A few of us have this poster.
Saturday, September 5, 2015
Lexx Collectibles
Probably the hardest thing on Lexx fans is the severe lack of collectible merchandise that many other fandoms enjoy. No Lexx character Funko dolls, no jointed posable action figure sets, no Lego sets with additional pieces, no life-sized wall clings or cutouts, no t-shirts and plushies and back to school/college paraphernalia. While other fans enjoy every conceivable concoction from bedroom accessories and home decor to edible cake decorations, Lexx fans hoard what little was promo'd and create the rest from scratch.
A few of us have this poster.
I'm not going to make an exhaustive list of what is out there, whether they were promotional materials created during filming and broadcasting, or created by fans. I've seen everything from high dollar paintings to homemade designer jewelry and everything in between. Fans are marvelously creative and inventive, and the really tenacious ones go to great lengths and sometimes expense creating everything from hand cast models and dolls to digital renditions for videos and games.
My biggest personal challenge is my drive to catalog everything I find into a library and then I feel really bad when I've exposed something that winds up being a legal problem and removed from public view. That doesn't stop fans from creating. It does, however, make them feel more alone.
In the old days, I shared hundreds of links that added to the overall fan network that other fans started building before me. As time has passed, as web hosts have fallen by the wayside, as some fans have moved on, the network has become a little more scattered into old and new camps. The new camps use a tagging system that, once discovered, works wonderfully, but doesn't show up in search parameters unless someone understands this system.
For instance, I can search 'Lexx tumblr' and get these right at the very top of the search, because it looked for tumblr tags contained within a blost host that has its own search engine, and everything goes straight to other fans talking and sharing, all nicely gathered into its own stream.
However, if I only look for 'Lexx' I wind up with the same old list going to wikipedia, imdb, amazon, another wiki, and some older fansites that haven't been updated in ages. Even though there are still active fans all over the planet, they don't show up in Lexx searches unless you use the right words.
Tags and hashtags are crucial if you want to find other fans and see what they're doing. For instance, when I put '#Lexxperience' in a search bar, I get my own twitter hashtag feed links in its own stream, or anything leading to my Lexxperience network. Since Lexx is a common name, other people also use "Lexxperience", but since I'm flooding the webs and social media with it, I wind up at or near the top of search lists.
Ok, now let's have some fun. I put 'Lexx Lego' into search and among the rare gems was this cute little pic on pinterest, which linked to this forum thread, and a post in the forum linked back to the original site, and from there I easily found the 'Lego Sci-fi' link, and therein was Lexx Lego dated back to 2002. Another fantastic gem that showed up in the Lexx Lego image search was this awesome construction dated to 2009. A direct link to the photo is offered at the bottom of the page, but that's all it is, an embeddable link.
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Facebook makes it really easy now to share the Lexx related stuff I run into, all I have to do is put the link address into a post and Facebook automatically pulls in the link and a description, sometimes a sample of the text content and a graphic, so when I do run into fan stuff I'm trying to remember to share it to my Lexxperience page on Facebook. I'm still getting used to doing that, it's not an automatic reflex for me yet.
The flaw with Facebook and Twitter is that there are a million people calling themselves Lexx on this planet, plus there is an actual Lexx dance club and other businesses with Lexx in the name, and then other famous people using a Lexx moniker, and parody accounts galore using Lexx character names that go far beyond roleplay into actual extreme politics or porn. I got into a fight on twitter my first year back with a right winger for using the Brunnen-G fight song buried in his content to pull in followers, because he obviously had no clue what Lexx even was, and his new followers weren't checking his background and kept retweeting the Brunnen-G song. I really don't care what someone's political or religious affiliation is, just don't use my favorite show to spam your propaganda. Since then I've run into so many people using Lexx tropes and characters for their own spin that I no longer care. As a television show, Lexx has gone through the social media grinder like nothing else I've ever seen, and still I find new fans all over the planet, fans who appreciate the actual show for what it really is and are trying almost desperately to find more of it, as opposed to porn.
The more I link other Lexx fanstuffs, and the more I write about linking other Lexx fanstuffs, the easier I help make this stuff to find in search engines. That's the key. In the olden days (about a decade ago), search was a simple cataloging system that ranked sites in order of which was most seen, and that remains a real blockade in the way for Lexx fans looking for new stuff, because breaking through that barrier is crucial, unless you're fine with obsessively combing through a hundred pages of links. I'm not as patient as I used to be. Until fans figure out the tagging system and the results start outranking the established dead end zone, that basic unchanging search list will continue to blockade the first several pages with somewhat outdated material. It makes the fandom look 'dead'.
There really is new stuff out there. If you play around a little with tightening up your search parameters to specific phrases, you find other fans much faster than simply looking for Lexx. Finding other fans means finding new content. The key to finding other fans is searching tags in host sites. 'Lexx Facebook' kinda backfires because there are a million people using the nickname Lexx. Same with twitter. I pretty much own the 'Lexx Xanga' search, but there are a lot of Lexx fans showing up on pinterest now, and you can get to some of them really fast using a 'Lexx Pinterest' search.
One really super cool way to find other fan stuff fast is searching 'Lexx Fans' and clicking the images option, like this. Just about the fastest way to find anything on the planet now is through image search. You get every host site out there who has posted Lexx graphics, including art sites, blogs, interviews, pinterest, etc.
The goal is to find other fans talking about Lexx, because they are the ones creating new stuff. I've been data mining Lexx for about ten years now and I'm really good at finding obscure, abandoned, forgotten stuff that sometimes turns out to be really cool. I'm trying to stream stuff I find into #Lexxperience on twitter and through Lexxperience on Facebook, and I'm trying to help fans network to other sources through a public group and my fan blogs. I think a few other Lexx fans around the world are having the same idea, because I'm seeing other new link hub sites going up.
I'm not an exhaustive source base for Lexx. I could be, but I made the decision a long time ago not to be the guru. I've been called a Lexx queen, lexx pimp, and just recently, a Lexx goddess, but that's only because I make myself so visible. I'm more of an epic fail facepalm type that bumbles through the day collecting junk like a packrat while I obsess over little tidbits of coding, and that's only in between several really big projects I'm working on that have nothing to do with Lexx. I happen to be a Lexx fan blogger who overthinks things and notices stuff and y'all don't see me right now staying sane watching a super hyper 2 year old while her mama works overtime by sneaking off to my laptop to write a few sentences in between snacks and toys and looking out windows, jumping off the couch, and racing up the stairs. I'm Lexxausted. Lexxhausted? Which one looks better? lol
Anyway, if you guys want more Lexx, get out there and find each other. I guarantee there are fans out there making cool stuff and would be delighted to see some new traffic and comments and stuff. If all that sounds worky and you'd like an easier start, here you go. Other fans abound, click and go find them.
Follow Janika Banks's board Lexx on Pinterest.
A few of us have this poster.
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