Fandom Story Time, everyone!

[amelialourdes]

All right, I was having a very lively discussion with my friends and we started getting into our fandom origin stories. I want to know your fandom origin stories. What was the fandom that got you into fandom? When did you start discovering fic? Discussions? Did you become involved in a message board? Were you on a ListServ? Was the Internet around

Comments

[reeface]

Hi, my name is Ree and I'm old skool. Gosh, lesse, we're talking late 80s I'd say, so way before I even knew what internet was. I was a teen and Star Trek/Next Gen/Star Wars were my first fanfics. I read the pro novels and had a subscription to the Official Star Trek Magazine and iirc it was through their classifieds that I found out about fanzines. Bought new and old ones (through used lists) and was addicted like crack. They were all gen or het, as slash wasn't really on my radar yet. I was such a wee babe.

Wasn't until Quantum Leap around '91 that I actually talked to other fans about an actual show and not just to ask for their list of memorabilia they were selling. Again through fanzine classifieds, I joined a QL pen pal list. Though most people wanted to only talk about their gardens and the weather, and not the show or characters like I was gushing about every week, so that didn't last long. :\

Then the clouds parted and the sun shone through in the mid 90s: I GOT MY FIRST COMPUTER AND MY FIRST ONLINE FANDOM. The end credits on a Methos ep of Highlander were barely flashing by and I was already at my desk searching for everything about them. Found fan-made websites and joined e-mail lists and usenet newsgroups and made my first online friends and squeed like a giant newb and READ ALL THE FICS and meta and discovered slash and fell in love with my first ever slash pairing (Duncan/Methos) and giggled with joy at bad!fic and wrote fics that didn't just live in my notebooks and started my own actor e-lists and created websites and screencapped episodes and joined RPG writing groups and gawked at flame wars in both awe/horror/glee and and and and and.

Oh, fandom. I love you.

And you, Aface! Great topic. ♥