Fandom as gift economy

A few times a year I’ll have an existential crisis over why I participate in fandom and why I make fanart and shouldn’t I be working on personal projects? and go through an iteration of the same exact thought process that usually comes back to “I need an un-monetized thing I do just for fun with friends.”

This post is for the next time I enter that spiral and also to talk about fandom as gift economy, which basically encapsulates my greatest hopes and intentions for how fandom should be.

But first, the existential crisis. It usually includes such thoughts as:

• Hating but also being haunted by the idea that fanart is just practice for my “real” art
• The nagging annoyance that my fanart is somewhat formulaic and easy and templated  (¾ bust, meme redraw, person floating on a flat color background) I’m not pushing any boundaries or getting all that conceptual, which art isn’t required to be, but like. I can do that. Shouldn’t I show it?
• But isn’t the point of fanart (and all art) that you might gravitate towards different styles of even “finished work” (character design, animation, background art, 3d modeling, etc. And then painting, drawing, coloring, lineart, etc.)
• And regardless of the battle of fanart vs. original art, aren’t I at least honing something? I’d never have gotten to where I am as an artist if not for the silly little characters I'm obsessed with.
• And it’s not like I want to be an artist for my vocation. I want to protect it as a major source of joy in my life and also just the way I am.
• But don’t I have something to say? Don’t I have original thoughts? Is there such a thing as an original thought? Do I think?

A lot of my recent thoughts on this were sparked by x_los's post about writing, fic, and the publishing world which also introduced me to the idea of fandom as gift economy. I’m also going to steal her idea of reviewing her own writing and want to do a “fanart year in review later” post later; more to come then.

So why participate in fandom?

Fandom as gift economy. In eggburial's words, "theory of surplus value but it's not exploitative." Which makes me think about Richard Gilman-Opalsky's Marxist theory of love which is about how the whole system of exchange value breaks down when you bring love into the picture.  

It's the Elric brothers taking 10, adding 1 of your own, and giving someone 11. There is more to go around because the exchange is not about breaking even but about creation and generosity. And the “adding 1 of your own” to the 10 you’ve been given, which is comprised not just of the original work but also of many other people’s “1 of your own” is intrinsic to fandom with the way fanart and fic is derivative not only of the original source but often of each other—art and fic and meta inspired by other art or fic or meta.

More and more, I’m trying to point out who I’ve gotten inspiration from, other than the obvious fic link. Pointing out someone’s take on a character design or a someone’s post that started the train of thought. It’s obviously about giving credit where credit is due but also a reminder that we’re all in conversation with one another and part of the same (and it feels weird to use this word) economy. I have this idea because we were given the original work and you gave us your thoughts on it.

For better or worse, we also live in fandom bubbles so you may be like me and be 28 and have participated in fandom at some level since you were 12 and never have heard about things like “fandom as gift economy” which was unknown to me until x_los’s post (after I tweeted about the concept virgomoon immediately sent me this post which just proves the point!) which is part of why I’m writing this at all.  

Anyways. I continue to be in fandom and I’m glad to be here even with the looming existential why of it all. I think there’s something to giving my time and attention and the thing that I’m good at to something wholly unrelated to how I make money to pay for being alive. Reclaiming something back from the capitalist machine or whatever. The triumph of getting someone's blorbo right.

shrimpchipsss' fanart year in review

For posterity and also because it’s hard to see how you’re coming along in a craft sense when you’re in the thick of it. 

 

I feel like something has solidified in my art overall this year. Notably, I’ve gotten way more comfortable with lines, which is something I’ve been specifically trying to work on over the past few years. I’ve long felt good about my shapes but lines…. the real hard mode aspect of drawing which is yet another reason I’ve so much respect for such friends as pyrzqxyl  and eggburial  who have VASTLY different styles but linework I’m obsessed with. Pyrzqxyl the pixel master with the specificity of a surgeon. Eggburial’s lineart operates almost as a container which is very egg / coffin honestly. 

 

Now to things that are coming along with my drawing. The blocking of characters and general space they take up feels satisfying to me in a way that honestly makes me wonder if I should make a nsfw account to really try to challenge myself when it comes to bodies interacting with bodies. If I did it would have to be on Twitter and not Tumblr where nothing can be deleted in a way that matters. Blocking examples I feel good about here:

 (link)

  

I did a lot of character work this year, same as any other year. But this year I did character work for series with no official character designs or multiple and even sometimes contradicting character designs. The funniest thing to me is the way artists will sometimes come to the same conclusion about how a character should look even having avoided looking at other fanart (the way I did with the queen’s thief books). I guess there’s something to having a handful of descriptions and archetypes galore and everyone showing up having separately evolved a crab.
 

Said queen's thief characters (link)
 

Comics / sequences. I’d like to keep doing more of them! I don’t know if I’ll ever be insane enough to do a full on animatic or a comic longer than any of these but man is it fun to run with an idea for this long.

The fandom highlight of my year that Megan Whalen Turner SAW much less reblogged this. I think I started approaching consistency with this one and I'm happy with the paneling and use of black space. (link)

If you've read all the way here I hope you've enjoyed the introspection. While I enjoy comments from people gushing over a character or ship, or even the idea behind a drawing, there's nothing that hits quite like qualitative statements about your craft. I'm still riding the high of the person on tumblr who told me at the beginning of the year that they liked my sketchwork. All these months later and it's still one of the best compliments I've gotten all year. I want to do more of that when I comment on other people's stuff too. This was a fun exercise and maybe I'll do it next year!