aruan: (impressive)
[personal profile] aruan
If we feel like playing the specific date versus occasion game, yesterday was my fandom anniversary in popslash for the chronology sticklers among us.

Now, as such things go, it was celebrated well enough, though sans the good people who brought me into its tangled web. I remember arriving at the hotel in Orlando, going upstairs, and the flurry of activity not two minutes later when it became clear that I knew next to nothing about *NSYNC.

Nor what they were actually in town for that weekend.

I remember taking my phone call to Miranda out into the hallway and whispering about how cool these girls were, but that this whole boyband RPS concept was maybe not for me. I mean, they're real people! And for another shock of cold water, boybanders! (This about summed it up, from my original entry: "I think I need an impartial jury to tell me it's okay to actually like the music. Deconditioning is a process.")

Luckily, with the help of quite simply the most darling pictures I've ever seen of boys and their love for each other, a few spins of the European eponymous debut and No Strings Attached, more than a couple nights reduced to four hours of sleep due to my sneaking off to the bathroom to read moooooore fic, and keeping my dopamine levels through the roof with a liberal supply of chocolate caramel cups, *NSYNC Fruit Snacks, and Pixie Stix for six days, I got over it, and returned home on Wednesday a devout convert to the Cult of Popslash.

Then I got existential or something. I tend to go overanalytical when something is getting to me deeper than I'm ready to accept:

"Does the real person facet not matter? The way I've been looking at it is that it's the members of *NSYNC (as in the polished, scripted, public personas put forth as members of the group) in the stories, not Joshua Chasez or Lance Bass, etc., the real people who play them in the recording studio and on the concert stage. Snafu there is the proliferation of Alternate Universe stories in the fandom, Greek Gods and Chicago mafia casts played by the boys without a single drum machine or pot of glitter eyeshadow to be found."

This was actually a very interesting observation. Of course, now that I realize I was taking it all a little too seriously, it's the fandom I cherish the most of any I've ever been in. I love that canon comes to us in little two-minute Access Hollywood clips and cheesy MTV specials, Barbara Walters interviews and grainy home movies. And while yes, there are different kinds of creators (publicists), directors (managers), and the omnipresent advertising industry that contribute to a certain facet of them, at the end of the day, there's no one directly pulling their strings (as it were) - it's not someone else's vision we're seeing, it's theirs.

"Redeeming factors? If you're a believer, we're writing what's going on behind the scenes anyway; if you've got faith, we're letting them lead the lives international popstardom, trashy tabloids who pay money for celebrity sex stories, and a mostly young teenage girl fan base won't allow them. Which could also go toward explaining the proliferation of AU stories... But if that same theory is put toward proving that it's about objectification of the boys, we're back to the root of my quandary."

What's funny is that fic (good fic) is almost never about objectifying them. They may occasionally objectify each other, but the writers in this fandom are firmly committed to them as real people, with real lives and relationships. I'm so glad they're taken seriously, when so little of what they do in actual real life has been given the same treatment.

[livejournal.com profile] mimesere predicted I'd be a JoLa girl on the first night. I mean, Lance took no actual falling on my part, which is interesting because he wasn't even there that weekend, but she called it before I even knew what that word meant. But while that has become and remained my OTP, I, too, am "100% love" when it comes to the boys, their love, this fandom. It's been a wonderful year, and I hope to commemorate many more.

Date: July 27th, 2003 03:20 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] without-me.livejournal.com
What's funny is that fic (good fic) is almost never about objectifying them. They may occasionally objectify each other, but the writers in this fandom are firmly committed to them as real people, with real lives and relationships. I'm so glad they're taken seriously, when so little of what they do in actual real life has been given the same treatment.

I like you "".

Date: July 28th, 2003 02:29 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com
Whee! *mwah* Right back at you, darling.

Strangely appropriate quote for today, too. I actually wrote it before the kerfufflage reached my inbox. See, I draw my distinctions like so: celebrities do have a public image, a persona they present to the masses, every time they appear at an industry function, release an album, what have you. But they also have private lives, something which it boggles me to think people also feel entitled to. Writing fanfiction, to people who see it for what it is (as its name inherently implies), are like photographers on the red carpet, whereas [livejournal.com profile] ginmar was claiming we were the tabloid photographers who hide in their bushes and make up stories around what they capture on film. In much more colorful terms. I made it through that post three lines at a time because I had to stop and blink and ask my puppy on my lap if she was actually being serious.

And really now, as [livejournal.com profile] copracat so ingeniously said, what's the worst we usually say about/do to them, anyhow? Ooh, they put on great shows, have mind-blowing sex, and are still together for reunion tours fifteen years down the line. Yeah, we deserve to be classed with the scum of the earth.

Or something. *shakes her head*

Date: July 27th, 2003 04:32 pm (UTC)
copracat: dreamwidth vera (Default)
From: [personal profile] copracat
Your *nsync love is one fine thing. It makes me smile.

Date: July 28th, 2003 02:36 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com
Your *nsync love is one fine thing.

Aaaw, thank you! It's sweet of you to say so. I do pretty well with getting past the squeeing teenie within most of the time. But it is so much more than that, and if it's possible to love people you've never actually met, then I do love them all.

And dude, your response to the RPS kerfuffle was absolutely ingenious. What is the worst we usually say about them in fic? They have good performances, even better sex, and sometimes even finally attain happiness. Yeah, we've signed our own ticket to the ninth circle. *rolls eyes*

Date: July 29th, 2003 08:26 pm (UTC)
copracat: dreamwidth vera (moreRPS)
From: [personal profile] copracat
And dude, your response to the RPS kerfuffle was absolutely ingenious.

Ingenious! Cool. :) Thanks.

The word ingenious makes me think of trying to start a League of Extraordinary Slashers meme but that could be kerfuffle city. So, perhaps not!

Date: July 27th, 2003 08:40 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] popfantastic.livejournal.com
Awww. *happysigh* Fond memories. And, yo, hi-larious pictures. (And if this posts twice, thank LJ's stupid database.)

Date: July 28th, 2003 02:39 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com
Fond memories indeed. *hugs* I dearly hope to catch you at one of these gatherings again soon.

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