Fandom or Imaginative?
What is it about fandom, anyway? Growing up, it was a normal thing in the U.S. Now it's treated like a subculture. It wasn't "Fandom" with a capital 'F' when I was growing up, it was a healthy hobby. We'd just call ourselves fans. Now it's given the image of negative perversion and profane teenage dementia assiociated with being an introvert. There's Trekkies and there's Trekkers, roleplayers, video game/manga/anime freaks who like to hit the nearest available fan convention with Cosplay at considerable cost to themselves, there's Jedi and there's people who like to dress up in theatrical/historical costume at clubs. The Sexy Fandom with Molly Case site sold itself to the SciFi Channel?
This covers "uber-goth" and tabloid eBay sales, booth babes from comic cons, growing human skin, Final Fantasy figures listed from IGN.com , etc. In other words, just my sorta site.
But what is fandom, really?
I have a list of "celebrity moments" I shall keep to myself, chance run-ins and ocassional trackings (Trackings: 1 newsgroup, 3 phone calls when I was a kid).
Does it take it too far when you want to know an actor, an author, etc. as a person and an individual? Probably, considering there's a lot of people out there that probably do too and frighten the hell out of whoever it is.
Once I started chatting about what a fan is on Robin Hobb's newsgroup, I starting wondering at what point "fan" is a derrogatory word ("I'm your biggest fan! I have all your books, I bought the T-shirt and here is an expensive gift for you!") and at what point it is a simple statement (i.e. "I am an ice cream fan. I am a Robin Hobb fan.")
It's educational, but I began wondering which I am. I actually went to her website to e-mail her after reading one of her many books. Instead I found a link to her newsgroup and have lurked there ever since. I'm learning a lot as a wanna-be writer, so that's why I stuck around. Everyone talks about linguistics, research, human habits, animals, etc. I've done worse in other SFF.net newsgroups.
But was it taking it too far to go there? Is the unemployed, school-age kid who plays D&D guilty of failure for wearing elf ears snatched out of the local costume shop? Does the guy who wears a cape and carries a duct-tape sword to the local SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) "fighter practice" to get battered and bruised deserve to be ostracized? What about the kinky-minded teens that appreciate the idea of porcelain, expensive, permanent or removable fangs?
The guy who spends copious amounts of money on fantasy/sci-fi miniatures and acrylics to paint them with? The gathering of 30-somethings that play Blood Bowl or Warhammer 40k on Saturdays? The gaming group that goes in costume to see Lord of the Rings or The Rocky Horror Picture Show, whether homosexual or not?
I'm guilty in so many ways.
Are these uber-geeks and kinky people a drag on society, generally underachievers with low self-regard or are they just people, perhaps with a little more imagination than (some would think) the average person possesses?
Is having an imagination as unhealthy as people would like you to believe these days? Remember how life was in the 80's? People dared to be individuals, now our parents' generation (who were getting loaded or killing people in the 60's) are trying to return the younger generation to the nuclear 50's, but look how it backfired! Nihilism, everywhere! So I say, my generation could do a lot worse than produce some creative imaginatives with time only for the creative and imaginative, no matter how dorky or bizarre they can get.
I guess there's people out there that try to be normal and consider the "geeks" (i.e. imaginative, smart, &/or non-conformist) victims of pop culture. Maybe fantacizing is just too painful for them in the apathy of this Nihilistic day. I'm not saying a pair of elf ears or playing Frankenfurter is going to make them acceptable as individuals to society in general, I'm just saying it wouldn't hurt to have a little compassion or understanding for people that dare to be imaginative.
This covers "uber-goth" and tabloid eBay sales, booth babes from comic cons, growing human skin, Final Fantasy figures listed from IGN.com , etc. In other words, just my sorta site.
But what is fandom, really?
I have a list of "celebrity moments" I shall keep to myself, chance run-ins and ocassional trackings (Trackings: 1 newsgroup, 3 phone calls when I was a kid).
Does it take it too far when you want to know an actor, an author, etc. as a person and an individual? Probably, considering there's a lot of people out there that probably do too and frighten the hell out of whoever it is.
Once I started chatting about what a fan is on Robin Hobb's newsgroup, I starting wondering at what point "fan" is a derrogatory word ("I'm your biggest fan! I have all your books, I bought the T-shirt and here is an expensive gift for you!") and at what point it is a simple statement (i.e. "I am an ice cream fan. I am a Robin Hobb fan.")
It's educational, but I began wondering which I am. I actually went to her website to e-mail her after reading one of her many books. Instead I found a link to her newsgroup and have lurked there ever since. I'm learning a lot as a wanna-be writer, so that's why I stuck around. Everyone talks about linguistics, research, human habits, animals, etc. I've done worse in other SFF.net newsgroups.
But was it taking it too far to go there? Is the unemployed, school-age kid who plays D&D guilty of failure for wearing elf ears snatched out of the local costume shop? Does the guy who wears a cape and carries a duct-tape sword to the local SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) "fighter practice" to get battered and bruised deserve to be ostracized? What about the kinky-minded teens that appreciate the idea of porcelain, expensive, permanent or removable fangs?
The guy who spends copious amounts of money on fantasy/sci-fi miniatures and acrylics to paint them with? The gathering of 30-somethings that play Blood Bowl or Warhammer 40k on Saturdays? The gaming group that goes in costume to see Lord of the Rings or The Rocky Horror Picture Show, whether homosexual or not?
I'm guilty in so many ways.
Are these uber-geeks and kinky people a drag on society, generally underachievers with low self-regard or are they just people, perhaps with a little more imagination than (some would think) the average person possesses?
Is having an imagination as unhealthy as people would like you to believe these days? Remember how life was in the 80's? People dared to be individuals, now our parents' generation (who were getting loaded or killing people in the 60's) are trying to return the younger generation to the nuclear 50's, but look how it backfired! Nihilism, everywhere! So I say, my generation could do a lot worse than produce some creative imaginatives with time only for the creative and imaginative, no matter how dorky or bizarre they can get.
I guess there's people out there that try to be normal and consider the "geeks" (i.e. imaginative, smart, &/or non-conformist) victims of pop culture. Maybe fantacizing is just too painful for them in the apathy of this Nihilistic day. I'm not saying a pair of elf ears or playing Frankenfurter is going to make them acceptable as individuals to society in general, I'm just saying it wouldn't hurt to have a little compassion or understanding for people that dare to be imaginative.
posted by Jessica or Peter | 11:01 AM
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