Question

[sombrefan]

Did the bitterness and hatred of the shippers wars during Buffy season 6 and 7 give rise to the slow death of the online fandom?

Comments

[wondersheep.livejournal.com]

I think it was just the symptom of the peaking of the fandom. Fandoms do have half-lives of popularity, after all.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

Are you asking because it's been so quiet recently?

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

First of all, I think the news about the patient's death are highly exaggerated.

Second, I think that the current fandom goes on mostly on shipper fuel. The most active discussions I see on different boards are related to shipping. The majority of fics, no matter where they are posted, are shippy.

[sueworld2003.livejournal.com]

No what slows down a fandom is the show ending, nothing else. Shipping is one of the things that actually go to help keep a fandom alive rather then kill it. *g*

[kuzibah.livejournal.com]

I'm with sueworld. No matter how devoted you are to a show, eventually you just feel like there's no new ground to cover.

[esmerelda-t.livejournal.com]

I agree with everyone else, people move on to new things, I was out of the fandom really within six months of Angel ending.

[twilightofmagic.livejournal.com]

What happens in other fandoms whose shows have ended? Buffy/Angel was my first and only. Isn't the Star Trek fandom still alive in some form? Asking. I don't know.

[kuzibah.livejournal.com]

Star Trek does tend to lie a bit fallow when there are no new shows/movies coming out, but there hasn't been more than a year or two between Trek projects on awhile, and the success of the J.J. Abrams film has injected some new excitement.

[kuzibah.livejournal.com]

Actually, to answer your broader question, people do remain fans, but the activity slows down. Less fan activity/discussion/product is produced, although people still consider themselves fans. I go to a lot of conventions, and fans still show up to see actors and other people involved in their favorite movies and shows, even ones like Babylon 5 and Xena: Warrior Princess that haven't had new projects in some time. I see the same thing happening with Buffy. James Marsters and Nick Brendan will probably be making appearances at cons for as long as they want to, but there won't necessarily be panel discussions about the show.

[twilightofmagic.livejournal.com]

Buffy/Angel's an interesting case as Joss Whedon was also a celebrity as much as the actors and in a way, even moreso. Many fans of BtVS/AtS seem to drift on to Firefly/Serenity and then Dollhouse plus the comics although I do get the impression that it was the male contingent that moved on, leaving a largely female fandom writing and reading fanfiction and meta for Buffy and Angel.

[kuzibah.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't say so. Fandon has always made celebrities out of writers/creators. George Lucas, Gene Roddenberry, Sam Raimi, Jim Henson, Terry Nation, Russell T. Davies, and Michael Straczynski are or were as big or bigger than Whedon. I do think Whedon is unusual in that his follow-up projects have garnered a fan following (although apparently not enough of one.) He's also unusual in that his follow-up projects are actually good, so that might be a big factor.

As for why there are more female fans, that's hard to say. Buffy seemed to corrospond to a big influx of women into fandom in general, but whether that was Buffy specifically, the rise of the internet, larger generational changes, or something else is hard to say. I have seen a lot of Buffy fans migrate to other properties, but these seem to be largely female-fan-based, too (Torchwood, for instance.) Perhaps that's a topic for someone with more spare time than I to look into.