The Life and Times of a Hopeless Fangirl
I have been thinking of my own Fandom experiences (the only ones I am authorized to comment on) and I really think this fangirl business goes back way farther than any actual participation in socialized Fandom activities. By socialized Fandom activities, I pretty much mean anything that involves more than one person, the sharing and exchanging aspects of Fandom that pretty much define the subculture as we know it in internet world. But I have had fannish tendencies for as long as I can remember. I distinctly remember being a wee tot watching Little Bits on Nick Jr. and making up my own plots for episodes I wish would exist. Recalling the sorts of stories I invented I can now retroactively classify them as fanfiction (hurt/comfort fanfiction specifically) and I can declare that I shipped Snaggle/Lily (which was totally not canon).
I'm not sure if it occurred to me that most of my fellow 8-year olds were not spending as much time and mental energy daydreaming about the cartoons they watched and making up stories about them. For one reason or another, I kept it to myself. The first fanfiction (though I had never heard the word at the time) I actually wrote was about the Animaniacs building a time machine and causing wackiness to ensue in each era of history they plopped into. It was written in pencil on lined notebook paper and included illustrations. I shared it with nobody; I still hadn't reached the social stage of Fandom. Sometimes I did have friends I would talk to about whatever cartoon or TV show I was into, but never as much as I wanted to. It never got into the territory of sharing my own fanfiction stories while I was still in elementary school.
Come to think of it, even the way I indulged my childhood crushes on real classmates had a strangely fannish bent. My fantasies (which often revolved around me saving whatever cute boy I had my eye on at the moment and comforting him) probably were not all that rare, but the fact that the fantasies interested me more than the possibility of real interaction I think may have been a bit strange. I was satisfied just with the stories I made up, which were, in an odd way, a sort of self-insert Mary Sue fanfiction. When I was in 8th grade I even made up a band of cartoon cats that were based on boys I liked and then made up stories about them. This was an intentional act of fictionalization, making something real less real and more like a fandom.
I do not know why I relate to fiction and fantasy so much easier than I do to reality. I do not know why I am so much more emotionally invested in things that aren't real than in things that are, my own life. The main joy I get out of life is fiction and fantasy, losing myself in story. I do not know if my over-investment in Fandom has caused me to neglect the demands of reality and that is why I am having so much difficulty with my life, or if something in my brain made me predisposed to be a fangirl, to get way too deep into the fictions I obsess over. It just feels like the tendency, the orientation towards Fandom has always been there.
Of course, now that I have found others who share in my interests and hobbies (thank you, internets), I still only know how to make friends through Fandom. I get the feeling that when I change fandoms, I change what set of friends I communicate with, and experience has shown it to be largely (but not entirely) true. Sometimes I worry the only way I can connect with people is through shared love of some media. I honestly have no idea what non-fannish people talk about or do together.
I am sure most fannish people are not as socially handicapped as I am, and most of them are probably a lot more interested in careers and lovers and real life than I am. But I wonder if there are some common traits of the fangirl (or boy) brain that just makes us get so deep into the shows/movies/anime/manga/books/comics we love. We are the ones who can't confine our enthusiasm and interest to the time while we are actually enjoying the media; it's not enough to satisfy! We discuss! We make things! Our minds dwell on the fictional worlds that we have glimpsed and wonder endlessly!
Sometimes I wonder if there is a connection between Asperger's Syndrome/Autism Spectral Disorders and Fandom. These is just a vague thought, so please nobody take it as me trying to insinuate something. But it seems like maybe there is such a thing as a fannish brain, a predisposition. And I think if there is, it is likely a spectral situation with degrees of affliction. Well, affliction implies that it is a negative thing; manifestation may be a better word.
For the record, I could probably plot out my entire life using the various things I have been obsessed with through the years. Not all of them have been fannish, but the level of obsession I had for each of them was pretty intense. Once I got into anime and manga, they started to coexist and overlap and nowadays I have many different fandoms that I have learned to enjoy more-or-less simultaneously (though one does tend to dominate at any given time).
Dinosaurs->Animala->The Lion King->Animaniacs->Classic Animation->The Electric Catnip Acid Band (explanation above)->The Simpsons->Pokemon->Digimon->Gundam Wing->X->Gundam Seed->Naruto->Bleach->Eyeshield 21->Hetalia
And there is my life as mapped out by my major dominant fandoms (the more minor ones I left out). I feel like this entry was kind of meta. Was this meta? Did anyone even make it to the end of this dorky discourse?
I'm not sure if it occurred to me that most of my fellow 8-year olds were not spending as much time and mental energy daydreaming about the cartoons they watched and making up stories about them. For one reason or another, I kept it to myself. The first fanfiction (though I had never heard the word at the time) I actually wrote was about the Animaniacs building a time machine and causing wackiness to ensue in each era of history they plopped into. It was written in pencil on lined notebook paper and included illustrations. I shared it with nobody; I still hadn't reached the social stage of Fandom. Sometimes I did have friends I would talk to about whatever cartoon or TV show I was into, but never as much as I wanted to. It never got into the territory of sharing my own fanfiction stories while I was still in elementary school.
Come to think of it, even the way I indulged my childhood crushes on real classmates had a strangely fannish bent. My fantasies (which often revolved around me saving whatever cute boy I had my eye on at the moment and comforting him) probably were not all that rare, but the fact that the fantasies interested me more than the possibility of real interaction I think may have been a bit strange. I was satisfied just with the stories I made up, which were, in an odd way, a sort of self-insert Mary Sue fanfiction. When I was in 8th grade I even made up a band of cartoon cats that were based on boys I liked and then made up stories about them. This was an intentional act of fictionalization, making something real less real and more like a fandom.
I do not know why I relate to fiction and fantasy so much easier than I do to reality. I do not know why I am so much more emotionally invested in things that aren't real than in things that are, my own life. The main joy I get out of life is fiction and fantasy, losing myself in story. I do not know if my over-investment in Fandom has caused me to neglect the demands of reality and that is why I am having so much difficulty with my life, or if something in my brain made me predisposed to be a fangirl, to get way too deep into the fictions I obsess over. It just feels like the tendency, the orientation towards Fandom has always been there.
Of course, now that I have found others who share in my interests and hobbies (thank you, internets), I still only know how to make friends through Fandom. I get the feeling that when I change fandoms, I change what set of friends I communicate with, and experience has shown it to be largely (but not entirely) true. Sometimes I worry the only way I can connect with people is through shared love of some media. I honestly have no idea what non-fannish people talk about or do together.
I am sure most fannish people are not as socially handicapped as I am, and most of them are probably a lot more interested in careers and lovers and real life than I am. But I wonder if there are some common traits of the fangirl (or boy) brain that just makes us get so deep into the shows/movies/anime/manga/books/comics we love. We are the ones who can't confine our enthusiasm and interest to the time while we are actually enjoying the media; it's not enough to satisfy! We discuss! We make things! Our minds dwell on the fictional worlds that we have glimpsed and wonder endlessly!
Sometimes I wonder if there is a connection between Asperger's Syndrome/Autism Spectral Disorders and Fandom. These is just a vague thought, so please nobody take it as me trying to insinuate something. But it seems like maybe there is such a thing as a fannish brain, a predisposition. And I think if there is, it is likely a spectral situation with degrees of affliction. Well, affliction implies that it is a negative thing; manifestation may be a better word.
For the record, I could probably plot out my entire life using the various things I have been obsessed with through the years. Not all of them have been fannish, but the level of obsession I had for each of them was pretty intense. Once I got into anime and manga, they started to coexist and overlap and nowadays I have many different fandoms that I have learned to enjoy more-or-less simultaneously (though one does tend to dominate at any given time).
Dinosaurs->Animala->The Lion King->Animaniacs->Classic Animation->The Electric Catnip Acid Band (explanation above)->The Simpsons->Pokemon->Digimon->Gundam Wing->X->Gundam Seed->Naruto->Bleach->Eyeshield 21->Hetalia
And there is my life as mapped out by my major dominant fandoms (the more minor ones I left out). I feel like this entry was kind of meta. Was this meta? Did anyone even make it to the end of this dorky discourse?