Non-financial blog post wondering: Any fanfolk skitter past this blog?
I have been around lo, these many and many years, so I remember pre-Internet, pre-Google, when fandom was scarce and difficult and derided. E! didn't always cover the San Diego Comic Con, y'all. Our need to find like minds to obsess with us over our fringe passions helped build the Internet, and the Internet helped make our obsessions mainstream. But mainstream isn't universal, not for any obsession, and so there's still a majority, "outside" world that's, at best, kindly uninterested.
I have sort of an ill-footing boot in each world. I have tremendous affection for the various alternate realities I fan for; I think the energy of Cons can be fantastic; I'm in awe of your bad cosplay self and the talent and ingenuity you bring to your creations; I find forums let me appreciate these realities anew by bringing into focus the details and connections I somehow missed; and sometimes -- when there's just no other fresh fix available -- I've found that fanfic can save my damn life.
But I'm cheap, a bad traveler, and fear crowds and strangers. I feel not just irritation but guilt, anxiety, and hurt when another fan tells me my observation is foolish or my knowledge superficial or my taste questionable, even online, even when I'm anonymous. (I'm always anonymous.)
And trying to share my joy with non-fans, people who aren't invested, is at best flat.
So my experience has been that "real" fans find me vaguely uncommitted, while non-fans don't understand my peculiar obsessions with the Federation / the Machine vs. Samaritan / Maggie & Hopey / Fillory / the Vor / oh etc., etc., etc., however pleasant they are about it.
Which leaves me a solitary fan. Kind of ironic, I guess.
I have been around lo, these many and many years, so I remember pre-Internet, pre-Google, when fandom was scarce and difficult and derided. E! didn't always cover the San Diego Comic Con, y'all. Our need to find like minds to obsess with us over our fringe passions helped build the Internet, and the Internet helped make our obsessions mainstream. But mainstream isn't universal, not for any obsession, and so there's still a majority, "outside" world that's, at best, kindly uninterested.
I have sort of an ill-footing boot in each world. I have tremendous affection for the various alternate realities I fan for; I think the energy of Cons can be fantastic; I'm in awe of your bad cosplay self and the talent and ingenuity you bring to your creations; I find forums let me appreciate these realities anew by bringing into focus the details and connections I somehow missed; and sometimes -- when there's just no other fresh fix available -- I've found that fanfic can save my damn life.
But I'm cheap, a bad traveler, and fear crowds and strangers. I feel not just irritation but guilt, anxiety, and hurt when another fan tells me my observation is foolish or my knowledge superficial or my taste questionable, even online, even when I'm anonymous. (I'm always anonymous.)
And trying to share my joy with non-fans, people who aren't invested, is at best flat.
So my experience has been that "real" fans find me vaguely uncommitted, while non-fans don't understand my peculiar obsessions with the Federation / the Machine vs. Samaritan / Maggie & Hopey / Fillory / the Vor / oh etc., etc., etc., however pleasant they are about it.
Which leaves me a solitary fan. Kind of ironic, I guess.
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