Home » Reading & Literature » J.R.R. Tolkien » Online fandom: Have we gone too far or not far enough? - Page 5

Online fandom: Have we gone too far or not far enough? - Page 5

© Michael Martinez

This is a reasonable question. Fannish Webmasters are quick to cry "foul!" and "free speech!" when someone tells them what they cannot do, but do we ourselves try to act responsible and say, "This far we will go and no further?" How far is too far? How far is far enough? I want millions of people to visit my Web sites. I think the other "competitive" Webmasters do, too. But how far would any of us go to generate that kind of traffic? For all I know, I might have gotten someone fired if I had announced a week in advance that New Line Cinema was picking up "The Lord of the Rings". For one person's sake (a stranger who knowing virtually nothing about me shared information I had no right to know) I kept my mouth shut until an agreed-upon time. By then, we reasoned, enough people would know about the deal anyway that it wouldn't make much difference if I said anything. And I still got the scoop. I could have posted the questions I was asked on my Web site, and my answers. What would that get me, though? A few extra visitors each week? The questions are not really news-worthy. A couple of details which have been revealed about the movies indicate to me that either I was thinking along the same lines as someone who is working on the movies, or my little voice in the wilderness was heard. But not one spy report, not one news article has been devoted to these details. They have merely been mentioned in passing. As exciting as it is to me to see things I discussed get mentioned, I still don't know whether there is any connection to me, and I can't really justify making a big fuss. And yet the scrutiny which has been directed at these movies places an unprecedented amount of pressure on the fannish Web sites to produce relevant content. We can only mention so many auctions on eBay, so many chapters read by a new Tolkien fan, so many neat gizmos our domains are launching, so many additions to the fan art sections, etc. People want to know what the heck is going on. Some are reading the sites, I think, out of a morbid addiction to outrage. They have to know, despite their not wishing to, what further depredations are being propagated against the sacred world of Tolkien (who himself raped half a dozen mythologies to produce his own, and who retold in somewhat dry fashion hundreds of minor accounts from history and folklore ranging from battles in Europe and Asia to little jokes in obscure myths).

The copyright of the article Online fandom: Have we gone too far or not far enough? - Page 5 in J.R.R. Tolkien is owned by Michael Martinez. Permission to republish Online fandom: Have we gone too far or not far enough? - Page 5 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.