Wednesday 23 April 2008

Responding to your fans

On the special features of the Stargate movie The Ark of Truth, there is some footage from a sci-fi convention. At one point a fan gets up and sings a song he wrote about the show. Most of the cast responds much the same way as I did: cringing.

There are two ways of responding to fan creations if you are a celebrity. People will write bad songs about you, bad stories, produce bad drawings and knock-off movies. You can respond directly in proportion to the quality of the product, which means sometimes you will be telling hardcore fans they suck, or you can respond in proportion to the depth of feeling behind it. People create fan art because they like the original, not because they are artists themselves. If you don't take that into account, you might come across as unappreciative.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I was going to use a more insulting word for "unappreciative".
PPS -
Some fan art will be high quality.

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