Rambly post is rambly

[hils]

Did any of you win me on Sweet Charity? User name I have is cybel. Not sure if it's a flisty or a random SPN fan.

Now for a fandom discussion. Well, I say discussion, more a fandom wittering.



You know, the best thing about Twitter is also the worst thing about it. The people.

This morning someone told Jim Beaver about RPF while he was answering questions. He seemed pretty surprised, but to be honest I imagine the majority of the actors know about it already. They have to, right?

Either way. GAH!

But that lead me to an interesting discussion about fandom with Greg (the guy I work with for those of you who don't know) while we were in the car today.

We started off talking about holidays and I said I was really looking forward to wincon. Greg isn't a fandom person but he's very much aware of it (even moreso now that I've linked him to TV tropes) so he knows what I'm talking about.

Anyway, I was saying that usually when I go to cons in the US or Canada I'm the one who has travelled the furtherst but missyjack beats me this time as she is coming from Oz.

Greg then started asking me how many people know me because of my fanfic and I started explaining that I get really uncomfortable talking about what I've written in person. I don't know why. I have no problem at all talking about fic online but in person it just feels different. I guess talking about it in person makes it more real.

I mean Greg knows I write fanfic, and he knows a lot of it is slash, but we never talk about it and I'd never let him read any even if he wanted to. I guess I have a line between my online persona and my real life one, as I imagine a lot of us do.

It's very easy to be confident and bubbly online when you can think about what you're talking about and only post when you're in the right mood for it. Real life is different.

That's not to say they don't cross over, obviously. I do a lot of conventions and I love chatting to other fans about the show, just not about my fics. Similarly when I meet actors from my shows I don't generally like to talk to them about the shows. I'm interested in them as people (or the real life persona they project at least). I don't think I've ever asked an actor a show related question. I dunno. It's just different.

But then we started talking about Misha (because Misha is always on topic). Greg knows who Misha is even though he's never seen an episode of Supernatural and he follows him on Twitter.

I was explaining that with the rising popularity of Facebook and Twitter there isn't that line between what happens online and what happens in person anymore. Actors are almost as aware of fandom as we are.

Greg said that if he was an actor he would totally read slash about his characters and then tell people what his character would and wouldn't actually do. We veered off into a conversation about canon and fanon after that and whether it would be considered canon if the actor said something about their character that hadn't been expressed in the show. It was interesting. Wish I'd thought about it for my writerconuk panel last year.

So I was telling Greg about how Misha loves to talk about fanfic and at one point got a bit irate that people don't want to talk about it with him since it's his character being written about (I think he said that anyway, I vaguely recall a video from one of the cons).

Then we started talking about how Misha finds the whole fandom thing as a whole really interesting and I've just linked Greg to Misha's White House article.

And I'm sure I had a point when I started writing this but it sort of got away with me a bit. Wibbly wobbly timey wimey.

Oh, right. Yes, the internet being utilised in different ways and how it's changing the nature of fandom.

I mean in some ways it's brilliant. I don't think I'd be fangirling Misha half as much as I do if it wasn't for Twitter. Not just in terms of his own tweets, but getting all the info from the cons and things through it as well. I learned out him 'outing' J2 through Twitter and it all sort of took off from there.

But then there's the negative side too. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way but it does give people (me included) a false sense of closeness to these actors. In days gone by things were done through a fan club or whatnot and you had to write a letter if you wanted to say anything to the people you admired. These days it's a pretty much instant thing and some people abuse that a little. The instances of people sending abuse to Misha and Rosenbaum spring immediately to mind.

So my closing question is this: Do you think actors getting more directly involved in fandom is a good or bad thing? Does it make you more cautious about what you post or does it make it more fun?