Fractured Fandom

Going to keep this short because, damn, I’m tired. And I have another long day tomorrow.

Anyway, while driving all over creation the past couple days, I was listening to the Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing podcast, which is pretty nifty. As an aside to all my fellow Bujold fans, the latest entry is gleaned from a Q&A Lois did at Mysterious Galaxies in San Diego, so if you haven’t heard it yet (and haven’t yet heard the shout-out she gives The List, you may want to hop over and listen). Anyway, it’s a pretty darn good podcast with lots of fantastic guests and some nifty insight. Very conversational and largely off-the-cuff, which I like.

One of the eps I was listening to, though, was an interview with a science fiction musician by the name of Chris Armstrong. Afterward (and in a subsequent podcast) the show’s hosts discussed all the various science fiction music out there–though most of it seemed soundtrack-related, which is probably a separate rant. So as they’re talking about it, the thought occurred to me: wouldn’t a science fiction/fantasy satellite radio station be great?

And then I realized that no, no it wouldn’t. Why? Because of Fractured Fandom.

It’s not so much that fandom itself is broken up into discrete chunks, some of which, taken together, would result in a Venn diagram with mere slivers of overlap. It’s that wherever there is a “Mine is better than yours” debate in fandom, you’d have groups taking offense that the music from such-and-such would dare be included on the Sci-Fi Radio Network. And then you’d have everyone up in arms (save the DJ) when they play a selection from Xanadu, and it would be all over save the shouting.

Which I guess dovetails with Richard K. Morgan’s recent article about the pugnacious environment among the genre core, especially authors. Not that he doesn’t get rambly and off-topic toward the end, but early on in the article the idea resounds. The conflict seems almost inherent to the SFF genre discourse, and in all likelihood keeps people away. When your friend who “likes sci-fi” sneers at you for enjoying Star Wars, especially (gasp!) the prequel trilogy… chances are you’re not going to be open to what he might have to recommend.

But then, in the broader geek culture, I think there’s quite a bit of that poisonous atmosphere in other arenas, such as Mac v. Linux v. Windows, or the video game “conosle wars” (sneered into irrelevance by Yahtzee at Zero Punctuation), or getting even more esoteric, who makes the best video card, or which distribution of Linux is superior. The end result of all the bickering, however, is that the culture starts to get the same vibe as soccer hooligans, only without all the alcohol. Or pummeling cops. Which probably looks like an improvement, but at least the soccer hooligans have alcohol to blame it on.

So I’m not sure what I’m trying to say, other than that a science fiction radio station would never work. Which is a shame.