Some thoughts about popularity vs. quality...

[prisoner_24601]

I am constantly fascinated about what makes a story popular and how does and doesn't relate to the quality of the story in question. Sometimes the stars align and you end up with something amazing that is both popular and well written (Heroes is a good example of this). Unfortunately, it seems that far more often they don't and that something is either wildly popular and sucks ass or is freaking brilliant and criminally overlooked.

I don't really mind that the stuff that I find mediocre is popular. Although I am baffled by it, I tend to write it off as a subjective taste thing. And I also realize that not everyone is going to agree with me about what a quality piece of fiction is - and that's okay. If everyone had the same taste, that would be horrible really. And hey, as I've gotten older, my tastes have totally changed. When I was a teenager, I loved wanky romances and poorly written fantasy novels staring blatant mary sue characters, and I don't think there is anything wrong with that, but the older I got and the more that I read, the picker I've gotten. I think partially that's because the more you read, the more you realize how certain things are clichés or just ripped off of other writers who did it better in their story (yes Robert Jordan… I’m talking to you, you asshat.).

When it comes to my own personal taste - it seems like if I like whatever it is - it's doomed to early cancellation or obscurity (I like to call this the Prisoner24601 effect). I keep waiting for Battlestar Galactica to get canceled because I really love it (especially now that the wanky Starbuck/Apollo romance seems to be over).

I admit that I find it frustrating when I stumble across stuff that's so brilliant and no one is watching or reading. There are tons of examples of this in popular media and hell even in our own little tiny fandom. I mean, we live in a world where Firefly was canceled but a show like Everyone Loves Raymond (which I admit - I could never stand) was the number one show for years. In television and movies, it seems like the more bland the entertainment is, the more likely it's going to be popular.

There are some truly amazing pieces of fan fic in our community that that have been criminally overlooked (and I'm not talking about my own stuff - which I think gets a nice amount of feedback actually) or aren't even as remotely popular as they should be - and I just don't get it. It seems like if something isn't a romance, light side or fluffy, that people simply tune out. And I don't see anything wrong with people wanting those kinds of stories - it's just that I wish people would be more open to other kinds of stories too.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Comments

[prisoner--24601.livejournal.com]

You know, that's an interesting idea - although I don't know if it would work on kfm in particular, just because I can see people being all "how come my story isn't featured" and then whining ensuing.

I've thought about making a lj community just for fic recs of stuff that people think are overlooked or undervalued. People could post one rec a week - and there could be rules about it and stuff, but I'm not sure there'd be enough interest for it (or that I'm willing to put the work into something like that). And again - I can already hear the drama drama starting.

I'm really hoping some of the upcoming changes to the kfm search engine will at least help people be able to find stuff better - so if they're looking for something a bit more obscure or minus a romance or game walkthrough they'll actually be able to find it. I think that might marginally help the situation a bit.

[miakun.livejournal.com]

I had that idea for an lj comm with recs years ago. (okay like last year), but the idea kept falling through, because I think people would send me shit like "Exile LUVS ATTON" and I'd shoot them in the face.

Also I am lazy.

[prisoner--24601.livejournal.com]

Hahaha I'm too lazy to do it too. I think we should nominate someone to do all the work for us - like Pluts or Midnight Hawk and then take all the credit.

[miakun.livejournal.com]

I think I actually tried to get Pluts to do that, but she was lazy too.

Damn us!

[plutospawn.livejournal.com]

I snagged the comm name, kotoreview a jillion years ago, but don't want to go at it alone. I wanted to have a group of people review a fic maybe once a month (probably have to be someone volunteering their fic so not too much wank ensues if they get a crappy all around rating.) Because that way, it wouldn't just be my bloated opinion on things, maybe even bring in someone on the panel that likes the fluff stuff so that reviews can contradict each other.

Oh yeah. And I'm lazy.

[prisoner--24601.livejournal.com]

Because I'm such a dumbass:

kotor_recs

Come be a mod with us... you know you want too...

[maddcoffeybrown.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of a "recomend" section.

[athenaprime.livejournal.com]

We used to do something similar with the Komad Fortuna hunt - the idea was to get people reading the fics they might have missed or that were outside their usual fare. It got buggered when we couldn't search by author anymore to dig up the fics to put on the hunt.

Reccing still has its problems, because of the popularity contest aspect of it. I'm not sure there's anything much anyone can do about that--unless people are made to say *why* they recced a fic. Which wouldn't be a half bad idea. I noticed in the DCC, there were more people (self included) giving thoughtful reviews.

[prisoner--24601.livejournal.com]

I do like the idea of making people say why they're reccing a fic. That's an interesting idea. I really wish there was a good way to do this over on kfm that wouldn't cause people to freak out. Unfortunately, I can't think of a way to do it there that wouldn't start people crying.

Agreed that reccing brings a ton of problems. If I recall correctly - popularity drama, drama thing was the reason why we don't allow rec threads on the kfm boards in the first place. I'm not even sure how it would work or who'd get to do the reccing. Would it be "Moderator's Pick?" (oh man... I can already hear the whining over that) or would people in general be able to recc stuff. And what's to stop people from reccing a ton of the popular stuff - and the good, overlooked stuff getting lost in the shuffle again?

I think that's why it would almost work better as a lj community or something - that way the people who ran the reccing community would be able to have tighter control on what gets recced or not - which would be separate from the kfm stuff.