Internet Fandoms... It's dangerous to go alone

While admittedly once a part of many fandoms myself, I found it difficult to do adequate research for this particular assignment. As I grow older, I find some parts of the Internet to be more and more juvenile, both in writing style and subject matter. It is hard to determine whether or not this is because I myself have matured, or the Internet itself might be getting younger. But, I digress.

As I have done participated in fandoms in the past, I felt it appropriate to return to one of them for this assignment. Since the world of Harry Potter is still fresh on my mind from rereading the books and seeing the newest movie, I thought it was the obvious choice. Since the forums I used to frequent were long gone, I had to find an alternative.

A quick search in google for "Harry Potter Forums" led me to the Harry Potter Forums website, conveniently called harrypotterforums.com. The layout seemed standard enough, with different boards cleverly labeled with references to the books. It seemed pretty benign, though I knew that the true colors of the participants would show when dove into the topics.

As to be expected, upon clicking on the most popular forum (General Discussion of Harry Potter), half the topic titles were misspelled, poorly worded, and generally gramatically incorrect. The discussions themselves were not much different, and though some of them started out mature enough, within a few posts they would resort to one-line answers and provide information that had little to do with the actual topic itself. Adolescent fandoms seem to all have this problem.

The subjects they actually spoke of were not exactly unexpected or unheard of. They discussed the potential relationships of the characters, the actors in the movies, the Harry Potter books vs. the Twilight books, etc. Moderators appeared to keep the place fairly tidy as far as topics went, and seemed to play a key role in keeping threads on topic.

As far as copywrite infringement goes, nothing seemed to jump out at me, though I admittedly did not scan every topic. I believe that when fans use characters for their own pleasure, and do not try to make money off of them, the creator of said character should be flattered rather than offended. There were instances of fanfiction and roleplay, character analysis, fan art, and even a few rewritings of passages from the book from another person's perspective. Generally speaking, most of it was fairly immature, but it had a heart to it that only a true fan can produce.

While I myself find it difficult to partake in such areas of the Internet, I admire the imagination of the people involved. It takes a certain dedication to stick around for years as some of the members have, and as attention spans grow shorter, my respect for those who can stick to what they love grows larger.