I'm old in fandom years.
Yesterday, I was cleaning up my closet a bit and decided it was finally time to do something about The Folders of Fanfic. You see, I am old enough that I have paper fanzines and printouts of my favorite fanfics (of 15+ years ago). LOTS of print outs. I possibly killed a few trees there. About five huge 3-ring binders worth of fanfic, plus some dozen thin zines.
Good stuff, good stuff.
But.
MUCH too storage-intensive. And I haven't taken them out to read in, oh, a decade. So, time to get rid of them! But first, I must search the internet for the stories, so I can turn them into e-books and put them on my Nook. Why yes, yes, I AM a dragon and cannot rid myself of anything, especially texts. And, of course, I've gotten caught up in re-reading (mostly skimming, but still) some of the old stuff and...
Wow. I'm old. Slash fanfic has CHANGED in the last 20 years! Good lord, the attitudes towards LGBT folks alone...!!! I'm reading these old stories and going, wow, cultural shift! Also, even the writing style, themes, and genres have mutated. I mean, yeah, if I take into account a post-9/11, post-financial crisis, age-of-social-media, legal-gay-marriage, repeal-of-DADT world, OF COURSE the stories will be different now.
It's also a bit humbling to me to realize that I've been reading fanfic for 20 years now. I mean, DAMN.
Good stuff, good stuff.
But.
MUCH too storage-intensive. And I haven't taken them out to read in, oh, a decade. So, time to get rid of them! But first, I must search the internet for the stories, so I can turn them into e-books and put them on my Nook. Why yes, yes, I AM a dragon and cannot rid myself of anything, especially texts. And, of course, I've gotten caught up in re-reading (mostly skimming, but still) some of the old stuff and...
Wow. I'm old. Slash fanfic has CHANGED in the last 20 years! Good lord, the attitudes towards LGBT folks alone...!!! I'm reading these old stories and going, wow, cultural shift! Also, even the writing style, themes, and genres have mutated. I mean, yeah, if I take into account a post-9/11, post-financial crisis, age-of-social-media, legal-gay-marriage, repeal-of-DADT world, OF COURSE the stories will be different now.
It's also a bit humbling to me to realize that I've been reading fanfic for 20 years now. I mean, DAMN.