Feminism

[Gormongous]

Does anyone mind explaining how the term "fanservice" is being used here?  I don't follow that sort of media, so I'm unfamiliar with the term.

 

"Fanservice" is any unnecessary visual element added simply to please (or service) the audience (or fans). By that definition, it doesn't have to be sexual, but it usually is, mostly because people don't mind an awesome but superfluous action sequence or a deep-pull anime reference like they do a panty-shot. Also by that definition, a game that is entirely about arranging for panty-shots shouldn't technically qualify for fanservice, because without said fanservice there is no game, but like pornography, I know it when I see it.

[Twig]

Haha wow that guy just kept posting and posting.

[tegan]

It's getting train wreckier before it gets better:

 

That second tweet is amazing. "Way to body shame these [entirely fictional] women, you sexists!"

[Jake]

"Fanservice" is any unnecessary visual element added simply to please (or service) the audience (or fans). By that definition, it doesn't have to be sexual, but it usually is, mostly because people don't mind an awesome but superfluous action sequence or a deep-pull anime reference like they do a panty-shot. Also by that definition, a game that is entirely about arranging for panty-shots shouldn't technically qualify for fanservice, because without said fanservice there is no game, but like pornography, I know it when I see it.

I think the term "fan service" started off being explicitly about sexual/erotic content thrown in to appease salivating fans, and has since broadened out to mean "content that's in your work just to please existing hardcore fans." Like, putting in a moment where two otherwise unrelated characters have a chance encounter and lock eyes for half a second just to get people who ship that unlikely pairing excited, done knowing that that audience subset exists. At this point that's fan service, despite not being something explicit like having a character walk out in a bathing suit and bend down or something gross.

Or I'm totally wrong.

[Merus]

No I think you're right Jake. Which raises the question: why did we decide that fanservice meant any kind of pandering when we already have a perfectly good word for that?

[clyde]

I think the term "fan service" started off being explicitly about sexual/erotic content thrown in to appease salivating fans, and has since broadened out to mean "content that's in your work just to please existing hardcore fans." Like, putting in a moment where two otherwise unrelated characters have a chance encounter and lock eyes for half a second just to get people who ship that unlikely pairing excited, done knowing that that audience subset exists. At this point that's fan service, despite not being something explicit like having a character walk out in a bathing suit and bend down or something gross.

Or I'm totally wrong.

 

I just heard the term "ship" for the first time this week in reference to fan-fic about K-pop boy-bands. I can't tell if everyone has been using it this entire time and I just didn't notice, or ... I guess that's the only option.

 

Here we go:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipping_(fandom)

[Jake]

I think its got a good decade on you. I first heard it in terms of Harry Potter fandoms.

[Gormongous]

I think its got a good decade on you. I first heard it in terms of Harry Potter fandoms.

I first heard it when people were shipping Picard and Troi, so it's at least twenty years old.

Actually, trying to look up the history of "saabisu", I'm reminded of how much I hate the etymology of fandom terms. It's so eager to forget where it came from in order to be up to date.

[Argobot]

I thought shipping originated with the X-Files. Or at least that's certainly where the version of fanservice that Jake describes comes from.

[feelthedarkness]

I thought shipping originated with the X-Files. Or at least that's certainly where the version of fanservice that Jake describes comes from.

 

Not to possibly further derail, but i think "shipping" started with the X-Files, though I think you can see "shipping" as a subset of fan service. Possibly gender driven? I find "shipping" particularly distasteful. Fan Service while also pretty icky, is in most concept describing something in situ. Technically any nudity could fit the bill, but shipping gives the viewers fantasy primacy, almost mandating a disregard for the existing narrative.

[Argobot]

Fan service for the most part seems strongly focused on (straight) men, whereas "ships" are almost entirely held by women. I'm endlessly fascinated by the role that women play in creating ships or fanfiction in general. This essay gets into some of that http://www.theawl.com/2009/10/smut-please-the-fabulous-online-universe-of-twilight-fan-fiction-in-which-edward-and-bella-get-it-on-and-on-and-on

[Merus]

For what it's worth, TVTropes describes fanservice as something that came out of anime, where it exclusively meant gratuitous sexualised imagery that wasn't exactly nudity.

Fan service for the most part seems strongly focused on (straight) men, whereas "ships" are almost entirely held by women. I'm endlessly fascinated by the role that women play in creating ships or fanfiction in general. This essay gets into some of that http://www.theawl.com/2009/10/smut-please-the-fabulous-online-universe-of-twilight-fan-fiction-in-which-edward-and-bella-get-it-on-and-on-and-on

Or fandom, for that matter; as far as I remember, the Star Trek fandoms and conventions were started by women.

[Twig]

Well I've read this page over twice and still don't know what shipping is!

[feelthedarkness]

Well I've read this page over twice and still don't know what shipping is!

 

Imagining romantic relationships between fictional characters based on clues and supposition that isn't supported or like, true, in an existing narrative. Mulder & Scully as a couple is basically the first example, and probably played a part in ruining that show, like god, can't a man and woman have a sweet professional relationship?

[Gormongous]

For what it's worth, TVTropes describes fanservice as something that came out of anime, where it exclusively meant gratuitous sexualised imagery that wasn't exactly nudity.

 

I just wasted the past two hours doing some hard research on it. Apparently, like Jake said, it started in Japan in the seventies to describe sexual titillation shows like Cutie Honey, but with the rise of self-referential otaku culture, exemplified by GAINAX and the OtaKing in the late eighties, it began to refer more broadly to whatever "discourse" between creator and audience was couched in the media the former makes for the latter. Nowadays, at least when I notice it, "fanservice" refers to both things: sexual titillation when used in a negative tone, intertextual discourse when used in a positive tone. Oftentimes, they're the same. For instance, this scene from (Zoku) Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei has multiple kinds of fanservice:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP-reR-VgO8

 

There's the "low" fanservice of Chiri dressing in a cute yukata and flashing her panties, there's the "middle" fanservice of her fighting in a cool but pointless action sequence, and then there's the "high" fanservice of her recreating Asuka's fight scene from End of Evangelion shot for shot, including bad German. Like almost any piece of terminology that lives primarily on the internet, fanservice has grown like a cancer to include an entire cluster of related meanings.

 

That said, Senran Kagura Burst 2 looks like garbage and textbook fanservice, so I don't know where that XSeed rep is coming from. Probably a place of insecurity...

[Twig]

Okay! I now understand what it is. On the surface it doesn't really seem all that harmful, but I guess as with most things it's probably taken way too far all the time.

[Roderick]

I recently thought about a certain shipping in Pokémon. Protagonists Ash and Misty are never explicitly 'in love' in the series, not even close, but it's an obvious match if you're into shipping. However, this song from the official Pokémon CD clearly explores Misty's unspoken love for Ash.

 

 

That's not a tear in my eye, YOU'VE got a tear in your eye! Juvenile series notwithstanding, what I found interesting is that this is apparently an officially sanctioned shipping. As in, the original text (i.e. the series) never even implies a relationship, but the official 'expanded text' (or what-have-you) is quite outspoken on it. Is it shipping at all? Is it sanctioned? IS IT CANON?

 

(Also, that Sayounara Zetsubou-sensei scene is blecch. When did that show jump the shark? It started out a lot more subtle than overt parody of Evangelion.)

[Gormongous]

Or fandom, for that matter; as far as I remember, the Star Trek fandoms and conventions were started by women.

 

I missed this the first time around. I have a friend who does media studies and she has a lot of interesting things to say about how hate for shipping and fandoms is really just hate for the ways women most often engage as fans. Too bad she's not here to elaborate better than that.

 

(Also, that Sayounara Zetsubou-sensei scene is blecch. When did that show jump the shark? It started out a lot more subtle than overt parody of Evangelion.)

 

To be completely fair, it's the episode about how people get caught up in minor details to the point that they forget about or even mess up the thing they actually meant to be doing. In that case, maybe a thoroughly pointless and derivative fight scene that distracts from the episode itself is good commentary? I don't know, I'm not going to argue it hard.

[brkl]

Shipping also means stuff like having friends you think should date be seated next to each other at a party by 'accident' and things of that nature.

[Merus]

I have an irrational hatred for applying fandom words that described something specific and useful and broadening them so that they also encompass perfectly good existing words. For instance, brkl here describes matchmaking and why can't we just call it fucking matchmaking arrrrrgh

[Roderick]

Shipping is the process of bartering in the Steam economy by the ubiquitous currency of 'The Ship'.

[tegan]

I recently thought about a certain shipping in Pokémon. Protagonists Ash and Misty are never explicitly 'in love' in the series, not even close, but it's an obvious match if you're into shipping. However, this song from the official Pokémon CD clearly explores Misty's unspoken love for Ash.

 

That's not a tear in my eye, YOU'VE got a tear in your eye! Juvenile series notwithstanding, what I found interesting is that this is apparently an officially sanctioned shipping. As in, the original text (i.e. the series) never even implies a relationship, but the official 'expanded text' (or what-have-you) is quite outspoken on it. Is it shipping at all? Is it sanctioned? IS IT CANON?

 

The answer is that Pokémon shipping is hilarious and dumb.

 

(Also, that Sayounara Zetsubou-sensei scene is blecch. When did that show jump the shark? It started out a lot more subtle than overt parody of Evangelion.)

 

I actually liked that bit...

[Bjorn]

I missed this the first time around. I have a friend who does media studies and she has a lot of interesting things to say about how hate for shipping and fandoms is really just hate for the ways women most often engage as fans. Too bad she's not here to elaborate better than that.

 

I'd be fascinated to hear more of that line of reasoning.  It makes sense, no one ever gets irrationally angry because a fan wants to imagine some crazy fight scene, but I've been lots of people get mad at "shipping" conversations for no reason at all.  Like, not mad about the combinations, but just mad that people are talking about it at all.

[Nachimir]

Sometimes when mountain bikes and cameras mix, friends joke "look at that bike face" as someone rides down something technical. I found out today that apparently Bicycle Face was an actual bullshit thing used to try and scare women:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_face

 

(It seems one of the original advocates had more of a anti-bicycle agenda than a gendered-agenda though: http://garethrees.org/2012/01/10/shadwell/ )

[James]

It's a complete tangent, but I agree with Merus. I find it really irritating when people apply a new and generally originally very specific word to a well-established phenomenon as if it's something entirely novel. I'm probably entirely projecting my own bullshit, but it seems like the culture of today claiming some sort of revolution that doesn't really exist. Sometimes it's restricted to particular people. Like someone I know who will refer to every single piece of software, component of a piece of software and function of a piece of software as an "app".

Feminism.