Why does fandom have sch a short memory for its history?
For start, the barriers to entry are ever lower. There’s no reason for people to learn the history of a site that’s just THERE. If you don’t have to search out mail lists and vet all your fandom sources, there’s so much less incentive to learn about or understand the history of the platform you‘re using.
Secondly, fandom is largely a hobby. For some people, the meta stuff becomes the hobby. But increasingly it’s becoming some place on the internet people stumble into. Of course these people aren’t going to be interested in learning about the LJ Strikethrough, they’re just here to see characters get a happy ending/suffer/kiss/what have you.
Thirdly, and compounded by the previous two things, there isn’t really a big push to show off places like fanlore. Fandom history comes in fits and spurts when people decide to tell an engaging enough story that gets echoed through screencaps or reblogs. Fanlore and the OTW are background agents for the deep fandom nerds.
Which means that:
Peoples’ point of entry into fandom and specifically fic is increasingly erratic and unpredictable. The point of reference that older fans have is no longer the majority experience. The understanding that they might have isn’t prioritized in fandom, and the diy expertless aesthetic of fanfic helps to de-emphasize ideas of authority.
Also: AO3 has set itself up to be THE fic archive. The idea that AO3 is THE place for fic writers and readers means that the image it projects- correctly or incorrectly- is one of AO3 being an accurate image of fic-writing fandom. AO3 might have been set up as Slash’s Last Stand, but the fact that it’s grown to be THE happening place in fandom means that a lot of new fandoms are fairly represented in AO3′s statistics, so it’s COMPLETELY VALID to note and discuss the abundance of m/m stories.
Slash might have built AO3, but we’re all living here now, and paying rent, and building additional stories* so we are allowed to critique the architecture.
*ha pun