Great post! This is excellent advice, and sorely needed.
One thing I'd add, especially for Glee fans: remember, fandom is for the FANS. Fandom is *our* space to create what we want, and to connect with other fans about our favorite stuff. The actors -- as sweet and supportive and friendly and approachable as they seem -- are NOT fandom. There is nothing intrinsically shameful about anything we do, be it fanfic, fan art, vidding, whatever -- even RPF -- but, well, it's OUR stuff. And yeah, it's on the Internet, available for all to see. But fandom is a specific community context, with its own history and norms. Sometimes actors seek fandom out, but that's their own call -- everybody's entitled to engage with fandom in their own way, and that includes the actors. But it's not really appropriate for fans to try and bring fannish stuff to their attention -- that's not allowing other people (the actors) to control their own fandom experiences.
As someone who's been in, like, a gazillion RPF fandoms (RPF tends to bring out these issues most clearly), the people who had the most fun -- and were best at avoiding the crazy -- were those who treated the actors not as the "object" of their fandoms per se, but rather as *vectors* for communicating with other fans. If your fannish goals are centered upon some kind of imagined connection with the actors, that way lies disappointment and madness. But if your fannish goals are about having fun with other fans, with creating stories and art and meta and squee and what have you with others, through the medium of your chosen fandom/pairing/character, you'll have a much better time.
Does that make sense? I feel like I didn't communicate that very clearly. :)
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One thing I'd add, especially for Glee fans: remember, fandom is for the FANS. Fandom is *our* space to create what we want, and to connect with other fans about our favorite stuff. The actors -- as sweet and supportive and friendly and approachable as they seem -- are NOT fandom. There is nothing intrinsically shameful about anything we do, be it fanfic, fan art, vidding, whatever -- even RPF -- but, well, it's OUR stuff. And yeah, it's on the Internet, available for all to see. But fandom is a specific community context, with its own history and norms. Sometimes actors seek fandom out, but that's their own call -- everybody's entitled to engage with fandom in their own way, and that includes the actors. But it's not really appropriate for fans to try and bring fannish stuff to their attention -- that's not allowing other people (the actors) to control their own fandom experiences.
As someone who's been in, like, a gazillion RPF fandoms (RPF tends to bring out these issues most clearly), the people who had the most fun -- and were best at avoiding the crazy -- were those who treated the actors not as the "object" of their fandoms per se, but rather as *vectors* for communicating with other fans. If your fannish goals are centered upon some kind of imagined connection with the actors, that way lies disappointment and madness. But if your fannish goals are about having fun with other fans, with creating stories and art and meta and squee and what have you with others, through the medium of your chosen fandom/pairing/character, you'll have a much better time.
Does that make sense? I feel like I didn't communicate that very clearly. :)