Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons

Last week I watched Rise of the Guardians and afterwards, I went through the tag on Tumblr and I found out about The Big Four—a mega-crossover with Rise of the Guardians, How to Train Your Dragon, Brave, and Tangled. Combine the titles and you get "Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons." There are entire blogs about this combination of characters and worlds, including this one.

People are writing fanfic, making videos, drawing fanart, and cosplaying. This is my favorite kind of fandom, when people take elements from things they like and re-combine them into something greater, something we won't see from the original creators.

Here are some of my favorite works about the Big Four:

princekido | Deviant Art

jiidesu | tumblr

Hypable Potential

When I co-founded Supernatural.tv in 2005, I saw the difference between corporate-run and fan-run sites. Finding news and writing about Supernatural was a joy. The moderators in the forums were as passionate about the show as the visitors to the site. We had better discussions, more activity, and more fun than people were having in the CW's official Supernatural forum. Now BuddyTV owns Supernatural.tv and even though the forums remain fan-run, the community has suffered. We were better as a fan-run site. Running fansites takes a lot of time and effort, so finding ones that are well-run, organized, and updated is rare.

But that's changing with Hypable.

Andrew Sims (of MuggleNet and MuggleCast) started Hypable, a site that covers entertainment news for several shows and fandoms. He noticed that "general entertainment sites do not cover specific fandoms as good as individual fansites do" *, so he wanted to create a fan-run site that would offer great coverage for lots of fandoms.

Right now, Hypable writers cover Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games, Doctor Who, Fringe, Supernatural, True Blood, Dexter, Mad Men, Saturday Night Live, Disney, The Office, X Factor, and more...the list is growing all the time. Registering on Hypable allows you to filter posts by fandom so that the news you see in "My Feed" is what interests you specifically. Columns and podcasts offer fan commentary on news and events. All around, it's a great setup.

The About Us page talks about the power of fans to cover topics that interest them without corporate influence. "Fan-powered" is good. Fan-driven is better.

A core group of writers is necessary for Hypable: fans rely on frequent updates, so Hypable needs a dedicated writing staff. But as a fan of fantasy and sci-fi shows, more than news interests me.

I want a place where I can read news about my favorite shows, but I also want to read theories and commentary by fans. Right now, when I want to see what people thought of the latest episode of Doctor Who, I search tags on Tumblr. It's not ideal, but it works.

I can't help thinking about the diversity of content Hypable could have if they accepted writing from visitors to the site.

The Write for Hypable page states writers must be able to post at least five stories each day. That's the kind of dedication you need for a news site, but I'm sure there are people out there (like me) who would love to write for fan sites but can't dedicate that much time every day.

Why not take submissions? Submissions allow people to make less of a commitment without lessening the quality of writing. Set guidelines for the kind of content you want. For example, episode commentary, theories about what will happen next in your favorite show, and character studies. All you need is a section on the site for non-news content and editors to review submissions. (I'd volunteer.) Post the quality writing and send explanations to writers when their submissions won't be used.

Accepting submissions does two things. First, it's an easy way to build content on the site. Second, submitting articles is a good way to test out potential staff writers. Frequent submitters can see what it's like to write for a fan site, and the Hypable staff has writing samples to review before they take on committed writers.

I don't know if Hypable wants to be strictly a news site. If it does, it's doing fine. But if Hypable wants to be a hub for fandoms, it needs to have more than news. It needs to offer more fan-written content.

So you wanna talk about fandom

I'm taking a course on pop culture this semester, and last week, we talked about fandom.  For the purpose of discussion, we defined fandom as activity besides simply watching every episode of a show or reading every book in a series.  To be considered a fan, a person must participate in something greater than whatever they're a fan of.  So joining messageboards or fan sites; creating fanfiction, fanart, videos, or blogs; attending conventions, or serious discussion with other fans; buying related merchandise.

We read about Star Trek and while it continues to have a huge following, the original series is a dated example for today's college students.  If you want to talk about great examples of fandom where people come together because of a shared interest in something fictional, talk about Firefly fans' increasing presence at conventions eight years after FOX gave them 13 episodes and then canceled their beloved show.  Talk about what the Harry Potter series has done for children's reading, or the HP Alliance's success in raising $110,000 for Haiti.

You can still talk about dressing like characters if you want but we've had better examples of fandom since Star Trek.

Supernatural Fandom: United We're Boring

Image from SPNmedia

It's summer time, most TV shows are on hiatus, and that means there's not much to talk about on fansites. It happens every year: forum participation goes down and new threads stop popping up. Take away new episodes, plug the constant flow of spoilers, and hardcore Supernatural fans will do one of two things: argue about Sam's place in the series or complain about Dean's role on the show.

Supernatural is one of the few shows that has a main cast of two people. Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki star as Dean and Sam Winchester (respectively). Fans tend to favor one brother over the other, so all summer long, it's the fall-back conversation. Who's the better hunter? Which brother is a better brother? Which brother has more fans (and which fan group is the best)? Back and forth, the same stuff over and over again. It's not centralized to one place-- the CW's forums, Supernatural.tv, even IMDB's messageboard--have had their share of redundant discussions that often turn to heated arguments.

Supernatural's fandom has that kind of loyalty and dedication because there are only two main characters. Attaching to one is easy, and pitting Dean and Sam against each other is even easier to do.

Imagine if the same thing happened in another fandom. Take Heroes for example. Who's your favorite? The choices are Hiro, Ando, Claire, Mr. Bennet, Peter, Nathan, Matt, Isaac, Sylar, Jessica/Niki, Micah, DL, Mohinder...and still more. The number of characters splinters the fandom, and in this case, that's a good thing. Even if one character has a huge following, chances are it won't be overpowering. Fans of the other characters keep each group in check, and it's less likely one following will be dominant.

It's a different story with Supernatural, though. Two characters, two followings, and they're head to head with few new topics to discuss.

We still have six weeks until season 4 starts.

Technorati tags: Supernatural, television, fandom