Fandoms of Potentia and Fandoms of Re, by mikkeneko@tumblr

[magistrate]

I'm posting this here because I want to reference it in a post I want to write, and my experience of linking to / bookmarking things on Tumblr tells me that Tumblr is even less of a persistent medium than the rest of the internet. To give credit as best I can, though, the original URL (as of this post's date) is this post on mikkeneko's tumblr, and the participants in the conversation are mikkeneko and bitchjerked. None of the below are my words.

Credit to storyinmypocket for linking me to the post in the first place; it is very nice to have words to describe phenomena.

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bitchjerked:

do you ever get mad because there’s so much wasted potential in characters and relationships and plotlines in some shows

mikkeneko:

i basically divide up fandoms of continuing media into Fandoms Of Potentia and Fandoms Of Re.

i’m still developing this theory, but it sort of goes like this: there are some pieces of media that attract enormous followings not necessarily for what they are, but what the watchers think they could be, and build castles basically on those dreams of potential.

whereas a fandom of re is a fandom of what the work is, oftentimes a finished work to which no more will be added, which has proven itself in entirety.

And the interesting thing to me is that Fandoms Of Potentia are oftentimes bigger than Fandoms Of Re, bigger and more active, and there’s a couple of reasons for that – one is that a finished work leaves less room to add onto, and a finished work also leaves less need to add onto. The primary driver of fandom works is incompleteness, whether because the work is not yet finished or because it is finished in a way that the audience feels is incomplete.

Fandoms of potentia also have the bigger drama, because the fact is, not every content creator is up to living up to the potential the fans see. Creators are only human after all. So when the story doesn’t live up to the big finish the fans dreamed of, there’s a lot of disappointment, anger and hurt. You see less of that with Fandoms Of Re.

I guess where I’m going with this, is that whenever I see a huge fandom gathering for a work that I think is absolutely not deserving of it, I stop to ask myself whether it might be a Fandom Of Potentia. In which case, they’re fans of something I don’t see at all – they’re fans of the dreams of what might be.

Comments

[rionaleonhart]

Goodness me, I can't think of a single fandom that fits this 'Fandoms of Potentia' concept.

(I'm definitely more likely to write fanfiction if I consume something and go 'that was an enjoyable mess!' rather than 'that was great!')

[magistrate]

Man, no. I mean, it's such a fascinating concept, but certainly one I've never interacted with on a personal level in all of my ficwriting career. Ahem.

[sholio]

Absolutely. xparrot and I have talked quite a bit about this, actually! The things that really get most people's creative engines going (and tend to attract the biggest fandoms) are the ones that are almost there, but not quite. The canon needs to have enough gaps to insert creativity into. If it's complete and satisfying, there's just not nearly as much urge to write about it; there's not that nagging sense of things left undone. (Which I think is one reason why book fandoms tend to attract me less than media fandoms, in general. They're a lot more fully developed and personal and generally just don't provide as many cracks to get a toehold on.)

[indywind]

Yes!

Almost there but not quite is my (and I suspect many fans') sweet spot for being fannish about a source, that is, getting creatively/emotionally inspired. A necessary balance of in potentia hooks that it suggests but doesn't develop, and in in re hooks that it does develop, or offer complete from the outset. And of course it's all very individual -- where the balance point is (more developed content or more imaginative space), what are fannable characteristics/draws/hooks for that person (or call them 'kinks' a la kinkfinders comm), whether/how those are perceived in the source -- but also social, in that those very individual relationships can be shared with and influenced by others, to form a Fandom Consensus about the source. Including, most relevantly to the present discussion, whether or how much the source is fulfilling its potential. Which depends implicitly on what fans conceive of as potential.


This is a really intriguing take and set of concepts (obviously thought-provoking for me, ha!). I think Mikkineko is especially on-point in calling them "Fandoms of Re" and "Fandoms of Potentia" -- because it situates the Re and Potentia in either the relationship a fan has with the source ( "fandom" in the sense of "my childhood fandom for Wonder Woman never really ended") or the group of fans and their consensus ("fandom" in the sense of "Wonder Woman fandom had a lot to say about the recent movie"), and not in the sources the way Bitchjerked's comment implies. (I would guess bitchjerked personally tends toward the preference-for-more-developed content end of the spectrum, at least regarding the hooks or kinks they were thinking of when wrote that comment.)


Whenever I see a huge fandom gathering for a work I don't see the appeal in (*), I also think those fans are seeing something I don't --- but could equally well be their dreams of what might be, or a different perspective of or relationship to the content that actually exists. If their fannish hooks are really different from my fannish hooks, they could be Fans of Re for an aspect of the source that is for me irrelevant or a turn-off. (* I'm not very comfortable calling a source undeserving of fandom, largely because of recognizing different tastes and perspectives are valid (unless they're so unredeemably odious that finding enjoyment in them is dangerously antisocial, which gets into much bigger and heavier issues).)



Tangentially I wonder, if the right hooks for fans' tastes are present, and sufficient satisfyingly developed content (for fandom of Re) and undeveloped space for imaginative engagement (for Fandom of Potentia), to invite fandom ... is there another dimension of the relationship between the source and the fans that disinvites fandom? That promotes a response of, like, "I can see why someone might be really into this-- by the numbers, I ought to be really into this, but, eh, I just don't care" ...? I mean that we can identify in a broad conceptual way, not personal idiosyncracy or squicks; and apart from the source being problematic?
Probably a musing for another time.

[sholio]

Yes, exactly! I think that balance is necessary, because if there's nothing there to work with, there's not enough to inspire people to want to fill the gaps, but if it's all there ... ditto. I think arguably a big fandom can't be for anything that's really, truly good ... at least in the sense of being well written and satisfying all the way through.

Like you pointed out, it's highly subjective anyway. Everything has some fans -- "well written and satisfying" (as well as being in the eye of the beholder) isn't going to stop a few people from wanting fic, and even the worst shows have at least a few fans (probably latching onto something in the character relationships or premise that others don't see, like you said). But there is definitely a sort of middle ground where fannishly seductive relationships and characters exist on the show, and are developed well enough to pull people in, but are just "not quite there" enough that a large number of people want to write about them.

... is there another dimension of the relationship between the source and the fans that disinvites fandom? That promotes a response of, like, "I can see why someone might be really into this-- by the numbers, I ought to be really into this, but, eh, I just don't care" ...? I mean that we can identify in a broad conceptual way, not personal idiosyncracy or squicks; and apart from the source being problematic?

That's a really good question ... I started to suggest some things (like ongoing plot vs. plot-of-the-week making it harder for fans to squeeze into the gaps in canon, or shows dropping all at once a la Netflix vs. being strung out for fans to speculate about and write about), but if you look at the top fandoms on AO3, it's a mix of wildly different stuff. (Er, aside from the M/M aspect, which seems to be pretty consistent in the true megafandoms.)

... and I have more to say about this, but I gotta run! Hopefully later.

[magistrate]

[Whenever I see a huge fandom gathering for a work I don't see the appeal in (*), I also think those fans are seeing something I don't --- but could equally well be their dreams of what might be, or a different perspective of or relationship to the content that actually exists. If their fannish hooks are really different from my fannish hooks, they could be Fans of Re for an aspect of the source that is for me irrelevant or a turn-off.]

One of my weirdest fandom-in-the-Re-sense experiences was coming to a work of fiction, enjoying it, falling desperately, deeply in love with one particular aspect of it... and then later finding out that that aspect ran explicitly counter to the author's intentions, and was bucked in later installments. I still have a viscerally negative reaction to that particular work, despite having enjoyed it when I read it first, and despite there not being anything wrong with it, per se.

The author-work-reader relationship is so weird and fascinating.

[indywind]

Isn't that the truth!

This wondering was prompted for me by wanting to be fannish about something, but not getting hooked --not by sources that are big fandoms for others (which, meh, not too surprising, my tastes are not usually well aligned with majority) but also not things I really thought I'd be more into.

Depressive anhedonia is probably a part of it for me--I'm having a harder time getting really into many things I'd expect to enjoy, not just media sources, and I've had a coincident upswing in other depression symptoms. But I have the sense that it's not just my brain being wacky, because I am enjoying some things, including some media sources. Just not they way I'd've expected.

A sudden change in the balance between Re and Potentia, or hooks or development in Re, like happened with you, seems like an obvious potential fandom-breaker (or fandom-igniter, for someone who finds the change an improvement). It's why I was initially pretty fannish about Marvel Comics Movie Universe, but stopped being fannishly invested after the Winter Soldier, even though Spider Man: Homecoming and Black Panther should have grabbed me if the rest of the extended fandom sources didn't.

[magistrate]

Yess. I think I've rambled at you about it a bit, too – considering that Fandoms of Potentia make up roughly 100% of my fandom engagement. (Or, as I like to say, 80% of my fiction writing is driven by spite.) But it's really cool to have actual terms for it, instead of just kludging around "canons need to hit this sweet spot where there's a whole lot of stuff I love and a whole lot of stuff I need to be better" every time I want to talk about a thing. And mikkeneko provides!

[sholio]

That's right, we have talked about that, haven't we? :D

Xparrot calls them Type A and Type B fandoms. I forget off the top of my head which is which, but basically that's her personal shorthand for the ones that are complete and satisfying by themselves, and the ones that require fanfic to make them a satisfying experience. Fandoms of Potentia is a much better all-around term, though!

... though I don't understand Fandoms of Re. The words, I mean; the concept came through just fine. What does Re mean, in that context?

[magistrate]

I'm not altogether sure, but my sense is it's a Latin re / res thing. The fact of the matter, the thing which is, that which exists and not that which is posited?

[sholio]

Ah, that makes sense! (Also, I realized after I'd already posted the question that since you're not the one who coined it, there's not necessarily any reason why you'd know what it means any more than I do ... XD)