And Once More With Spamming: J2 Forever?

[lunabee34]

I have a very important question. Hahahahhaah. Not. :)

Although widespread popularity of a fandom does seem to depend somewhat on whether the canon is closed or not (and how long it's been closed) media and book fandoms don't die the second the screen goes dark in the finale or six months after the book hits the shelf. Some fandoms have been around for decades and people are still happily writing and reading stories there.

So, my question is as follows: Is the same true for RPF? How long is Jared/Jensen going to last? Will the popularity of this pairing last only as long as Supernatural is on the air or ten years from now when both actors are working on different projects will we all still be Padackling? And if RPF pairings do have the same kind of longevity as media based fanfic pairings, does the nature of the RPF change to accommodate that these actors may not be spending any time with each other anymore? (I guess what I mean here is that ten years from now will we still be reading about Jared and Jensen hooking up on the set of Supernatural or will be reading about how Jared and Jensen never see each other because one of them is filming in Romania?) Clearly, RPF as a genre is around to stay; we're always gonna have CW RPF of some sort. I just wonder how long Jared and Jensen (and OMG! Chad Michael Murray! Lookit the pretty I found. *points up*) will be among the principal players.

Comments

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

It's hard to say. People still write popslash, but I don't know what they write about, since I'm not in the fandom. With LotRiPS, it has definitely dropped off a lot over the past few years, but there are still quite a few people writing. slashababy, the multi-pairing LotRiPS holiday exchange, had 42 fics written for it this past year, which was more than I expected.

Some of the stuff people are writing is still the same pairings they started off with, and some have branched off more, so that they're not longer really writing LotRiPS, but just one LotR actor with someone else. Eric Bana became a popular pairing with both Orlando Bloom and Sean Bean, because of Blackhawk Down and Troy respectively. Ian Somerhalder got written in to some LotRiPS fics that had Dominic Monaghan, because of their connection on Lost.

So it's sort of like after a while, people were just following the actor they liked best, paired with whoever his most recent co-star was. (Though again, there are still core people left.)

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

*nods*

That makes a lot of sense and is basically what I figured. It's just endlessly fascinating to me what gets popular in fandom and why and what makes it stay (or not stay) that way.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I think it's harder for people to stick with actors because once whatever they were working on together is done, they may not have much contact anymore, and while some people are happy to write AUs or stuff set in the past forever, other people find it hard not to be influenced by RL. (I tend to be the former, myself. I don't mind stories that are closer to RL, but I am mostly in it for the AUs anyway.)

[hyding.livejournal.com]

As long as Jared and Jensen appear together in the media, J2 will not die. They've only so far done that for Supernatural appearances. In other times they're fairly low key and are hardly the TMZ regulars. Saaad. I hope Supernatural will run as long as Seinfeld.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

I hope a good long run for them as well!

Although, I'd rather them end the series than do a subpar season. Quit while the quittin's good, you know? LOL