I have fandom goggles.
A few weeks ago CBS Sunday Morning did a segment on a male BNF and his fangirls.
Well, ok, sort of. It wasn't fandom; it was the quilting community. But I had my fandom goggles on.
Watch (7 minutes)
Ricky Tims is the quilter that the program chose to profile. He does gorgeous work, and he's funny, and he seems invested in mentoring. He is also a man. That put me in mind of a couple of fandom-related things:
1) It seems that maybe the same phenomenon exists in quiltdom (quiltdom?) as I have observed in fandom: that a man can sometimes gain popularity based not only on the appeal of his work, but also partly on the novelty of his gender. And of course there's the related thing where, periodically, a boy fan is revealed to be a sockpuppet.
2) The fact that the show chose to profile a man. Is that a result of his "rock star" status, or is it another expression of it? If in fact my assumption #1 is correct -- and maybe it's not! -- how much was this interview a continuation of the phenomenon that helped make him popular in the first place? (And I really do know better than to rely on a seven-minute blurb in a news magazine for insight into unfamiliar subcultures. But there are at least a few people within the community who bring up similar points: see this post and this one.)
I thought the show presented kind of a weird view of quilting, in the things they chose to say about gender and the things they chose to omit. Similar to some of the media portrayals of fanfic and vidding that make special mention of male fans while failing to talk about the history of those communities as being predominantly female. Like Tims' "caveman style" quilting method. It sounds like a really cool technique, it's just that that's not the sort of language I typically associate with textile arts, you know?
To put it another way: would he be a renowned male in a predominantly female community, if he wasn't renowned as a male in a predominantly female community?
Well, ok, sort of. It wasn't fandom; it was the quilting community. But I had my fandom goggles on.
Watch (7 minutes)
Ricky Tims is the quilter that the program chose to profile. He does gorgeous work, and he's funny, and he seems invested in mentoring. He is also a man. That put me in mind of a couple of fandom-related things:
1) It seems that maybe the same phenomenon exists in quiltdom (quiltdom?) as I have observed in fandom: that a man can sometimes gain popularity based not only on the appeal of his work, but also partly on the novelty of his gender. And of course there's the related thing where, periodically, a boy fan is revealed to be a sockpuppet.
2) The fact that the show chose to profile a man. Is that a result of his "rock star" status, or is it another expression of it? If in fact my assumption #1 is correct -- and maybe it's not! -- how much was this interview a continuation of the phenomenon that helped make him popular in the first place? (And I really do know better than to rely on a seven-minute blurb in a news magazine for insight into unfamiliar subcultures. But there are at least a few people within the community who bring up similar points: see this post and this one.)
I thought the show presented kind of a weird view of quilting, in the things they chose to say about gender and the things they chose to omit. Similar to some of the media portrayals of fanfic and vidding that make special mention of male fans while failing to talk about the history of those communities as being predominantly female. Like Tims' "caveman style" quilting method. It sounds like a really cool technique, it's just that that's not the sort of language I typically associate with textile arts, you know?
To put it another way: would he be a renowned male in a predominantly female community, if he wasn't renowned as a male in a predominantly female community?