An Ode to the Storylistener
By Jen | @RainyMonday126
Co-creator of Voices of the Fandom
Storytelling is a dance. It’s an agreement–a promise, even.
Everyone knows the role of the storyteller. Storytellers are the keepers of language, artfully crafting words into meaning. They see order whereas others see only chaos. They find characters, plots, and settings hidden among the weeds and dedicate their already exhausted minds to cultivating those elements into a garden.
But the dance requires another body–a partner–someone that can follow when the storyteller leads.
You see, storytelling is nothing without the story listener. The story listener, with their endless curiosity and trust, is the one that breathes life into the dance. They stand at the ready, waiting with apt attention to receive what the storyteller is desperate to give. They hear those words and let them seep into their soul, filling them with a hope and comfort that can only be found in that single moment when another person has made you feel seen.
For millennia, human beings have assumed this role. Generation after generation, the history of humankind has been marked by those who dared to listen.
But the 21st-century story listener is something to behold. Gone are the days of passive audiences and mindless consumption of content. Gone is the promise of unwavering loyalty to media companies who, at the end of the day, are only concerned with the bottom line.
We have entered into a new era of storytelling.
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Something truly profound happens to a person when they finally see themselves represented in a story. It is a euphoria that comes from the realization that you are not alone in this world, that you are inextricably connected to the universe in ways that you haven’t even begun to realize. Your experiences, your emotions, your fears: they are no longer a burden that you must bear alone.
When you are a member of a historically marginalized community, finding yourself within the stories that you’re hearing can be life-altering. For anyone that has ever fought for this form of representation, you understand how painful it can be to be a story listener, especially when it feels like we are pleading for our existence just to be acknowledged.
So, when a story comes along that reaches the most vulnerable parts of us, we cling to it as if it were a life raft. We claim it. We invest in it. We cement it as a permanent fixture in our community’s culture and history. We love it with our entire selves.
And when that story is taken from us, when the multinational corporation responsible for negotiating the relationship between the storyteller and the story listener decides that the story no longer has value, it is impossible not to feel like a piece of ourselves was taken with it.
So here’s the thing: If enough story listeners join together, they form an audience. When that audience exchanges their hard-earned money and attention for these stories, they become customers. And when streaming platforms, publishers, and studios continuously choose profits over people, when they bury or cancel these stories that we have claimed as our own… then they had better be prepared for those customers to start a movement.
This is an ode to those story listeners. To you, deep in the fight, exhausted and broken. To the audiences that have been pushed too far and have had enough. This is an ode to anyone that has ever doubted that their actions are making a difference. This story is nothing without you.
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We have been given a gift by the storytellers. They are holding out their hands asking us to join them in this dance, even as the floor is crumbling beneath us. These stories do not, and will never, belong to the gatekeepers. Because at the heart of the storytelling process lies only two people: the storyteller and the story listener.
If the gatekeepers have a fatal flaw, it is in underestimating the power of an audience, neglecting the inherent story listener in all of us, in failing to anticipate just how hard we would be willing to fight for our place in this world.
Do not make the same mistake with your own power. Do not underestimate the role that you play in this story as a listener and as a part of that larger movement. Every tweet, post, like. Every video edit. Every watch and rewatch. Every fanart and fanfiction. Every billboard and postcard and testimonial. That is how our stories live on.
The gatekeepers may have abandoned our stories and discarded them when they were no longer deemed profitable, but they were never theirs, to begin with. Our stories cannot be commodified, because they don’t live on pages or screens or are forgotten on the cutting room floor. They live within us. They belong to us, and we alone get to decide where they go. And without our stories, it is only a matter of time before those gatekeepers dissolve into irrelevance. So, let them.
This is an ode to the storylistener. This is an ode to you.
This essay was originally published by Voices of the Fandom and has been republished here with permission.