This is true, but this is also not true. Do you see the aforementioned sentence as two arguments, or just one?
It has been a long time since I last wrote. The rigorous clacking of keyboard keys and the weaving of ideas that boggle the mind and soul of the Japanese visual media consumer ring faintly in my mind as I stare intently at the blankness that is the Add New Post page. Alas, these thoughts that are constantly swirling my mind are demanding an outlet of protest, for they have been suppressed for far too long.
What am I talking about, exactly? What ails the elusive enigma to the point of unprecedented resurrection? That is, simply being, the dissection of the very existence of the omnifan.
The omnifan is an entity of fandom based on the concept of how a person interprets something. In the omnifan’s case, he or she is an entity that exists to accept every plausible idea, every possible context, and every single opinion. An omnifan does not stick to one idea, concept or interpretation, but rather it creates an amalgam from all the possibilities in order to create an acceptable answer. It does not discriminate on the morality of an idea, nor does it reject its differing polarities when it comes to interpreting them. Everything is possible, therefore an interpretation is limited only by the boundaries of one’s imagination.
This, if we go by the principles of post-structuralism, deduces an omnifan’s as a being of neutrality, which brings us to my case. If we are to leap beyond the boundaries of Japanese visual media fandom and into the inner workings of communities and the social media that make them work, the omnifan is the most creative, the least believable, and the least to be liked. Why? Because the omnifan tends to accept every interpretation as a possibility, they tend to walk on the gray line when it comes to everything. The sentence “I like (insert X here).” is interpreted as “I like it because it’s a good X.” or “I like X because it’s as bad as Y.”, or “I like it just because.” or even all of the above. They perpetrate the “A is deep” and “B is grimdark” posts in 4chan. They lump in every single interpretation that the other types of interpretative strategies (the focused fan and the discerning, respectively) believe in and attempt to make sense out of them, which mostly doesn’t sit well with the aforementioned. The omnifan revels in the certainty of uncertainty, and that means rejecting reality and substituting one’s own, based on how the environment and circumstances are perceived.
Lo, and behold, for what seems to be the omnifan’s strength also proved to be the omnifan’s own undoing. This double-edged sword not only bolsters the omnifan’s creative thought processes, but also degrades him or her to a demographic so uncertain that it cannot label itself, a demographic that cannot be accepted because it accepts everything. Anything an omnifan says may or may not hold any meaning because it is neutrally diverse; it is theoretical and utterly shallow unless proven by fact. Worse, the possibility that omnifans are actually right is extremely rare. And in the cases where they are, people still won’t believe them, or at least have a hard time accepting that the one gear they believe that is the most essential is as irrelevant as the others that comprise the entire clockwork that is the plot.
However, let us take heed that human nature is subject to constant change. We are not permanently pegged into this kind of self-categorization. We are, after all, a species that is inclined to evolve over time. Therefore, it is safe to say that the woes of the omnifan may be as short-lived as a moment’s thought.
But how certain I am on this, I have not the slightest clue.
Filed under: Fandom Tagged: culture, fandom, Neutrality, Omnifan, Post-Structuralism 
