How Do You Fandom?

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

While fandom for many of us implies other fans, how one engages can vary. I've read about the APA days, though I started by going to physical meetings that involved watching episodes not playing in the current package on the PBS station. I learned how to do the club newsletter once I was in HS, and used those skills doing taxonomies for college assignments.

What ways do you 'practice' fandom?

writing process in case that interests you.

Comments

[doranwen]

I read lots of fanfic. Occasionally I write some as well. Often for exchanges. And once in a blue moon I write meta about it. And I chat with fellow fans if I can find them (used to be on IM or IRC, now Discord more). That's about it, I think?

EDIT: Forgot that being a tagmod for the Yuletide fanfic exchange totally counts. And probably saving Yahoo Groups as part of the fandom rescue project, lol.

[pensnest]

I started off by discovering a fan-run newsletter, in the ad columns of an official Star Trek magazine. From the newsletter (IDIC) I found my way to fic zines, and read and wrote for a while. Mid-nineties, got online with the primary (if unspoken) purpose of finding Moar Trek! I ran a 'reviewzine' for a few years, I think there were six or eight issues, on a roughly six-monthly basis, and it was sent out by post.

Wrote a few stories for the alt.startrek.creative newsgroup in the late 1990s... but it was finding LiveJournal in 2005 that really put a fire into my fannish creativity. I wrote, read, recced, squeed, helped run a couple of comms. For me, the LJ/DW model is the *perfect* medium for fannish interaction - it's easy to have a conversation, it's easy to put boundaries where you want them, and so forth. I was baffled by the fannish exodus Tumblr-wards, because I like DW-style conversations. I still write, a bit, and I read mostly on AO3, and DW is my online home.

[fred_mouse]

I read fanfic and profic, I occasionally squee about stuff, I volunteer as a judge for a judged award on a regular basis, I flirt with the idea of running a short story competition, I've been involved in running fan events and clubs, and I attend the very occasional convention (our local one every year; I've been to WorldCon four and a half times, and Eurocon twice).

[author_by_night]

I loooove meta, which sadly seems to be a dying interest. But that's okay. I also think the first fandom I was in spoiled me a lot (Harry Potter), because people were obsessed in this huge way that did result in All Meta, All The Time. Whereas subsequent fandoms have been a little more low key.

I used to write a lot of fanfic, and back in the day a lot of my fanfic was speculative as well. I also read fanfic all the time. Now... I've since realized I don't really have much urge to write fanfic anymore, and I don't know if it's JK Rowling's fault and a lack of any fandoms I want to write fanfic for, or if I've moved past fanfic in a sense. I also don't read much of it anymore, but that's mostly time. When I was in high school and college, I had all the time in the world to scour fanfiction.net for the best fanfics. (And even there, I probably definitely should've been studying more.) Now that I'm an adult... I just don't have the time. I do have a friend on DW whose fics I sometimes read, though, and for a while I was reading a great novel length fanfic. But the author finished it, so that was that. ;)

I do still love talking about my fannish interests, and I spend a lot of time on TV Tropes because that's the easiest place to get meta these days, I find. (Not on the TV Tropes forums, I've heard those are a hot mess, just the main wiki pages. YMMV, WMG, Fridge, here I come!)

I haven't done much fandom IRL, the way it seems you have. I thought about starting a sort of group for discussing various media, sort of like a book club but more focused. However, COVID-19 kind of nixed that idea. Plus, I already run another community group, and that's pretty much all I have time for. :/

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

There tends to be a lull from time to time, waves have troughs as well as crests. Forums, unless the moderators and die hards inculcate against it, can fester like gym socks.

Well, when I was face to face, the internet couldn't do video and you needed an author's login to get to Usenet. Roleplaying was still pretty niche, and sort of the loud sibling of historical war gaming (you'd see guys realizing they'd left a battalion at home and would have to call and hope for reinforcements. I wasn't on that side, that was serious money and time commitment.) When I found the first of the mailing lists for fanfiction I joined, it was great being able to participate asynchronously. I did do a bit of Sherlock Holmes fandom, but I was a great deal younger than the main membership.

Some of the ConZealand Fringe programming was meta leaning, particularly the There Was Only One Panel.

[yourlibrarian]

Although for me it was other fandoms, your HP experience makes me wonder if it wasn't indeed the times rather than the fandoms that prompted the flood of meta available, because I've come across a number of people who wonder why there's so little meta in fandom spaces these days by comparison.

I don't know if you also write meta, but I ran the marchmetamatterschallenge for the first time this year. We did prompts but the focus was on preserving content and putting it somewhere easier for people to find. You might be interested in browsing the the results.

[superborb]

At this point, I mostly just read fanfic. Back in HS, when LJ was super active, I was much more involved in chatting with people on LJ or IM and a few meetups.

I want to be more involved in fandom now, but I so strongly prefer LJ/DW style posts and commenting over tumblr/twitter that it is hard. And after being out of actively interacting for so long, I feel like I don't really know anyone anymore.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I think I missed the heyday of LJ, since I 'returned' in 2009--work had monopolized my time and my canons were closed.

tumblr is a very different sort of beast. I started because it was where the MCU was and for awhile it was the heady distillation of history geek out/alternate history. Twitter isn't something I do-I know it could be seriously addictive/ragescroll so I only go there for specific entries others link drop.

I think the tumblr kids are now as old as I was my first mailing lists? And I was youngish.

[author_by_night]

While I understand why LJ died, I really do wonder why everyone deferred to tumblr when DW really is better for that sort of fandom. But I'm just not sure anyone was as interested anymore. I think internet culture itself has changed a lot, so as much as tumblr and twitter don't help, I can also see why people prefer the "quick fixes" social sites like those offer.

I don't even know HOW to meet people on twitter. I joined the writing community there, but I mostly just see retweets, and also with character limits it's so hard to respond beyond "I agree" or "this is a funny post." Plus, I have to say that there's been so much grim news lately, twitter isn't the healthiest place for me. (I'm not at ALL knocking discussing those things, I've been one of them because a lot of things are going on in this world that need to be discussed. It's the constant flow, rather than having one very necessary grim conversation, then moving on. I'm honestly happier when I avoid twitter, but then I can't make friends there because I'm never there.)

[sylvaine]

In my experience, I initially followed people on twitter that I knew from dreamwidth, and then expanded my circle of friends from there by following people who were having conversations with my friends. But twitter has become awful for my mental health as well so I've stepped away from it.

[author_by_night]

Twitter is terrible for mental health. I seriously wish there were a way to filter.

[feurioo]

I write and read fanfic, make fanart/gifs, discuss episodes and speculate with other fans, write meta, and make episode screencaps in the context of my modding a fan forum. Back in the day, I also met up with other fans, but that was before my depression hit me super hard.

[nautilusdreams]

I started with reading fanfic back when fics were archived in fandom specific websites, then I migrated to fanfiction.net when that opened up.

Nowadays I read and write fanfic. I love reading meta and piping in but as much as I enjoy meta I'm bad at writing it, and at effusing in that very excited tumblr-esque way that I really like reading.

I have joined fandom discords before but I'm too multi-fandom to stay interested in one for too long.

[silverr]

I fell into a non-credit class taught by BNFs in the late 1970s. Wrote for some fanzines, went to some cons, acted in skits at cons. Then I did almost nothing fannish for 20 years. Got into online fandom in 2002, which was mostly chatting on BBSs and forums and over IM, and writing fanfic.

Eighteen years later I'm still writing and chatting, though now it's mostly with family members or with a few long-time fannish friends on Discord or Zoom.

[thewriterinpink]

I actually stumbled into fandom through the music video stuff on youtube first back in the early 2010s (so I was like 12ish). One of the videos had a link to a fanfic on fanfiction.net and I was blown away by the idea that others could write vast new content for my favourite media. I was immediately addicted to story telling and wanting to become like them, although of course, being as young as I was at the time, it was a long journey to get there (especially with all the depression I unfortunately had throughout my entire teen years).

I lurked around, never actually interacting with other fans. I wasn't part of the livejournal days, but I certainly stumbled upon communities that a frequented for content and to read discussions other fans were having without ever chipping in. Eventually, I grew a little older and became aware of tumblr and stayed there on and off for awhile. I know that a lot of people prefer places like here, but the atmosphere of social media sites like tumblr feel nice to me. It's hard to get rid of assholes sometimes, but everyone else is just so friendly and, better yet, consistent. Whenever you went on there, you knew you were going to get the content you wanted on your dash if you were following the right people. Sometimes you'd never need to check the tags for anything again (and that's a good thing because that's where you'd find all the assholes with opinions they feel they absolutely have to tell you and ruin your day, so staying on your dash as much as possible is crucial for anything fun to be had there). I think because I was part of this generation though that I've always found it difficult to make friends in fandom. It's only ever happened once and it didn't last. Of course, I'd like to change that but I don't know what to do to break that streak.

I used to read a lot more fanfic when I was younger and new to my tastes. These days I tend to either have no time because I'm busy writing my own stuff or what is there doesn't appeal to my very specific interests with the characters and therefore I have no desire to bother with it. With so many different types of perspectives and needs being projected in fanfic, it's no wonder someone who's very stubborn in her own cravings would be less inclined to compromise, so not that much fanfic gets read and genuinely enjoyed enough to be placed in my favourites. Most of my interactions with fandom I think can be summed up in commenting on others fic (and responding to comments of my own) or art or what have you. It never goes any farther than that, sadly.

[beradan]

I'm on Tumblr, though less so than a few years ago; I beta fanfic for other people; I have (text) conversations with fan friends, most of whom I originally met online. I'm not good at coming up with and carrying out an entire idea by myself, so I'm more likely to follow up on an existing meta discussion or bait a fic-writing friend with a plotbunny.

One of the things that kept me sane (ish) during library school was planning/discussing the SHIELD archives with a friend and fellow classmate. That kind of petered out once we graduated, but to this day I think some of the things we remember the most clearly are things we took notes on for fic reasons.

Does it count as 'practicing' fandom if about 80% of how I wound up finally taking an interest in 20th century history involved Captain America? It's not something I do as a fan at this point, but I definitely notice things that I run across while researching that I think should be in a fan creation. I should probably write them down...

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

It's certainly fanning in action. I finally waded into reading about the Vietnam era from the policy side, and only Bucky could make me do that.(And trying not to be wrong on the internet. But it was for writing Bucky right.)

This is my emotional support brainwashed assassin.

The Russos need to read a couple of books, including Malthus (there's probably an illustrated version) and unlawful orders in the military.

[luckyzukky]

i read a ton of fanfic, but at this point only for blue exorcist since i'm not really into other anime/manga series anymore (except precure but i don't read fic for that). i have this weird thing where i basically never talk about blue exorcist even though i love it so much, i'm just terrible at putting my thoughts together so i rarely post about it, or write any analysis or fic. i wish i did more but idk it's weird lol

as for idols i usually talk to other fans on some forums i'm on (most of the fandom's on twitter which i'm not on but there's some long-running forums still around so i stick to those), and i also make a lot of idol edits like icons, wallpapers, even videos. i wanna try doing other stuff but i don't feel comfortable writing fic about real people (especially when some of these idols are around my age) so idk

[polarissruler]

I mostly write and read nowadays. Sometimes I could be found chatting on Discord, and once in a blue moon I'll post on Tumblr. (And on Dreamwidth, but unfortunately that seems to be even rarer. I just don't know how to find my fandoms here.)

I also tried Twitter, but let's not speak about that.