people are writing Simpsons fanfic and knitting Simpsons scarves? No one eagerly speculates about what might be in the next installment of the Simpsons? There's less wank? To be honest, I don't know much/anything about Simpsons fandom and have only peripheral knowledge of HP fandom.

I think one flaw in Tongodeon's post is that it measures like fandoms against each other. How can you tell whether X-Files fans or Buffy fans are nerdier when they're many of the same people? People I've encountered in Doctor Who fandom were active in or dabbled in fandoms on the list such as Buffy, Firefly, HP, LotR, X-Files, SG1, Red Dwarf, Futurama, Star Wars, Star Trek, B5. I'd say there's more overlap with SG1 fans than, say, Star Wars, but still a lot of people are into multiple fandoms doing the same kinds of fannish activities.

There's kind of a consensus style of modern fandom practiced these days, at least in the circles I move in. A lot of it is pairing-centered, especially slash-centered, which can get seriously aggravating at times. An example: someone in the Life on Mars fandom posted that she started watching the show because she saw a publicity photo where the two main characters looked slashy. And I just got way off point, didn't I? Sorry. I find fandom fascinating to examine, even when at times it annoys me. Just give me my meta-nerd badge now.