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This may not be the most popular of entries. Ah well.

shadowkat67's post about fannish history and Mark Watches spurred thoughts.

I'm largely enjoying following along with Mark Watches. It's something of a nostalgia trip, though he holds fairly different opinions than I did (and do).

But...I'm left feeling weird.

This guy, he's very good at marketing. Kudos to him.

The Mark Does Stuff thing doesn't look like his full-time job, but it is providing some money. He has merchandise, including t-shirts and e-books of his blog posts. He also uses his experience maintaining the community on his LinkedIn profile, so it's providing him job experience.

I feel weird cause...I don't feel at all comfortable doing any of that. Merchandise? Huh? Selling e-books of past posts? Eh. Putting this journal on a resume? WTF! No way! Though I suppose I did get some money when I got published in Whedonistas, so maybe I'm being a huge ol' hypocrite. Huh.

And yet, Mark isn't subjecting the series to much in the way of in-depth analysis. He's reacting emotionally for the most part, which is fine. It's how I first watched the show. Thing is, we're eating it up, not so much because it sparks new understanding of the show, but because it nostalgically reanimates our love for the series.

The guy has an audience simply to consume media and post fairly short reactions to it.

That's so WEIRD.

I don't know what to make of it. I think the attraction is that it validates fandom's love for the series. I've heard that he disliked Twilight, but I think even that plays into the genre fandom's hatred of Twilight (which typically appeals to non-genre fans, from what I've seen).

I guess I feel weirded out by the comparison between what Mark is doing and what us other fans are doing. A lot of us put a lot of hours and energy into our fandom, whether it be with graphics or fanfic or meta or whatever. We don't receive any professional or financial compensation because it's a labor of love. Not so with Mark. He's found a niche in the blogosphere with a built-in audience and he's working with it.

That's smart on him.

But it makes me feel a bit on the dumb side. Hrm.

My thoughts, they are conflicted, you guys.

This entry was originally posted at http://gabrielleabelle.dreamwidth.org/356639.html. There are comments on the DW side. Comment over there or over here. Roger! Over and out!