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Fandom crankypants
Oct. 31st, 2004 05:34 pmI swear, if I see the word "vaunted" one more time... I mean, enough already. Vaunted Jedi serenity, vaunted stoicism, vaunted Gryffindor courage, vaunted Slytherin cunning, Harry's vaunted charisma, Hermione's vaunted intelligence, Snape's vaunted nose, Clark's vaunted innocence and Lex's vaunted evil, vaunted this, vaunted that. We get it. Enough. This has been bugging me for years, and I swear it's getting worse. Especially in HP fandom. The word "vaunted" is not all that common in English literature, and yet it has somehow slipped into fandom like all those damn sex words and it won't leave and no-one seems to really know what it means anyway. Blargh.
This message brought to you by the very last "vaunted Gryffindor honor and courage" that I could take. That is all.
***
On a similar note, I felt bad and unappreciative today when I was going though newly-downloaded songvids. I try to at least make it all the way through, unless they're just godawful, but today I hit three or four in a row set to music that drove me up the wall, or at least to the delete button, within thirty seconds. I mean, I don't insist on liking the music -- I can't stand Linkin Park, but I think ddcatwoman made a brilliant choice when she set a Smallville vid to "Doesn't Even Matter." And Kid Rock? Ick. But![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sockkpuppett's "Cowboy" rocks.
But there should be a rule. If the song was in the top ten most played for more than a few weeks, I don't want to hear it. Especially if it's all Angsty and Romantic. I didn't want to hear it on the radio for the four thousandth time. And I really, really didn't want to hear it in a context where I have to pay attention to the words to make sense of the vid. And I'm not going to be able to watch the songvid, because the song will make me grit my teeth and want to hit things.
On the other hand, I discovered that I hadn't movedsockkpuppett's kick-ass vid "Serenity" off my recently downloaded playlist, and ended up watching it again. And it made me want to go watch the Firefly pilot again, so clearly there was some saving grace to today's proof that 90% of everything is crap.
***
And, okay, this isn't a fandom crankypants problem, just a general crankypants problem. We're currently getting so many political messages on our house line that they sometimes come one right after another. Someone hangs up and it goes "ring ring" right away. In quick succession, now, we've had Bill Clinton (again), MoveOnPac (a real person telling us about our polling place), one from the election protection hotline (1-866-OUR VOTE, if there's anyone in the world who doesn't already know that number), and ACT reminding us about what we need to take to the polls. I am not kidding. This is what it's like to live in an urban area in a swing state. (And I have to admit that I'm contributing -- I make calls for MoveOnPac and Kerry/Edwards, which is what I'm doing this weekend instead of canvasing, since my foot's still acting up, grrr.)
And the mail! That's not even counting the mail, where we (naturally) get two of everything. Because one poster of Bush "comforting a 9/11 orphan" just isn't enough for one household! Jon Carroll said it better than I do: The newspapers are so heavy with political advertising they have to be carried to her door by donkeys. Yup. Exactly. Donkeys. Carrying many pictures of Bush looking slightly constipated, which I think is supposed to look like Compassion and Post 9/11 Grief and stuff.
This message brought to you by the very last "vaunted Gryffindor honor and courage" that I could take. That is all.
***
On a similar note, I felt bad and unappreciative today when I was going though newly-downloaded songvids. I try to at least make it all the way through, unless they're just godawful, but today I hit three or four in a row set to music that drove me up the wall, or at least to the delete button, within thirty seconds. I mean, I don't insist on liking the music -- I can't stand Linkin Park, but I think ddcatwoman made a brilliant choice when she set a Smallville vid to "Doesn't Even Matter." And Kid Rock? Ick. But
sockkpuppett's "Cowboy" rocks.But there should be a rule. If the song was in the top ten most played for more than a few weeks, I don't want to hear it. Especially if it's all Angsty and Romantic. I didn't want to hear it on the radio for the four thousandth time. And I really, really didn't want to hear it in a context where I have to pay attention to the words to make sense of the vid. And I'm not going to be able to watch the songvid, because the song will make me grit my teeth and want to hit things.
On the other hand, I discovered that I hadn't moved
sockkpuppett's kick-ass vid "Serenity" off my recently downloaded playlist, and ended up watching it again. And it made me want to go watch the Firefly pilot again, so clearly there was some saving grace to today's proof that 90% of everything is crap.***
And, okay, this isn't a fandom crankypants problem, just a general crankypants problem. We're currently getting so many political messages on our house line that they sometimes come one right after another. Someone hangs up and it goes "ring ring" right away. In quick succession, now, we've had Bill Clinton (again), MoveOnPac (a real person telling us about our polling place), one from the election protection hotline (1-866-OUR VOTE, if there's anyone in the world who doesn't already know that number), and ACT reminding us about what we need to take to the polls. I am not kidding. This is what it's like to live in an urban area in a swing state. (And I have to admit that I'm contributing -- I make calls for MoveOnPac and Kerry/Edwards, which is what I'm doing this weekend instead of canvasing, since my foot's still acting up, grrr.)
And the mail! That's not even counting the mail, where we (naturally) get two of everything. Because one poster of Bush "comforting a 9/11 orphan" just isn't enough for one household! Jon Carroll said it better than I do: The newspapers are so heavy with political advertising they have to be carried to her door by donkeys. Yup. Exactly. Donkeys. Carrying many pictures of Bush looking slightly constipated, which I think is supposed to look like Compassion and Post 9/11 Grief and stuff.
