Aww, I love your story! I'm so glad you found fandom at just the right time for you!
The first time I ever visited a dealer's room at a slash con, in 2002, it was filled to the brim with fanworks being sold: zines, vids, art, and all sorts of products like buttons and clothing.
See, I think this is another thing--I've never been in meatspace fannish spaces (except for meeting up with fannish friends a couple of times). I've never been to cons or anything like that. So the commercialization just wasn't there in my (exclusively online) experience.
So I agree with [personal profile] verity that, if it hadn't been for legal reasons, fanworks would probably have been commercialized before now.
I agree. I think the gift culture thing arose mostly because of legal fears.
While we're totting up motives for commercializing fanworks, I hope we won't forget financial need. I've heard that this can be a big motive in the case of some marginalized fanfic writers
Yeah, a few of us talked about that somewhere upthread. My own (very unrealistic) feelings are that we should work hard to unionize and get people paying living-wage jobs so that they have time to create fanworks for fun, but in the meantime, I realize that's not an answer to immediate need.
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The first time I ever visited a dealer's room at a slash con, in 2002, it was filled to the brim with fanworks being sold: zines, vids, art, and all sorts of products like buttons and clothing.
See, I think this is another thing--I've never been in meatspace fannish spaces (except for meeting up with fannish friends a couple of times). I've never been to cons or anything like that. So the commercialization just wasn't there in my (exclusively online) experience.
So I agree with [personal profile] verity that, if it hadn't been for legal reasons, fanworks would probably have been commercialized before now.
I agree. I think the gift culture thing arose mostly because of legal fears.
While we're totting up motives for commercializing fanworks, I hope we won't forget financial need. I've heard that this can be a big motive in the case of some marginalized fanfic writers
Yeah, a few of us talked about that somewhere upthread. My own (very unrealistic) feelings are that we should work hard to unionize and get people paying living-wage jobs so that they have time to create fanworks for fun, but in the meantime, I realize that's not an answer to immediate need.