02 February 2009 @ 03:10 am
Anderson Cooper is in ur dumpster, saving ur world.  
And now, in other slightly irrelevant, utterly frivolous news:

New layout!

[livejournal.com profile] charlie_d_blue


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Also, an insta!Rec: Souvenirs by [livejournal.com profile] tearful_eye.

It's been around for a few weeks now, but for anyone who watches Life, is vaguely intrigued as to what this Life show lark is that everyone's talking about, or just in general enjoys a beautifully crafted, intense, rockin' vid, take a look. It's only a minute long.

And in non sequitur conclusion:

After reading all the brilliant pundits-meta over at the journals of [livejournal.com profile] bessemerprocess and [livejournal.com profile] sarken, I scribbled down some:



One of the reasons I adore political and pundit fandom so damn much? Apart from everything else that is wondrous and awesome (and made of impossible bumblebees, sparkly unicorns, lollipops, soapboxes and bantery coffee) about it, there is the fact that it is so much more open to the naturalized incorporation of actual ongoing international affairs and political process than pretty much any other fandom, West Wing included. (In West Wing, it is trickier to employ real news, because so much of it relates to the Bush/Obama presidencies, which are not canon in the West Wing. That is not to say that certain things, or even Bush and Obama cannot be incorporated, only that it takes much more skill and very careful manipulation of presidential timelines to make it believable.)

On the other hand, writing about real life pundits and presidents? Being able to using real, ongoing issues and events - for me at least - adds a whole new dimension to a fic, because now it is not only engaging on the level of having characters adapted from real life personas, but also from the extrapolation of the status and possible consequences of political affairs and phenomena that affect me, as a human being and a citizen of the world.

A lot of pundit fics do not focus on politics at all, and that 's fine, in fact, a lot of the time, it's much better and more enjoyable than plot-based fic, but the brilliant thing about this fandom is that politics, the broad, all-encompassing issues of the socio-politico-geographical world, that is our context, that is our canon and that is the highly influential background of the pundits.

And maybe it's just me, but that is precisely why this fandom is swiftly becoming one of, if not the most impressive I have ever encountered.

Photobucket

Peace out.

 
 
theme song: love lockdown - kanye west
 
 
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ext_15055[identity profile] irenak.livejournal.com on February 2nd, 2009 07:28 pm (UTC)
Life! Huzzah! This is totally my ninja fandom, slowly taking over my flist one obscure fruit reference at a time.

I have to say as someone who's only peripherally involved with political fandom, I'm absolutely fascinated by it. I think it's partially because, well, these are Real Live People, doing Real Live Things and getting fanboy-ed/girl-ed as a result. It's not something you expect from geek culture, let alone from late Gen X-ers and Gen Y, who all very much have a reputation for being disengaged (though not always deservedly so). It's exciting to see people engage on this level, especially after experiencing such an extended period of time frustrated with the political process, rather than inspired by it.

Also, the fact that it's so utterly embraced the lulzy-ness of it all slays me. Fandoms with a sense of humor about themselves tend to be a rarity, so it's nice to see one that doesn't take itself so seriously.
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charlie-d-blue.livejournal.com[identity profile] charlie-d-blue.livejournal.com on February 3rd, 2009 12:41 am (UTC)
Lingonberry!

I like what you said, because it encapsulates exactly how I feel about political fandom. It actually engages people in the real world, in political process, and such is the nature of fandom that very rarely do little things, that might one day have far reaching consequences, go unnoticed.

And oh yes, everyone is so friendly and open and fully ready to laugh at themselves at the drop of a hat. I feel like politics inspired the fandom, which then inspires an even deeper interest in politics, and so on and so forth until one day we're all gonna inevitably end up ruling the governments of the world and writing fanfic about ourselves. ;)
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