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There's lots wrong with Camille Bacon-Smith's book Enterprising Women (UPenn Press, 1992).*
*The fandom-is-interently-feminine-because-it's-about-patterns-just-like-quilting-or-childrearing!! argument is one of her low points.
Her prose makes fandom sound kind of creepy.
Here's her description (from page 179!) of a fannish party (no, gathering) where vids are being played: "When conversation lags, participants* will spend a few minutes looking at the screen, perhaps pick up a thread of conversation from the image, and turn their attention back to each other, away from the screen."
Ugh, 'participants' in a 'gathering'.
Read that again, but this time do it in a David Attenborough voice.
It's like: once the gathering's participants can no longer find words to sustain their fellowship, they will drift back to the glowing machine in the corner, whose flickering screen re-animates and sustains the geographically-contiguous interactions.
Creepy creepy creepy.
*The fandom-is-interently-feminine-because-it's-about-patterns-just-like-quilting-or-childrearing!! argument is one of her low points.
Her prose makes fandom sound kind of creepy.
Here's her description (from page 179!) of a fannish party (no, gathering) where vids are being played: "When conversation lags, participants* will spend a few minutes looking at the screen, perhaps pick up a thread of conversation from the image, and turn their attention back to each other, away from the screen."
Ugh, 'participants' in a 'gathering'.
Read that again, but this time do it in a David Attenborough voice.
It's like: once the gathering's participants can no longer find words to sustain their fellowship, they will drift back to the glowing machine in the corner, whose flickering screen re-animates and sustains the geographically-contiguous interactions.
Creepy creepy creepy.
