Fandom history

[nialla42]

I like following fanthropology because wneleh often posts interesting links about fandom's influence in the mainstream. In the most recent post, there's a link to The Independent Florida Alligator's (only in Florida would this be the perfect name for a newspaper) editorial, "Diversity in sci-fi: To move forward, look backIt's a quick read, but to boil it down, it

Comments

[daria234]

Thanks for this post! I do wonder at how once fandom became the site of corporate interest and more profitable and influential, it erased how much women are at the center of fandom. Or maybe the erasure was always the same?

[nialla42]

I think it's the usual erasure of women from any sort of history. Even before corporate interests and profit came into play, though that certainly didn't help.

Men were in charge of much of the writing of the shows and still are, and that controlled a lot of the narrative until things went online where anyone could join in.

Not long after I posted this, I saw something about James Cameron set to host a series on the history of Science Fiction for AMC. I was hoping it would at least touch on the fandom phenomena, but it looks like it's strictly about "big questions" SF has asked over the years.

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Yep. I had similar experiences with fandom: it was dominated by women, and I felt like I only ran into the tropes that real fans were men recently, and I kept going, "What? WHAT?" That always bothered me about BBT.

[nialla42]

Even before I was online, there was the stereotype in mainstream media that Trek fans were guys living in their parent's garage or basement who'd never laid eyes on a woman and wouldn't know what to do if they did.

That's always baffled me, and almost kept me "in the closet" about being a fan. If it was bad if guys liked sci-fi, how much worse was it if you were a girl? I think Aliens cured me of that in high school.