One answer is that it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things (or the Visualization of the Cosmic All, if you prefer). It's just a way to have fun at cons, and in living rooms.
Here's another way of looking at it...
The way I see it, there are two conflicting human impulses. (Not the
only two human impulses, mind you, just the two pertinent to this particular discussion.) There's the impulse to sing... and the impulse to stare down or mock anyone who dares to sing in public, as if they've committed some sort of unforgivable gaffe. The latter impulse is what produces the people who viciously mock karaoke. The former impulse... is what produces karaoke.
Sometimes the mocking comes because the singer has not that great of a voice, but often
no voice coming from an Average Person would sound acceptable to the complainer. The sense is that only people who are trained for it, only people who get paid for it, should sing. Singing, for many, should be exclusively the province of the Idol.
In other words: Some days, it seems, everybody's gotta be Simon Cowell.
If you've ever had someone tell you, "Who sings that? (Name of artist here)? You should let her/him do it," I'm talking to you. If someone's ever told you, "Don't quit your day job," I'm talking to you.
If you've remained silent out of fear that somebody
might tell you that, I'm
really talking to you.
What filk offers, ideally (and, yeah, there are going to be a few filk Nazis, the same as with everything else), is a supportive environment to try out your voice. If it's a bit rough around the edges, so what? The only way it's going to get any smoother is if you keep using it. But the idea behind filk is that everyone has something to offer.
Like any pusher, I'm offering the first song free. The second and third ones, too. All of them, in fact. Then we try to hook you on the harder stuff: Writing songs. Write new words to somebody else's tune. Write a tune to that song a character sings in your favorite book. You may even wind up writing original stuff. It may take time to work up to that point, but hey, we're a patient lot.
And if that eventually lands you a recording contract and loads of fame, wonderful. But that's not the objective here. The objective is that your voice - the song that's stuck there, battering at the inside of your skull to get out - be heard. You don't
have to quit your day job. (Heck, that's where we get most of our material...)
In my wildest fancies, the idea of filk - even if it's not actually called "filk" - spreads beyond fandom. Song circles form all over the place, in all sorts of specialties - or no specialty at all other than: music. I'm not sure I have the energy to carry it that far.
But maybe you do.
Mind you, filk isn't The One True Path to this - there's church, and amateur community bands and choral groups, and open mikes, and sure, karaoke. The point is to get people participating, to get people singing. Especially to get people singing together.
Because music is far too important to be left to musicians.
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