On drama marathons and anime fandom
Jan. 26th, 2005 11:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tarigwaemirBlair Hall Apts., on the Feast of St. Paula
We finished 대장금 this morning. The last two episodes were silly (not to mention the video place completely ripped us off by putting only one episode on the last two videos) but hey, a series that manages to keep a story clever, new, interesting and coherent for the first 53 episodes is definitely worth recommending. ^_^ For me, there's always a turning point in the drama marathon where I finally get fed up and only keep watching for the sake of finishing off the series, and I think I tend to judge the quality of the drama by the position and degree of this turning point (also known as "drama fatigue"). For Autumn Story, it was about halfway through the series. For Love Story at Harvard, it was after the third episode (yes, I have amazing tolerance). For Lovers in Paris, it was episode 18 (two away from the end). Never have I lasted so long in a marathon before!--of course it helped that I had a month-long break in the middle of watching. I think marathoning is a very different experience from watching a drama the normal way, one episode at a time. There's a certain hysteria involved, not to mention the prolonged exposure to the essence that is the TV drama in concentrated form (I think it's wrong, by the way, to equate dramas with soaps; they definitely have soap opera plots but there's a significant cultural gap that makes the viewing experience different, at least for me). In any case, it's almost the ultimate survival test for the drama's story: can it hold the weary, befuddled audience's interest in the near-continuous consumption? I mean, cliffhangers sustain the marathon because it's what keeps us changing videos instead of going to sleep like sane people, but it doesn't necessarily sustain interest because there is no time for curiosity to build up. Delayed satisfaction is always sweeter, no? ^_^ Anyway, "drama fatigue" is definitely a marathoning phenomenon. The dramas we watch normally on KTV are often terrible but we watch them anyway because my parents don't have anything else they want to watch (there is, alas, only one Korean-language channel), and I have no control over the remote. >_>
And now for something completely different: I've realized how lucky I am to have real-life friends who at the very least understand fandom, even if they don't participate in it. Of course, when it comes to my high school friends, they were the ones tocorrupt convert me anyway. I followed them into slash, into anime, into fanfiction and finally into LJ. On the other hand, I've been especially fortunate to find so many people at college who are also fandom-savvy, to varying degrees. (Not everyone has the same opinion of fandom in its predominantly female, LJ-occupying manifestation, but either they enjoy anime or Harry Potter or fanfiction or at least understand the concept without being too scandalized. ^_^ Although I've had some interesting AIM conversations with a college classmate who wanted to know why girls went for pretty, emasculated male characters.) I guess a part of it has to do with being in the kendo club--I mean, knowing what kendo is usually involves a certain interest in Japanese culture--and also perhaps with simply getting along with people who tend to obsess over fictional creations. >_> Did I tell you that the P.I. of my lab (an utterly cool person in so many ways) watches anime with her son? I say, it's just a little uncanny sometimes.
I've been wondering though whether I would ever have discovered anime or fandom if I wasn't friends with Tryo-chan and Lydia. I had friends in seventh grade who watched anime, but I took it as a given that anime was one of those conversation topics that I wouldn't understand, along with rock bands and clothes. My concept of Internet fandom prior to the whole discovery of fanfiction was the Tolkien message boards on AOL, which took the form of online toga parties and Gandalf Grey crayons and quote-sharing. (There were also intense discussions on Tolkien and [lack of] allegory and many, many beautiful poems, but the toga parties definitely took up the majority of the posts. ^_^) It's very odd, really, to consider the might-have-beens. But I think that, despite the fact that fandom has become a major distraction and a source of the blight on my GPA, things turned out for the best. I mean, forgive the lapse into sentimentality, but LJ and fandom allows me to form friendships with people of different ages, living in different places (sometimes halfway across the globe!), and that's meant a lot to me.
But going back to the actual point, I've been strangely fortunate in that people who discover my LJ don't embarrass me about it. I mean, there was an incident once when an underclassman snooped through my LJ and then told me at Science Club that I was weird, but everyone knows I'm weird, and I don't think he really understood the more fandom-involved posts anyway. But I have to admit that there are definitely a few RL people that I wouldn't want snooping around my LJ. My parents, for one (although luckily, they dislike reading long English passages in small font, enough said). And...well, I don't really have much to friends-lock; I think I pretty much blather everything I write into my LJ to everyone I meet regularly in real-life as well. (Actually, that's one of the reasons why I want to know whether RL people read my LJ or not: to avoid the repetition. >_>) It puzzles me, this bizarre luck of mine in meeting the same sort of people--I certainly didn't have it in elementary school--and sometimes my superstitious streak starts speaking portentously, "It must be fate!--to be a fangirl!" ^_^ (Yes, my superstitious streak is utterly ridiculous and knows it.)
Yours &c.
We finished 대장금 this morning. The last two episodes were silly (not to mention the video place completely ripped us off by putting only one episode on the last two videos) but hey, a series that manages to keep a story clever, new, interesting and coherent for the first 53 episodes is definitely worth recommending. ^_^ For me, there's always a turning point in the drama marathon where I finally get fed up and only keep watching for the sake of finishing off the series, and I think I tend to judge the quality of the drama by the position and degree of this turning point (also known as "drama fatigue"). For Autumn Story, it was about halfway through the series. For Love Story at Harvard, it was after the third episode (yes, I have amazing tolerance). For Lovers in Paris, it was episode 18 (two away from the end). Never have I lasted so long in a marathon before!--of course it helped that I had a month-long break in the middle of watching. I think marathoning is a very different experience from watching a drama the normal way, one episode at a time. There's a certain hysteria involved, not to mention the prolonged exposure to the essence that is the TV drama in concentrated form (I think it's wrong, by the way, to equate dramas with soaps; they definitely have soap opera plots but there's a significant cultural gap that makes the viewing experience different, at least for me). In any case, it's almost the ultimate survival test for the drama's story: can it hold the weary, befuddled audience's interest in the near-continuous consumption? I mean, cliffhangers sustain the marathon because it's what keeps us changing videos instead of going to sleep like sane people, but it doesn't necessarily sustain interest because there is no time for curiosity to build up. Delayed satisfaction is always sweeter, no? ^_^ Anyway, "drama fatigue" is definitely a marathoning phenomenon. The dramas we watch normally on KTV are often terrible but we watch them anyway because my parents don't have anything else they want to watch (there is, alas, only one Korean-language channel), and I have no control over the remote. >_>
And now for something completely different: I've realized how lucky I am to have real-life friends who at the very least understand fandom, even if they don't participate in it. Of course, when it comes to my high school friends, they were the ones to
I've been wondering though whether I would ever have discovered anime or fandom if I wasn't friends with Tryo-chan and Lydia. I had friends in seventh grade who watched anime, but I took it as a given that anime was one of those conversation topics that I wouldn't understand, along with rock bands and clothes. My concept of Internet fandom prior to the whole discovery of fanfiction was the Tolkien message boards on AOL, which took the form of online toga parties and Gandalf Grey crayons and quote-sharing. (There were also intense discussions on Tolkien and [lack of] allegory and many, many beautiful poems, but the toga parties definitely took up the majority of the posts. ^_^) It's very odd, really, to consider the might-have-beens. But I think that, despite the fact that fandom has become a major distraction and a source of the blight on my GPA, things turned out for the best. I mean, forgive the lapse into sentimentality, but LJ and fandom allows me to form friendships with people of different ages, living in different places (sometimes halfway across the globe!), and that's meant a lot to me.
But going back to the actual point, I've been strangely fortunate in that people who discover my LJ don't embarrass me about it. I mean, there was an incident once when an underclassman snooped through my LJ and then told me at Science Club that I was weird, but everyone knows I'm weird, and I don't think he really understood the more fandom-involved posts anyway. But I have to admit that there are definitely a few RL people that I wouldn't want snooping around my LJ. My parents, for one (although luckily, they dislike reading long English passages in small font, enough said). And...well, I don't really have much to friends-lock; I think I pretty much blather everything I write into my LJ to everyone I meet regularly in real-life as well. (Actually, that's one of the reasons why I want to know whether RL people read my LJ or not: to avoid the repetition. >_>) It puzzles me, this bizarre luck of mine in meeting the same sort of people--I certainly didn't have it in elementary school--and sometimes my superstitious streak starts speaking portentously, "It must be fate!--to be a fangirl!" ^_^ (Yes, my superstitious streak is utterly ridiculous and knows it.)
Yours &c.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-26 06:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-27 02:01 pm (UTC)I think soaps and dramas are also different in that their conventions are slightly different--similar clichés but a different set of them. Dramas usually have smaller casts too, I think.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-27 08:30 pm (UTC)Yeah, it seems like the stock formula for a drama is two men and two women, in various configurations. I figure I have left over hostility from wanting everyone to get together in the end in shoujo mangas, so I tend to like the ones where they end up with two couples instead of just one.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-26 11:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-27 05:12 am (UTC)2. Yay for fangirling! I have had people comment that my LJ is weird. I have also have had people say it to my face, so meh. Also, I tend to hope that normal people will not try to decipher my sometimes incoherent entries, with all the fandom specific speech and shortcuts. If it were not for the fact that those who actually read my LJ would have even less idea of what I am talking about, I would probably add japanese and chinese in my entries too.
..Wait, I already do that. Crap.
3. Oh, and another thing, I know this is kind of late, and I'll probably call you tomorrow to ask you again, but I got the "Neverwhere" TV series, and I was wondering if you wanted to borrow it. It is not very long. I mean, it is only like two DVDs or so.
O.o
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-27 02:04 pm (UTC)I always finish a series regardless of drama fatigue, but that's because we pay a lot for the darn videos, and we're not getting our money's worth if we don't finish it off. But the misery outweighs the pleasure by that point.