The main problem with fandom research/transformative fandom academia is that it's almost entirely self-selecting. Like any hobby space, fandom is decentralized (though maybe not enough) and difficult to properly survey. So you get articles about Thoughts on Yaoi but it's really 'Thoughts on Yaoi of people who clicked the link on one reddit post' or whatever.
At best, a lot of articles sound under-researched; at worst they're astoundingly racist and harmful.
I've read some good stuff over the years. And I've read a whole lot of bad, too.
@kalloway@fedibird.com I'm fine with Thoughts on Yaoi based on people who clicked on the link in Reddit as long as the article states that explicitly (in how they sampled). Location determines so much of some fandom attitudes!
Oh for sure! And I'd honestly love a whole series of, like, the same questions being answered by various fannish demographics just to show the variety.
I've just run into so much bad, and so much didn't-do-the-research...
I remember reading a real corker about a decade ago, where the author explained that the main characters of Cardcaptor Sakura were high school girls.
I think this was the same author that later admitted to not having seen a(nother) particular series and was basing their argument on info they'd gotten from a fansite.
@kalloway@fedibird.com I've read my share of terrible papers too... but that sounds uniquely bad. How do you even write something on a series you haven't watched before?! The mind boggles.
And the reviewers just let that through? And the editors? So many layers bypassed!
Okay I dug back through my DW and it's two different essays and different authors in "The Japanification of Children's Popular Culture: From Godzilla to Miyazaki".
The didn't watch the series author was Antonia Levi who I already thought was a bit of a hack.
The CCS fail was a different author but I can't find a table of contents at the moment.
Anyway, the Goodreads reviews of that book are brutal and decade-ago!me agrees completely.
@kalloway@fedibird.com I love to read a good critique! Link me to your DW post, if you are okay with that?
also I went to GR too, since you mentioned it, and the first review in GoodReads is like, "With the exception of three half-decent entries, this entire collection is an embarrassment to the analytical essay."
That bodes well XD
Here you go! (Please forgive the age.)
https://www.dreamwidth.org/captcha?returnto=https://kalloway.dreamwidth.org/1354536.html
The quotes are all in the comments, I think.
Also here is a post
https://kalloway.dreamwidth.org/1517575.html
about "Boys' Love Manga: Essays on the Sexual Ambiguity and Cross-Cultural Fandom of the Genre (Levi, McHarry, Pagliassotti)" which was at least better (also good comments)
@kalloway@fedibird.com "Rewriting Gender and Sexuality in English-Language Yaoi Fanfiction (Tan). So this is an entire chapter about Weiss Kreuz fanfic." XDD what? amazing.
Yep! And iirc like, mailing list/livejournal specific? So dialed in really nicely to an era I remember but not a fandom I was in. 😅
(Now I'm gonna have to see if interlibrary still has a copy of this one...)
I have some good, insightful friends, both there and here. ^_^
@kalloway@fedibird.com I'm really enjoying all the comments to your posts too XD
took me longer than I thought to go through because I keep getting interrupted by my housemate... but I am nodding along to a lot of it (danmei fan studies suffer from a lot of the same, but also a lil different because there's a lot more access/conversations with people from the source culture, yet still there are a lot of gaps and some are way too personal)