One of the last good rants I read on FFR before I ditched the place discussed how fanon quickly takes over a fandom to the point where fans think it's canon.
It's all a big popularity issue, really. If a fic is considered "epic" enough and garners enough worship, people will take it and its author as pure gospel. A pairing, a characterization style, a theory...if it originates in a popular fic, people follow the leader and if it gets out of hand enough, people will start to think canon is the OOC badfic and fanon is what really happened.
However, something becoming popular fanon in and of itself isn't always a bad thing. Sometimes canon leaves holes, and a fan will come up with a way to fill them that makes a lot of sense. It's when fans start acting like it's ZOMG TRUE CANON that it becomes a problem.
(Sorry, this is probably VERY clumsily worded, lol. Does it make sense?)
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Date: 2010-12-12 12:22 am (UTC)It's all a big popularity issue, really. If a fic is considered "epic" enough and garners enough worship, people will take it and its author as pure gospel. A pairing, a characterization style, a theory...if it originates in a popular fic, people follow the leader and if it gets out of hand enough, people will start to think canon is the OOC badfic and fanon is what really happened.
However, something becoming popular fanon in and of itself isn't always a bad thing. Sometimes canon leaves holes, and a fan will come up with a way to fill them that makes a lot of sense. It's when fans start acting like it's ZOMG TRUE CANON that it becomes a problem.
(Sorry, this is probably VERY clumsily worded, lol. Does it make sense?)