A brief tirade against Bronycon · 5:32am Dec 23rd, 2012
Okay people. I just watched the trailer for the Bronycon documentary, and I noticed something that really bugs the crap out of me.
So, at the convention, as with all cons, you see artists of all types being showcased. Artists like John Joseco, amateur VA's like RinaChan, musicians like Mandopony, EurobeatBrony and the like. All these artists got their moment in the spotlight, and deservedly so. They are extremely talented, and deserve every ounce of adoration they get.
But where was AstheticB? Why no nterviews with Pandora Prancypants? How come we don't get to hear about the latest plans for Imploding Colon, midnightshadow, or Loyal2Luna?
Why not? Because, as we all know, fan fiction is nothing but shameless self-insert clop written by pathetic neck beards who live in their parents basement writing stories about Rainbow Dash falling in love with their OC alicorn.
Why is fan fiction always relegated to the bottom of the bin? No, wait, scratch that. It's not even IN the bin! Anytime you hear about fan made content, you hear all about animation, music, and artwork. But you never hear about fan made fiction. Why? I'm not talking about half the crap that gets in the featured box. I'm talking about people like the above authors, who spend countless hours slaving over the keyboard making our work as good as we can make it. That true artists of the printed medium never get recognition is a damn tragedy.
And before you even say it, no, I'm NOT talking about myself. I fully realize that I'm not some master artisan. I'm good, and I work my ass of to be as good as I can, but I'm not good enough to get printed. Stories like The Immortal Game, Flight of The Alicorn, if you removed any reference to pony, they could easily be published. they have the level of polish that most only dream of. But, will THEY get a booth in Artist's alley at Bronycon? Will THEY get recognized in the documentary?
God damn shame.
It's an unfortunate truth, unless by some miracle, Hasbro decides to make a publishing division for novels then you can forget about fanfic authors getting respect.
Before the internet, fan made fics were published in magazines and that sometimes spring boarded people. Nowadays that doesn't happen.
Think about Star Wars, Star Trek, and W40K novels. They are all essentially fanfics, but published and controlled by the license.
I guess the bottom line is, if your not a published, you are not considered a legitimate author.
it's a pity, but writers get no respect.
Who's the guy who made Casablanca so great? tell me.
You can't, can you.
What about Citizen Cane? Silence of the Lambs? It's A Wonderful Life?
Nope.
It's never the director, or the actors, or even the producer, it's the writer, slaving away at a poorly designed desk, hoping to get their name in half-millimeter high block lettering on the back of a great movie.
It's disgraceful. every single writer for a movie is just carrying the likes of the half-retarded Michael Bay, or the Pretzel-obsessed M. Night Shyamalamalmalma.
It's an unfair world where only the weakest get notoriety, this media.
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True, a lot is crap.
But the same could be said of any art. For crying out loud, go to Deviant Art or FurAffinity! You're gonna see 90% crap! But does that mean the remaining 10% should be ignored? No!
The problem is that fan fiction is the type of creative work with the lowest barrier to entry of any fandom. As a result, tons and tons of shit gets made on a regular basis. I believe Yahtzee said it best, it is best to assume that fanfiction is shit until it proves itself otherwise. You are right, people are just jaded against it.
The other thing as well is that nowadays, people respond much better to visual media than print media, and it makes alot of sense that they would focus on it. It's a sad but true fact. The attention span of the average person is next to nothing, and looking at pretty pictures or funny animations is much, much easier than reading even the best our fandom has to offer. (I know you don't personally care for it alot, but I thoroughly enjoyed Background Pony. The second half of chapters are rather... thought provoking, I will say.)
If we are judging fanfiction by the standard of r63 Sweetie Bell on Spike rapefics, then we need to start judging art by the standard of the dudes who draw piles of futaponi porn and music by the standard of the guys who make nothing but terrible dubstep that gets uploaded to youtube with a cursory pony image background.
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Actually, even stories in the star wars universe and the other mediums you presented are looked down upon.
Basically if a form of media exists before additional written content, the written content is looked down upon.
The same can be said in reverse however. If you favorite book gets turned into a movie, you expect less from the movie.
If your favorite movie has extra books, most people do not go out and read them unless they came first.The reason is because the draw for a movie is that it is a movie, anything in addition is less by comparison to the original.
It works both ways but there are a few problems with writing compared to other mediums in fan groups.
1) Fan fiction is a haste to print, it comes out free already so people why buy a story are basically donating money for something they have.
2) Additionally, where music and visual arts can be sold for profit without much hassle, anything with a story has the potential to rise above or bring down any subject category and is thus cracked down on more. A lot of convention take limiting liability to be the primary
3) Talking about the written word is a time commitment to a complex medium. You can listen to something for 5 minutes and have a 10 second or 2 hour conversation about it and be satisfied. Written stories lend themselves to more depth and explanation.
I would think (and I'm not trying to discredit our medium) it's because anyone can write a story. Not everyone can write a good story obviously, but the same words used by all those good authors are available to me, you, joe shit the rag man, and anyone else who gets a wild idea one day and wants to write a story. Art takes practice, patience, and very few people are just naturally good at it.
Like you said, look at the sheer number of new fics being added to this site daily. 90 percent of them are written by lonely teenagers in highschool with no idea what pacing, development, dialogue or any fundamental writing basics are, or how to effectively impliment them in a story. Everyone knows when art sucks. It's pretty obvious. But to draw ponies or make PMV's you need an understanding of the software, or the vector program, or just being good with traditional mediums like pen and paper. With writing, the barriers to entry are relatively low. Hell, this site gives you everything you need to get started on your 'anon goes to Equestria and fucks everything possible' fapfic that will (given enough variations of the words penis, vagina, thrusting and moist) will most definitely end up in the feature box.
That's my thoughts on why, anyway. And I seem to recall they had an author panel at one con, I want to say it was Bronycon in NJ but I could be wrong.
All I know to be true is this:
1) Writing is a thankless job.
2) People will always criticize you even if they're wrong or have been proven wrong countless times.
3) Writers should never stop writing.
Can you name the screenwriters of your three favorite movies?
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You all make excellent points. But MY point still stands. In a fandom that has been propelled to the great heights it has been based strongly on fan generated content, why are lovingly crafted works of printed art not highlighted? Even if I understand why, I still say the organizers of these cons should make a effort to shine a light on the better amongst us. Why not have a panel where we gather the better authors amongst us? Not the EqD pre-readers, but the actual authors. Why not? I know it's not common practice, but this is a very uncommon fandom. We should be doing this.
Hell, Guesswork, Daylight Burning should have its own freaking panel!
640788 really, if fancomic writers can attend, why should a fanfic writer be left out. It's discrimination!
I couldn't agree more, Jake. And to build on MayoJar's point, a lot of the success of FiM, whether people realize it or not, is because of the excellent writing. Writers who are able to work to that comparable level of quality should be celebrated just like everypony else at these cons. It is not just a skill, but a talent, to accomplish that since we're all outsiders to Hasbro here.
Eh. Not really. While the barriers to writing are extremely low in number, not everyone can write a song. Having taken plenty of music theory classes, it takes a combination of skill, diplomacy, and bold caution to write a decent melody, only to know that it's going to be changed if the alto, tenor, and bass lines don't fit it or the chords are just wacky and don't make sense.
Now, anyone can create dubstep. Literally anyone. So it's better to say "people can stick a bunch of chords together and call it music" even though the validiity of the statement is wholly false.
Don't worry. The higher-ups are working on it.
I don't want to say I disagree with you, because it IS true, Fanfiction tends to get relagated to a low priority (in ALL fandoms). I guess, ultimately, in my opinion, it has far less to do with the content of the work, and far more to do with today's media driven society.
Videos, music, pictures, and visually pleasing art (regardless of medium) is much easier for the media outlets, magazines, news programs, and ultimately a video documentary to get across to viewers. There are always time and space constraints, and a wall of text, even a review of an awesome wall of text supposedly doesn't garner public attention. Unfortunately, we aren't in charge of that, the supposed cinematography and advertising executives are.
I understand your pain, but the good writers DO entertain, they get recognized by the right people or by making the right connections sometimes. They get their day in the spotlight, and they deserve it. It would be nice to be more, but sometimes that just isn't meant to be.
Note: I would like to point out that we only saw the trailer for the documentary so far. There is another section that was supposed to have a heavy reservation in the documentary, the Military Bronies. And we didn't show up in the trailer either. Maybe there IS a tip of the hat to Fanfiction in there. I would like to see it. But until we all can watch it, we're just guessing.
It's a shame that fiction writing gets such a bad rep. But alas, there isn't much we can do. We endure, and we carry on.
You have to be literate to enjoy fan-fiction.
I don't mean that as derogatory, but instead to make a point. You have to love words to enjoy fan-fiction, and you have to have a vast imagination to paint the stories in your mind that the author has presented to you as n idea.
Unfortunately, too many people these days are illiterate. Oh, more people can read than at any time in history... but less people love words, and the power in them.