jenroses:

berlynn-wohl:

bangawang:

Imagine describing fandom to someone with no prior knowledge of it at all. What’s the need-to-know?

You’d tell them it consists largely of online communities who organize via blogging sites (and formerly message boards or mailing lists); fiction and art that’s often erotic in nature, and is sometimes commissioned or sold via self-promotional sites like etsy and society6; conventions that people travel internationally to attend; cosplay that takes so much skill to assemble that some people do it professionally; analysis of the source material backed by fans’ knowledge of subjects that range from medicine to weapons operation to feminist social theory to stage design.

I can imagine a lot of reactions, depending on the person, but I’m having trouble figuring out who could hear that and then conclude most of the participants are kids.

I will be moderating a panel on Fangirling Over 30 next month, and I was looking up this post so I could quote it at at the panel, and I just wanted to throw in, additionally, something that is implied above but not stated outright:

Who do the young’ins think are performing the executive functions of fandom? Who’s paying for a domain name and server space so they can host a fanfic archive? Who’s establishing and moderating message boards and mailing lists? Who’s throwing a ‘zine-assembling party at their house? Who’s forming an LLC and liaising with a hotel for the convention they’re organizing? Who’s doing the research on intellectual property to determine what constitutes fair use so that fan artists know what they can sell and where?

Hint: not kids.

The fandom playgrounds we’ve been frolicking in for 50 years did not materialize out of thin air. They were built by the people who are “too old to be in fandom.” Respect them.

I spent most of my early years in fandom (starting around age 27-ish) as one of the young’uns. At science fiction and fantasy conventions (as distinct from, say, comic book conventions or anime conventions) the average age is sliding upwards. I’m STILL pretty middle-of-the-road age-wise and I”ve been attending Orycon for about 18 years. My generation didn’t invent fandom, pretty much the boomers started “fandom as we know it”. 

I’ve had people ask me why someone my age is on tumblr, and I’m sort of laughing because I wonder why someone their age is allowed on tumblr at all. I don’t let my kids loose on the internet until I have a reasonable sense that they’re old enough to handle themselves without asking people who write smut why they’re still in fandom. 

In my family and larger circle, nerds aren’t made, they’re born. My five year old is a raging pokemon fan and has been for a couple years now. His favorite thing is a pokedex he’s still too young to read but has mostly memorized anyway. My middle child is not-very-verbal but is a huge Steven Universe fan. And my eldest has been in fandom since they were six. I started reading science fiction when I was seven years old, because my parents, who are in their mid-sixties, had so much of it lying around the house. We’ve taken three generations to SCA events (expensive), conventions (even more expensive) and I think when one of the later Harry Potter books came out we had to buy four copies because there was NO one in the house who was willing to wait for three other people to read. (all four of those copies now live in different households, lol.)

I will be in fandom long, long past my death. You won’t even be able to pry it out of my cold, dead hands. I’m halfway tempted to put AO3 in my friggin’ will. 

At some point it is going to have to be acknowledged that it is not ‘fandom’ anymore, but something else, a ragtag society of creatives – writers, artists, actors, filmmakers, etc – who just happen to enjoy things other people make.