Fans and the People Who Love Them

[fangirljen]

I was confronted by something kind of random today. My co-worker, Matt, drew me into a conversation about Fandom. It was he who brought it up, which simply astounded me. He started the conversation by saying, "Hey, Jen. I think you should write a book about fandom." This is an idea that I've tossled about with for a while, but at the moment I'

Comments

[selmak]

Well, it really determines on the level of fandom, to be honest. I've only gone to two cons where I ONLY went because of the actors. (And since it was the first time Peter Jurasik was on the East Coast and a three hour drive, I plead guilty for being a crazy fan. The other time was for a Creation Con an hour away from my house with the stargate actors). The other cons I attend are mainly to meet with my online buddies and sometimes the actors are the icing on the cake.

I run a Stargate website. It's a rather snarky piece of work, as I modeled it after some fangrrrrls' sites for a particular Stargate actor. I thought they were terribly over the top, w/o a trace of clue how scary they were.

My site features four older character actors and 'my voice' on the site is a raving fanggrrrl symbiote who is just completely clueless about her obsession being a tad bit wacky. She's wacky, she's clueless and she's crazy about her boy toys. I hope I present it in such a way that anyone that visits my site realizes that it's completely and utterly a parody of Fangrrrrlism. But I have to admit that I've spent too much on it - but in exchange, I've 'met' hundreds of online people because of it. One of the boys even told me that he thinks it's a funny, intelligent site. (Did I fangrrrrl squee on that comment? You bet your David Tennant Calendar I did.)

Fangrrrlism can be fun.

In moderation.

I've been to a couple cons where people have no sense of reality. They talk about Amanda or Mike like they're best friends. When you get to the point where you sobbingly debate canceling a con after spending too much money just because an actor canceled?

I've never baked a cake for an actor. I've never dropped off hershey kisses at his autograph table. Have I bought his/her kids shoes through autographs for me and assorted friends that couldn't make the con? Hell yes.

Have I joined in donating toward an actor's/actress's favorite charity as a fan group project? Yes.

Have I sent an actor a Christmas card? Yes. Mainly because someone on the group told him that the group was sending him Christmas cards and I thought as the group leader I should send him one.

Did one of my fangroups buy the actor his domain name for Christmas? Err.. yes... but that was a long, long story and he's a very special case.