I saw the 200 + comments in fandom_wank and decided to pass it by.

Me too, Suela. Feedback is one of the best quirks about fandom.

I don't care what all everyone says on that flamewar. I like feedback and I thank people for sending it to me.

Eh, it's in a large way just the whole BNF curse, where your words are considered to carry more weight than the average bear's that started it all. I confess that it's all very confusing to my own damn self.

Or, how I explained it in someone else's LJ.

Most BNFs are not BNFs on purpose, and most that I know would shout "HEY! TAKE THAT BACK!" if you happened to call them a BNF. The problem comes when a fan who IS, for lack of a better term, a BNF, says something, anything, that appears to be an opinion. For whatever reason, and there are many I can think of--and none of them relate to the actual BNF, just to people's perceptions of the BNF--it's not taken by readers with the standard heaping of salt granted to most opinions. Because opinions are just that, opinions.

At times, it seems that Fandom_Wank, which I do track, and which has some good purposes, takes the opinions of BNFs (generally prolific and talented writers and list/archive runners) and makes it seem as if those opinions were some sort of pronouncement from on high, simply because it's a BNF stating the opinion.

I could, in this format, (note: by this I mean LJ, as that was where I posted this)say whatever the hell I wanted (and I often do), and no one would think that what I'm saying is somehow a YOU MUST ALL OBEY ME! DO AS I SAY NOW! post or proclamation. Were I a BNF, this wouldn't be the case. I don't think I'd let that stop me from speaking my mind, it would just mean that speaking it might stir up your standard issue shitstorm.

Of course, as The Brat Queen has pointed out, how the devil does one know, especially in a large fandom, if one has been declared a BNF? You don't. You can be sitting there happily swimming away and assuming that you're just like all the other fishies in the sea, when suddenly someone points and screams "Look! Shark!", and you blink and wonder what they're talking about before you realize all the fins are pointed in your direction.

If any of that makes sense.

Not at all sure what a BNF is. Suspect my fandom street cred is, well, suspect.

BNF = Big Name Fan.

Big Name Fan.

It's someone who is well known in a fandom for whatever reasons---writing a lot of well respected fic, running archives, hosting sites---things like that.

Damn you! You made me go look up the discussion, and people are crazy.

and people are crazy.

Which is unfortunately not suprising.

But somehow, although I've accepted the existence, I'm still startled when people volunteer the information that they're so unreasonable.

Ohhhh. Thank you.