FanFare is confusing and scary. How can we make it not? February 2, 2022 8:24 AM   Subscribe

Something that came up in "Mefi as a Counteraction to an Upcoming "Terrible Media Age"? " is that FanFare seems like a part of Metafilter that has the potential for significant growth. However, as someone who is generally familiar with Mefi culture and who is interested in engaging with FanFare, the ways to engage with it and social norms are largely inscrutable to me. How can we fix this?

I think what I'd like is a document that explains "here is how FanFare works, and here are a handful of ways that people choose to engage with it". But I'm sure there are other solutions and improvements that could be made as well. Here are some specific things that I find confusing or that make me wary of engaging:
  • If I'm consuming media that is old/obscure, is it worth making a post about? How can I know that people will be interested before I put in the effort of trying to start a discussion?
  • It seems like often people will get together and decide to rewatch some TV show/etc. How does that happen? Does one person just decide to try to make it happen? Does that usually work?
  • If the kind of media I tend to consume isn't on FanFare right now, how can I tell whether that's because the people on FanFare aren't interested in that kind of media, vs no one having happened to post it yet?
  • In general, is the expectation that people use FanFare as a place to find media that they wouldn't have otherwise, or is the idea that they go there to discuss media they already know they like?
  • How do clubs work? Do people use them? How do they get made?
  • What kinds of media are OK, and what aren't? There's a books section, but it doesn't seem like people talk about nonfiction books much — are those out of place/not welcome?
  • How can I follow media that I would like to get notified if there are discussions on in the future? Is this what "My FanFare" is for? How does that work?
  • Similarly, if I consume some piece of media after there's already a old thread about it, how old is too old to post in the existing thread? A week? A month? A year?
  • Is there any way to subscribe to updates to a specific post, so you can know if someone posts in it in the future without having to go an check back constantly?
I would be curious to hear from other people who haven't engaged with FanFare despite being interested about what their reasons for hesitation are. I'm also curious to know the answers to my questions, but my hope is less that I specifically will have my questions answered, and more that future people who are interested in engaging with FanFare won't have to have the same questions, since they'll be answered in some obvious place.
posted by wesleyac to MetaFilter-Related at 8:24 AM (56 comments total) 13 users marked this as a favorite

I have only done Fanfare a bit so I'm sure you will get fuller responses from more seasoned media-consumers, but the one time I participated in a rewatch/reread, a member posted on Fanfare to ask if there was interest, I chimed in to say yes, and when the first post went up I added it to My Fanfare. Then I got notices when a new post in that series went up. It was pretty easy! I enjoyed the discussion, small-scale as it was.

From this limited experience, I would say that, much like other parts of the site, if there's something you want to post you should feel free to do it! If it doesn't get the engagement you hoped for, that might make you feel a little down (it did me), but I don't think you should regret the effort.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 9:11 AM on February 2, 2022 [2 favorites]


I think you should definitely feel free to post anything. If something isn’t there, it’s because no one has gotten to it yet, not because it is not cool enough. The only real no-nos as far as commenting, are to avoid spoilers for future episodes or books something was based on, depending on the kind of thread (some posts are done as “books included” so that people can discuss the book version vs show/movie).
posted by snofoam at 9:20 AM on February 2, 2022 [1 favorite]


I would be curious to hear from other people who haven't engaged with FanFare despite being interested about what their reasons for hesitation are.

Adding a data point: I have not engaged much because it's too rare that I want to talk about a thing at the same time as there is a discussion about that thing. And a lot of the time I don't even think to check FanFare to look and see if there is a discussion. In theory I would like to read a book a the same time as everyone else, but in practice it just becomes another obligation (even if I genuinely want to read the book.)

FanFare works when there's a very popular thing that a lot of people want to discuss right as it comes out, or when a large enough contingent of people can coordinate around a popular older thing (as in the Star Trek rewatches). For many books/movies/TV shows (and ESPECIALLY books) it's just difficult to get a critical mass of people who are interested enough in the same thing, at the same time as each other.
posted by Jeanne at 9:25 AM on February 2, 2022 [6 favorites]


It seems like FanFare Talk could be a place to try to build critical mass around particular books/movies/shows/etc. I say 'could be' because it doesn't seem to be used that way very often.

Is there any way to subscribe to updates to a specific post, so you can know if someone posts in it in the future without having to go an check back constantly?

Commenting on the post, favoriting it, and adding it to your activity (and then loading the Recent Activity page) are all ways to do that.
posted by box at 9:36 AM on February 2, 2022 [1 favorite]


When people have ideas for how to rejigger Metafilter to make it better, I usually think they are bad. So maybe this is a bad idea, but...

What if, say, the most active Fanfare post of the day was automatically cross-posted the next day to the main page. Like, in a way that if you went into the post, you went into the fanfare post and there was no separate post on the blue. By waiting a day, or whatever amount, people on fanfare would have a chance to discuss, but putting it on the blue would also introduce fanfare to others.

It's something that wouldn't have been useful for other subsites (ask? yikes!), and wouldn't have been desirable when people were worried that there were too many posts being made on the main page. Today, we are trying to have more fresh stuff on the blue, FanFare needs more participation, and there isn't a lot of difference between the kind of discussion, if any. Certainly some big movies, etc. get discussed both places.

Maybe this could drive more participation in FanFare and on Metafilter in general? Maybe just a waste of time. Maybe dropping popular FanFare threads in the sidebar regularly could be a way to see if there's some potential without having to build anything.
posted by snofoam at 9:55 AM on February 2, 2022 [11 favorites]


I love this question. I love FanFare but almost never post in it. I just changed that, so there you go, thank you!

For me I use it to find new things all the time. I don't always post and maybe I'll work to change that (this is not FanFare's fault, it's bad experiences from the past.) I do hesitate because I tend to read/watch things late now (books especially I'm always waiting for my turn from the library.) But I'll go in and read discussions after watching or reading something I especially liked or didn't like, and for me if I'm suffering that sense of not being sure what I want to try next I'll page through.
posted by warriorqueen at 10:30 AM on February 2, 2022 [2 favorites]


I have deliberately not engaged with FanFare for a while now. I participated a little bit early on, but quickly it became apparent that the overarching tone of the whole thing was... just a bit more sarcastic verging on mean-spirited than was good for my mental health. I didn't see much of a place for engagement coming from a place of "I wholeheartedly and unironically love this media and would like to talk about that" vs. "This piece of media is so terrible it's good; let's maybe make a few backhanded compliments but mostly tear into it." And it doesn't even read to me as friendly MST3K-style riffing.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:34 AM on February 2, 2022 [7 favorites]


The obvious super low hanging fruit for me with Fanfare is to put the search bar at the top. The pokes and scrolling it takes to get to a film on a mobile phone is…just do it, I'll wait…
posted by iamkimiam at 10:50 AM on February 2, 2022 [21 favorites]


Yeah, I hear what the Underpants Monster is saying. For certain shows (or kinds of shows), fandom is expressed through brutal criticism. It can be hard to read Doctor Who threads if you actually like the show, for instance. One possible strategy would be to add “hate watch” and “fan watch” tags that might direct negative and positive takes into different threads. Wouldn’t be necessary for most media, but might help threads go better in some cases.

I find FanFare super even if I’m not consuming media at the same time as the discussion is happening. When I did my own Buffy rewatch, for instance, it was really enlightening to read various MeFite takes on it episode by episode. I leave a lot of comments in old threads for others who may do what I do. It’s not as conversational, but a good comment’s a good comment, even if it’s years later than the main discussion.

One issue that’s come up is if you want to do a new rewatch, I’m not sure there’s a way to do that so that the new conversation gets front paged. It’s something that will need to be addressed at some point if the site is going to keep existing decade after decade.
posted by rikschell at 11:56 AM on February 2, 2022 [4 favorites]


I generally love FanFare, but the one thing that makes me crazy is that when I post a single episode of a show, someone inevitably asks, "Can you just post it for the entire season?" and if I post it for the entire season, someone inevitably asks, "Can you post individual episodes?" I CAN'T FUCKING WIN and whenever someone starts nitpicking this, it makes me throw up my hands and stop participating or starting new anything for awhile. Or that I posted them at the wrong time to get "engagement," that's happened too. I don't know how to know which ones should get individual episodes and which should get entire seasons and apparently I always get it wrong (unless it's a show that's airing weekly at the time, I guess that doesn't get complaints). And frankly, entire season posts annoy me because I may have thoughts or want to read about something before I've watched the entire season.

I do think you need to accept that if something goes up, some late-ass people (such as myself of late, admittedly) may end up joining in quite some time later. Them's the breaks for us late ones, I figure.

As for the questions:

If I'm consuming media that is old/obscure, is it worth making a post about? How can I know that people will be interested before I put in the effort of trying to start a discussion?
If the kind of media I tend to consume isn't on FanFare right now, how can I tell whether that's because the people on FanFare aren't interested in that kind of media, vs no one having happened to post it yet?


I have no idea and there's no way to figure that out ahead of time.

In general, is the expectation that people use FanFare as a place to find media that they wouldn't have otherwise, or is the idea that they go there to discuss media they already know they like?

I have always presumed it's the latter. Usually if it's some new media I haven't heard about, it's something I don't have access to anyway (i.e. on some streaming service I'm not already on) and thus I don't bother to check it out.

What kinds of media are OK, and what aren't? There's a books section, but it doesn't seem like people talk about nonfiction books much — are those out of place/not welcome?

See above answers that boil down to "I have no idea and there's no way to know." I think books are probably the hardest thing to post about there unless it's a super popular book and/or series book that a lot of people are reading at the same time. Nonfiction usually doesn't qualify for either of those.

Similarly, if I consume some piece of media after there's already a old thread about it, how old is too old to post in the existing thread? A week? A month? A year?

Well, I've posted months to over a year later, so....Like I think it's fine to post, but you gotta accept that people most likely aren't going to read it or have anything new to say about my ice cold take on Lucifer 9 months later after everyone else finished. Which *shrug* fine.

I think FanFare works best for recently airing TV and movies. Maybe not so much anything else. JMO.
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:29 PM on February 2, 2022


In general, is the expectation that people use FanFare as a place to find media that they wouldn't have otherwise, or is the idea that they go there to discuss media they already know they like?

I think, ideally, the more people do the latter, the more useful it will become for people who want to do the former.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:43 PM on February 2, 2022 [4 favorites]


I generally love FanFare, but the one thing that makes me crazy is that when I post a single episode of a show, someone inevitably asks, "Can you just post it for the entire season?" and if I post it for the entire season, someone inevitably asks, "Can you post individual episodes?"

I don't usually go into a whole season post until I've seen the whole season, and by that time, I've forgotten and don't go in at all. For me, I guess the exception is that it can seem practical if a season is short and drops all at the same time.

I feel like the most active and rewarding discussions are single episode posts for series that are being released on a weekly basis. Maybe that's in part because some of the best or most watched stuff is released that way. But it's also an easier way to comment on something because a chunk is still on your mind.
posted by snofoam at 12:57 PM on February 2, 2022 [3 favorites]


I've taken a be the change you want to see approach. I try and post things that I've recently seen or have interest in, then jot down some quick thoughts on my experience. If I frame it as something I find helpful for myself that's great, I'm not trying to drive engagement or anything like that because I know I'll just end up chasing my tail and then get discouraged. Some people show up in the threads I post and it's great, I've learned some cool things about media from it. But it's not why I try and post what I do.
posted by Carillon at 1:14 PM on February 2, 2022 [4 favorites]


I feel like you are overthinking the posting part of it. When I read a book that I think others will enjoy, I post about it. If only two people respond, who cares? If there is already a thread about the book and I have anything to add, I post a comment. I don’t care if the post is years old or not. Anyone who kept the thread in their Recent Activity will see the comment.
posted by soelo at 2:20 PM on February 2, 2022 [3 favorites]


It seems like some people find posting really intimidating, while others just... don't.

Like, look at this thing. It's a FanFare post I made before I'd even finished watching the show. Turns out, the show was kinda shitty, and the post hasn't gotten a single comment.

None of this seems like a big deal--the post took me like five minutes to put together (and it would've been faster if I wasn't trying to be thorough with the tags). And if anyone ever wants to comment on a reeeaaal mediocre Hulu documentary, it'll be there for 'em.
posted by box at 2:30 PM on February 2, 2022 [2 favorites]


I was intimidated by FanFare too at first--I'd been on Metafilter when that section first got started, but it didn't interest me much at the time. When I came back, there was so much stuff that I wanted to participate in. But there was no real FAQ or anything, and I couldn't figure out if I was allowed to jump in and start posting as part of an existing show that was usually posted about by a couple people--when they weren't posting about the recent episodes. I just wanted to know if it was okay to post the latest, or if you claimed a show and we should wait till the people who'd claimed it posted.

That was how things had operated in a lot of fannish spaces I'd been in, so it was intimidating to me. It didn't help that someone did get shirty with me about one of my early posts, like I think I stepped on their toes, I don't know. (Like, the ST:TNG rewatch was the ideal--a couple people posted on a consistent schedule.) And it can be very off-putting when someone gets really angry that others don't see a work the way they do (good or bad)--that has often killed my interest in discussion when they're really aggressive about their feelings, and I can see other people fade out, too.

But I have no idea how to improve things, other than it would be helpful if there was more useful granular information about how to/when to post.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 2:43 PM on February 2, 2022


Probably half of my book posts on Fanfare have received exactly zero comments. But every once in a while somebody thanks me for making them aware of something they think they'll like, and that is enough for me. Don't overthink it, post, comment, whatever, or don't.
posted by COD at 2:45 PM on February 2, 2022 [4 favorites]


I also think books get less drive by hate than movies and tv shows because they take more time and/or attention to consume. (Offer not valid once the books are adapted into tv or movies!) I did a post about a nonfiction book that got negative comments, but they were thoughtful and valid criticism. By contrast, when I expressed annoyance at an unhealthy relationship dynamic in a comedy show, I was told that healthy relationships don’t provide enough conflict to move the plot along.
posted by soelo at 2:54 PM on February 2, 2022


I'd also like to feel like FanFare is more of a "just post what you're reading or watching!" rather than waiting for someone else to do so. I know there are some shows I would've liked to talk about (and cool if others didn't) but it always slightly came across as "you have to be one of the insiders!" to make a post.

That could just absolutely be my mindset. I do agree sometimes the conversations are snarky and that's not always great, but I've also always loved talking about shows and movies there. I've just felt like there's some unspoken code I don't understand to post about something myself, though.

I don't know how that's solved, honestly.
posted by edencosmic at 5:58 PM on February 2, 2022 [2 favorites]


I watch a LOT of films. The first thing I do (after I log it on Letterboxd) is to see if there’s a FanFare post. My absolute delight is when there is a post but it has zero comments. It’s like being first to the outpost after a long trek and there’s fire and cocoa waiting. I leave a comment and wait for the others to discover this winter oasis (is there not a word in English for this concept??)

Often, there’s not a post. I often don’t make one because the film deserves more than the big standard IMDb description (I LOVE that feature however). It’d be incredible to quickly make a placeholder post and then allow someone else to update/improve it, similar to IRL but collaboratively. I would easily add 50+ film posts a year this way.

Thank you for updating the FanFare page button to land on the search bar instead of the bottom of the page, that’s a sweet iteration!!!
posted by iamkimiam at 11:33 PM on February 2, 2022 [4 favorites]


I just realised that I basically described a wiki. I feel no shame.
posted by iamkimiam at 11:36 PM on February 2, 2022 [2 favorites]


I participated a little bit early on, but quickly it became apparent that the overarching tone of the whole thing was... just a bit more sarcastic verging on mean-spirited than was good for my mental health. I didn't see much of a place for engagement coming from a place of "I wholeheartedly and unironically love this media and would like to talk about that" vs. "This piece of media is so terrible it's good; let's maybe make a few backhanded compliments but mostly tear into it."

This was my experience. I came into it as a fan of a show, and some of the comments were from people who watched but talked as if they were so much cooler than people who watched it and maybe liked some of it. I don't mind critique of something, but I did feel FanFare suffers a little from people wanting to prove that your favorite media is dumb, even though they also watched said media. It kind of spun my head around, and there's no moderating any of that away, so I've stayed wary of engaging too enthusiastically. Probably my own hang up. I wish it wasn't so. But it IS hard to put out there something you like and have people shrug and say it sucks.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:02 AM on February 3, 2022 [4 favorites]


Maybe a year end or monthly or quarterly FPP about all the films and movies, etc that are posted to FanFare works help engagement too. Easier to see a list of all that's going on instead of hunting for it.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:05 AM on February 3, 2022


Thank you for updating the FanFare page button to land on the search bar instead of the bottom of the page, that’s a sweet iteration!!!

? When I click FanFare, I am sent to the top of the page. No search in sight. It's way at the bottom, strangely.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:07 AM on February 3, 2022


AND recently added movies and such are not very visible. I only just stumbled upon that in there. Why so far at the bottom?
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:20 AM on February 3, 2022


I've read some FanFare threads, but rarely commented. I've never posted, nor has it occurred to me to do so. Maybe it's because of being very cautious about posting in MetaFilter, or because of the culture on the blue of snark/jumping on topics.

Elsewhere, I post book reviews regularly to Goodreads and some to my blog. I just learned about Letterboxd and am thinking of writing movie reviews there. Maybe I should hit up FanFare.
posted by doctornemo at 5:39 AM on February 3, 2022


Yesterday as we were driving home from school we were at a red light when a dark haired guy with a close-cropped beard made a left turn in front of us and stared at us grinning through the full arc, and I said, "Look, look! There's NEEGAN!" It was uncanny, the resemblance, not just the same face, but the same everything. The physicality, the insolent attitude. It was Neegan. I was only able to recognize him because I marathon binged that abusively bad show last year, and I was only able to do that because of FanFare. I was ten years late to the terrible party, but FanFare meant I could feel less alone because others before me had walked my same, painful path. Had I stopped watching in the second season when my sufferings at the hands of the show ramped up, I'd've been spared all the subsequent abuses, but I'd've missed so many awesome zombie extra shenanigans, and then yesterday's Neegan moment wouldn't have happened. FanFare directly enabled a real life moment of joy.
posted by Don Pepino at 7:39 AM on February 3, 2022 [1 favorite]


I'm really surprised that people are intimidated by FanFare. Honestly, I've found it the least intimidating section on MetaFilter.

Maybe it's the the little corner I tend to post in, but I can't say I've encountered discussions that are nasty or off-putting or just limited to "the in-crowd in the know."

I've loved our Arrowverse discussions, even if (at times) the shows have gotten so bad everybody was essentially "hate-watching" them. But we weren't doing it out of malice, we were just disappointed that something that started off so strongly took such horrible turns into stupidity and lazy writing.

A group rewatching Supernatural convinced me to give the show more of a try than I originally intended, and boy am I glad they pulled me in. To be honest, now that the new discussions are over, I'm not enjoying the show as much as I'm not watching it in the same way I would if there were active discussions. (Yes, orange swan, I know you're still posting and I'm still reading everything you're writing, and it's appreciated!)

Watching some of the reality shows where the focus is on making things (Project Runway, for a current example), I've also found a good group of people willing to share their opinions and listen to the opinion of others. (I haven't been commenting on this one as I'm behind in my viewing, as the person I've been watching the show with lately has been too busy to watch, but I've been reading the posts just to know what's gong on.)

I've posted a few shows that nobody watched (or wanted to comment on), including Casual (which is really worth people checking out, at least the first season) and The Big Leap (I swear I thought it would be the kind of so-bad-it's-good show that MeFites would love to laugh at, but apparently I'm the only person in existence who has seen it). While I wish I had people to discuss the shows with, posting about them really was not that big a deal. So what if I spent ten five or ten minutes on them? I've wasted more time on the Internet doing other things. And maybe, at some point in the future, somebody will come across the posts and find them useful. Or not. It doesn't really matter in the long run.

I've also come across some shows I would have never encountered (Call My Agent, to name one) where I've read the posts and then (sometimes much later) gone searching for the shows.

Even discussions about popular shows where there are people coming in with outside knowledge (like the recent slate of Marvel shows) haven't been too unwelcoming, I don't think. I find the mix in those threads between old comic readers and people entirely new to the characters to be pretty evenly split, and I don't think those of us with every issue of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe stashed in longboxes somewhere are being too pushy. We'll share theories and explain who characters are and why they might be acting in certain ways, but don't think anybody has been a gatekeeping jerk to people who have never picked up a comic. And if somebody did act that way, I hope people reported them to the mods.

Seriously, FanFare is all about entertainment. It should be completely low (or no) stakes. It's just there for fun. Come on in and join us.
posted by sardonyx at 10:30 AM on February 3, 2022


When I come late to a Fanfare thread, where everyone has already left, I feel like the guy who misses a party. :7(

Would bubbling up old-but-active threads on the Fanfare home page, alongside the new ones, help keep conversations going?

The Fanfare posts are best when they are among people actively enjoying a thing, whether old or new. So promoting visibility that way should maximize everyone's participation.
posted by wenestvedt at 11:51 AM on February 3, 2022 [2 favorites]


That sounds very pleasant, sardonyx.
posted by doctornemo at 11:51 AM on February 3, 2022 [1 favorite]


Adding myself as someone who feels a bit confused about FanFare but would like to spend more time there, mostly in the books and possibly podcasts sections. I do occasionally go there having just read something to see if there is a post on it (last time was The Other Bennet Sister), but haven't ever posted any books myself, partly because I vaguely remembered that there was an approval process when it started and wasn't sure if all users could post ... having looked again I'm obvs wrong about that.

And thanks for your posts, CoD - just looked through them, enjoyed the one on Sunshine, and the Charlie Lovett book looks interesting and I will seek it out.

Oh, I also checked recently to see if there was a post on the new series of The Great Pottery Throwdown but didn't post it myself when I found there wasn't; I wasn't entirely sure how it works to add new series to an existing programme.
posted by paduasoy at 11:56 AM on February 3, 2022


Came back to add that maybe there's something we can do better about linking from Ask to FF. If I'm recommending a book in Ask it hasn't ever occurred to me to see if there's an FF post I could link to instead of or as well as the standard Amazon / Goodreads / blog reviews.
posted by paduasoy at 12:01 PM on February 3, 2022 [1 favorite]


Seriously, FanFare is all about entertainment. It should be completely low (or no) stakes.a

It absolutely should be, and that's why I find it so disappointing.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:05 PM on February 3, 2022 [1 favorite]


? When I click FanFare, I am sent to the top of the page. No search in sight. It's way at the bottom, strangely.
posted by tiny frying pan


Ah yah, I meant the white 'skip to bottom of page' button. It used to take you to the very bottom, so you had to scroll up to the search. It was a few seconds shorter than scrolling all the way down, but still involves scrolling and some clicks.

Also, anybody notice that the numbers are broken in search too? I recently watched 28 Days Later and I wasn't able to search for it.
posted by iamkimiam at 12:29 PM on February 3, 2022


Sorry to hear that, The Underpants Monster. I've enjoyed reading your contributions to the ST:TNG rewatch. Actually, that's another good example of a rewatch that was handled well and seemed to encourage lively discussion. I wasn't rewatching but I was reading the threads as I have a pretty good recollection of the show, and I must admit, some of the comments caused me to reconsider some of my impressions while others had me laughing at the show's foibles.
posted by sardonyx at 1:12 PM on February 3, 2022


I like it when I see old fanfare threads bumped into my recent activity again. I like to hear what people thought about something I also enjoyed. As long as it's not a laundry list about all the ways the writers fucked up by not writing a completely different story.
posted by bleep at 2:07 PM on February 3, 2022 [2 favorites]


Sorry to hear that, The Underpants Monster. I've enjoyed reading your contributions to the ST:TNG rewatch. Actually, that's another good example of a rewatch that was handled well and seemed to encourage lively discussion.

The TNG rewatch posts were the most unpleasant experiences I had on FanFare. It was after the last one of those I popped into that I decided not to come back.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 3:08 PM on February 3, 2022


Drat. I'm sorry to hear that. As I said, I wasn't a participant, but I did read the threads. Nothing really bad or obvious stands out to me, but as I wasn't invested in them, I might have missed something that was evident to the people posting in them.
posted by sardonyx at 3:13 PM on February 3, 2022


I’m not trying to say people shouldn’t have an outlet to make fun of media they don’t like. It’s not my place to tell other people how to have fun. It’s just not for me.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 3:20 PM on February 3, 2022 [1 favorite]


I feel like you are overthinking the posting part of it. When I read a book that I think others will enjoy, I post about it. If only two people respond, who cares? If there is already a thread about the book and I have anything to add, I post a comment. I don’t care if the post is years old or not. Anyone who kept the thread in their Recent Activity will see the comment.

I just generally try to post everything and see what sticks, myself. I personally focus on books because it seems like there are not that many books posted, and I get probably 99% of my reading recommendations from Mefi one way or another (either Fanfare posts directly, or in comments on any of the subsites). Sometimes they get lots of comments, sometimes they get zero. Sometimes I get told that whatever I posted is problematic for reasons, and I think that that's all ok.

I just realised that I basically described a wiki. I feel no shame.

Honestly, Fanfare should be more wiki-adjacent. I don't think people should be editing each other's writing, but if the front page layout was like Wikipedia's front page it would be pretty sweet. Above the normal list of shows we could have the same sections like Today's Featured Media, In the News, and so on. It would give people a way to find media to interact with rather than just looking at things in chronological order or scrolling through a weird list to hope that whatever show they want to talk about is listed.
posted by Literaryhero at 3:50 PM on February 3, 2022 [3 favorites]


At this point, most of my MeFi time is spent in Fanfare. It's the curse of not being able to visit the blue during the day any more.

The best experiences I've had as a participant on Fanfare were getting into a show that had episode posts as it airs. The Better Call Saul threads are fantastic conversational analysis and discussion about the show, like those threads are completely a part of me enjoying that series now. When it was airing, the Mad Men threads were the same way. And, now that I think about it, maybe for me prestige drama shows on Farfare do well: Succession is the same way.

The Top Chef and Great British Baking Show discussions were also great reading with a good amount of participation.

When I come late to a Fanfare thread, where everyone has already left, I feel like the guy who misses a party. :7(

This is how I felt when I finally got into For All Mankind and Dark.

I wish there was more book discussion, but that's also a case where I need to be the change I want to see in Fanfare.
posted by gladly at 4:26 PM on February 3, 2022 [5 favorites]


I like to read FanFare threads about shows I don't plan to watch, for some reason.

I also like to post about shows I do watch but right now I pretty much just watch Black-ish (which I am behind on and don't have any great nuggets to share with you all anyway), Golden Girls reruns, and sumo (my spouse started watching to see if he could tell when matches were fixed and instead we just became regular fans who watch it on youtube).

I have sometimes finished shows way after they aired and I went and posted in the thread. No response or like or anything so it ended up feeling kind of pointless. I kind of haven't hit the right vibes for being in conversation online generally for a couple years now so I have accepted that, but there was one episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine that a major plot point totally baffled me and no one ever responded to my question about what the heck was going on and people, I am STILL WONDERING.
posted by Emmy Rae at 7:31 PM on February 3, 2022


I’ve very much enjoyed shows that had each episode posted, because I would go to Fanfare to debrief immediately after watching the episode - you can’t do that for a season thread. However, I get that there’s not always that much interest in that kind of play by play. I really enjoyed doing this on the Buffy Rewatch though.

I have noticed the critical dynamic but think it’s mostly on new shows rather than old ones, because if something is cultural zeitgeist then everyone is watching it, including fans. Whereas older shows everyone’s watching them because they’re interested.

Though I’ve noticed myself get cynical about adaptations. So maybe I’m the worst to answer this!
posted by corb at 9:40 PM on February 3, 2022 [1 favorite]


FanFare is great when you're sharing enthusiasm with other fans, but it just takes a couple of habitual sneerers to suck the energy out of the conversation. Not sure what can be done about it though. Some people just have the hobby of watching shows they hate and talking about how much they hate them?
posted by TheophileEscargot at 3:57 AM on February 4, 2022 [7 favorites]


We already have Rewatch tagging, maybe there could be a Hatewatch option.
posted by snofoam at 5:54 AM on February 4, 2022 [3 favorites]


Ooooh, I’d love a separate hatewatch option!
posted by mochapickle at 6:32 AM on February 4, 2022


I would love a hate watch option. Sometimes it starts to feel like if someone is posting in a thread about a show they really didn't like watching, all of a sudden the show is on trial for Story Crimes that it actually didn't commit.
posted by bleep at 8:39 AM on February 4, 2022 [1 favorite]


"Whole season" posts are a huge turn-off for me. Inevitably when I find a show I like and I think to look on FanFare for it, I've only seen like 1-3 episodes. There is no fucking way I am opening a Whole Season thread without having seen the whole season. And then once I've done the season, I've moved on to something else.

The solution to this "why I don't engage with FanFare" is to always/only be able to post against episodes on their own page, AND have a way to view a season's worth of posts also on one page (with a way to open a comment box after each ep). So, if there's not a lot of traffic on the show, one isn't clicking through a lot of empty episode threads, just reading the season post.

Kind of a moderate change, but the "whole season" posts are a total dealbreaker to engagement for me. Maybe for others, too.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:27 AM on February 4, 2022 [10 favorites]


On a related note (I totally agree, seanmpuckett!), I thought about starting a podcast discussion for "The Trojan Horse Affair," then thought "oh god, we're gonna have the whole season vs. individual podcasts argument AGAIN and I'm going to get it wrong AGAIN, and NEVER FUCKING MIND."

I can see the logic for "whole season" because it dropped at once(unfortunately whole season drops are usually the best reason to do whole season), but I hate whole season for the same reasons said above. Especially since I'm only through the first two episodes and there's a BIG CHANGE in focus from episode one to episode 2, and I'd rather discuss them individually rather than have to do it in one damn big group.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:39 AM on February 4, 2022 [1 favorite]


As I remember the whole season feature was introduced because people were finding that:
A. If a whole show drops at once they don't remember what happened in individual episodes so they wanted a context to talk about the whole thing in.
B. It felt spammy to post 12 episodes in a row just to be able to discuss the finale.

But now we're seeing that it's almost impossible for the poster to guess what the needs will be of the other users who might want to contribute.

This is a tough nut to crack & requires some careful user experience design to get it right.
posted by bleep at 11:05 AM on February 4, 2022 [4 favorites]


Can’t someone still make individual episode posts, even if there is a full season one? I also prefer individual episode posts in general. If FanFare was more popular/active, I think this issue would go away because there would be enough discussion to always do individual episodes. I don’t really think this is a UI issue.
posted by snofoam at 2:40 PM on February 4, 2022 [2 favorites]


I didn't say it was a UI issue I said it was a user experience issue.
posted by bleep at 2:49 PM on February 4, 2022


Right, I just figure people would also complain if we had both individual and whole season and we don't have that many people posting for anything that isn't super geek appealing (i.e. whatever new show's on Disney Plus).
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:32 PM on February 4, 2022


It would help me if there was a bit more information on the fanfare FAQ. At the moment, the place feels very much like a space with a lot of unwritten rules which makes it intimidating to participate, especially if you're used to spaces like AskMeta which are pretty strict on how to interact, but have clear and explicit guidelines .
For example, some guidance on how chatty or off topic a comment can be? Or whether it's OK to jump in and post about a series (books or shows) if another person regularly posts about it?
The kind of thing which is obvious to regular users, but not to newcomers like me.
At the moment the different parts of Metafilter seem to have different guidelines for what is acceptable, and while some are clearly laid out in the FAQ and clearly stated by moderators, others not so much.
posted by Zumbador at 8:59 PM on February 5, 2022 [2 favorites]


Today, I was also thinking that the mobile version of fanfare needs icons or small print with a colored background (tags?) near the title to quickly distinguish between books, movies, podcasts, as well as "spoilers," "hatewatch" (since that's a thing) and "whole season," and "single episode only" comment threads. Since there is a limited number of categories, I would think that sort of fix shouldn't take long to do.
Maybe a year end or monthly or quarterly FPP about all the films and movies, etc that are posted to FanFare works help engagement too. Easier to see a list of all that's going on instead of hunting for it.
This is exactly what folks should be putting in the newsletter.
posted by Violet Blue at 10:59 PM on February 5, 2022 [1 favorite]


I wish I could add one time events to My Fanfare. I usually just scroll through FF to see if there is anything to interest me and then got to MFF. Now with the Olympics thread, I have to keep scrolling to find it, read it and then scroll back up.

Yes, I'm feel lazy today.
posted by kathrynm at 8:28 AM on February 6, 2022


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