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What is fandom?


Frogster

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I ran into someone on the site doing research on the relationship between fandom and asexuality. I asked there what fandom is but this may be a better place to find out. The word kingdom comes to mind. I'm trying to think of other sorts of "doms" that I know about. My mind seems dull and stupid this morning. What sort of "dom" is fandom?

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A fandom is a community of people who all really like a specific thing, like a TV show or a bookseries.

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Thanks. My brain is waking up some. So its the domain of fans....in the sense of shared enthusiasms for someone or something...not in the sense of devices to move air. 

Yikes. Sometimes the extent of my cultural disconnect is horrifying.

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There are many fan fiction groups too - and characters developed along 'fanon' (how the fans develop the characters) and 'canon' (how the scriptwriters develop them).

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Guest Deus Ex Infinity
19 hours ago, Laurann said:

A fandom is a community of people who all really like a specific thing, like a TV show or a bookseries.

Exactly but they mostly also want to contribute actively to their community.

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On 2018-04-14 at 1:26 PM, froglady said:

Thanks. My brain is waking up some. So its the domain of fans....in the sense of shared enthusiasms for someone or something...not in the sense of devices to move air. 

Yikes. Sometimes the extent of my cultural disconnect is horrifying.

Dont't feel bad. Over the last few years I've lost interest in mainstream movies. Too much CGI and flavour of the month actors/actresses that I've never heard of. Then you have the 'entertainment' shows gushing about the same people.

 

Me I'd rather watch a film noir flick on TCM with actors that aren't well known even to film buffs. I guess started when I saw L.A. Confidential. It was a great story. I've never seen Chinatown but from what I've read it's similar.

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I had a TV once but I got rid of it in a move about 15 years ago. The nearest movie theater is 60 miles away and I've never been there but there are lots of thing I get enthusiastic about. I'm trying to think if any of them might partake of this fandom thing. The things that I have really liked on film have mostly been things like films of the life cycle of liverworts that sent me off searching for them under waterfalls....not much hope there. The music in my life anymore is homemade. I read quite a bit. I'm thinking though that this has to do with developing an identity as a liker of something and then finding others like oneself.

I guess I need to think about this more. I looked up from my laptop and saw my Aladdin lamp. I like it. It is useful. But I don't think I am quite a fan of it. I actually prefer brass lamps that are for sailing ships--without the fragile mantles. They do better in earthquakes. I am most certainly a fan of the absence of earthquakes. 

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I thought it was a good question.

I get the idea it's more than just liking a particular book or movie or series or fictional world. Fan is short for fanatic, so I think it's someone who takes a strong interest, to the extent of having a great deal of knowledge about the particular thing, maybe being part of an online community or some form of club or group devoted to the thing, possibly doing things like creating fan-fiction and fan art, going to conventions, getting into esoteric discussions, learn languages that were created for the fiction, etc. 

 

For myself, I have always loved Tolkien's The Hobbit and LOTR, and consider myself a fan of his world and works, but I am not part of any fandom per se.

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4 minutes ago, daveb said:

to the extent of having a great deal of knowledge about the particular thing,

I have a lot of strong interests in things that I am not necessarily very good at or knowledgeable about. I doubt that I am a very good candidate for becoming part of a fandom. Maybe, though, I can understand what they are, at least sort of.  It might be useful in relating to other people. 

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SithAzathoth WinterDragon
3 minutes ago, froglady said:

I have a lot of strong interests in things that I am not necessarily very good at or knowledgeable about. I doubt that I am a very good candidate for becoming part of a fandom. Maybe, though, I can understand what they are, at least sort of.  It might be useful in relating to other people. 

What do you like most? 

I'm into the fandom of LOTR

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7 minutes ago, Shieldmaiden WinterDragon said:

What do you like most? 

Good questions and answers that don't shut doors. 

I don't know what I like most but it's worth thinking about.

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SithAzathoth WinterDragon
1 hour ago, froglady said:

Good questions and answers that don't shut doors. 

I don't know what I like most but it's worth thinking about.

I like your name by the way, I also like Game of Thrones so there's a few I could be more involved with in Fandoms but I just like watching and or playing a LOTR game I have, as for Game Of Thrones, I'm going to try and get the series that are out on DVD and have a whole week of GOT :P 

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23 hours ago, Deus Ex Infinity said:

Exactly but they mostly also want to contribute actively to their community.

...and to discuss it/talk meta with others in the same fandom.

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1 minute ago, ryn2 said:

meta

I know this mostly as μετα either as an a prefix or as an independent adjective. How are you using it here? In Greek the meaning can be glossed as "with" or "after" depending on the context. In English my understanding is adds the notion of intensity.

 

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Fandom. I've been a member of fandom for a long time now and the way I define the term is: a group of people who share common interests, not in just one particular show/property, but in a wide ranging number of subjects, including, but not limited to, science, history, computers, Star Trek, Star Wars, Firefly, Farscape, fantasy, science fiction (and getting into arguments over things like using terms such as the dreaded "sci-fi"), Doctor Who, Monty Python and MP quotes (usually out of nowhere), Babylon-5, talking about FTL (faster than light) engines as if they're really possible (includes: warp drive, hyperdrive, the ability to through blackholes, etc.), and so on. It is a specific culture that can overlap with others as a lot of the same people might belong to the SCA (The Society for Creative Anachronism) or people who love gaming, etc.

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7 hours ago, daveb said:

For myself, I have always loved Tolkien's The Hobbit and LOTR, and consider myself a fan of his world and works, but I am not part of any fandom per se.

I am also a fan of Tolkien’s works but not in the LOTR fandom.

 

A lot of fandom content is transformative - “fixing” or “filling in the blanks in” canon, exploring what came before or happened after the canon timeframe, tweaking aspects of canon/the canon setting and examining how the characters might behave, etc.

 

I find you don’t even have to have read/seen the source material to read the associated fanfiction/enjoy fanart, depending on the story.  You can learn enough online to get started and go from there.  I would not personally feel comfortable creating (especially writing) in a fandom for which I haven’t read/watched the source material, though, because without that I don’t know which details (in the fanworks I’ve read and seen instead) are canon v. fanon.

 

In hot, humid climates there definitely could be a fan fandom in appreciation of moving air, @froglady!

 

Like any community there are places you may feel comfortable and others you may not.  Within any active fandom there will be people whose works and/or personalities you may enjoy and others... not so much.  The trick is to find the right niche and then protect yourself from what you’d rather avoid in whatever way works best for you.

 

Tumblr, pixiv, and deviantart are a few good sources of fanart.  Tumbl requires registration to actively participate (follow, block, post, comment) but not to view.  The others aren’t set up to be guest-friendly.  There are many host sites for fanfiction; the OTW’s achive of our own (commonly known as ao3) is one of the more active ones presently.  Guests can read and comment on any fic not restricted to members only; members can also post works, bookmark, and participate more easily in commenting.

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6 minutes ago, froglady said:

I know this mostly as μετα either as an a prefix or as an independent adjective. How are you using it here? In Greek the meaning can be glossed as "with" or "after" depending on the context. In English my understanding is adds the notion of intensity.

 

“Meta” in the fandom sense would be closer to with - it’s used to refer to (often lengthy) thoughts on why something in canon happened... either from the character perspective (as if the characters were real people) or, less often, why the writer(s)/filmakers made the choices they made.

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3 minutes ago, fuzzipueo said:

SCA (The Society for Creative Anachronism) or people who love gaming, etc.

That is something I have heard of besides the Tolkien series. I like Tolkien and reread the series now and then but wouldn't call myself a fan. When I was a teenager I would have joined the SCA if I hadn't been broke. 

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13 minutes ago, ryn2 said:

find you don’t even have to have read/seen the source material to read the associated fanfiction/enjoy fanart, depending on the story.  You can learn enough online to get started and go from there.

wow, that is amazing. I was going to say it was new to me. Then I realized that people (myself included) get into talking about things they only know about third hand. Usually it has to do with wanting connection with and affirmation from other people.

My dog needs to go out. I need to do some things offline.

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52 minutes ago, ryn2 said:

and to discuss it/talk meta with others in the same fandom.

I came back just for a minute. It looks like "meta" is used as a noun in this context. Is it?

In Koine Greek the word for truth has a verb form. One can use the language to speak of "truthing" English doesn't do that so well.

It looks like "meta" has morphed into a noun, or maybe I was just shown a bigger view of it. 

Thanks.

 

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Hey, go do your offline stuff. :)

 

In this use it’s short for the noun “metanalysis.”

 

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Meta can also be a joke - such as crossing two different genres - in this case, the guy from Ancient Aliens, Andreas Katsulas, and the evolution of his hair and turning him into Ambassador Molari from Babylon-5:

mhEscI1.png

 

Or, it can be an inside joke in a TV series. Shows like Hercules, Xena, Stargate, and Supernatural did meta episodes, where they'll explore the text of the show from the perspective of the production crew and actors - some of which can be very funny if well done.

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2 hours ago, ryn2 said:

Hey, go do your offline stuff. :)

Thanks! I will. I snuck back and you busted me. Much appreciated. 

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6 minutes ago, froglady said:

Thanks! I will. I snuck back and you busted me. Much appreciated. 

I shouldn’t be here either.  Must stop procrastinating and do actual work! :(

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4 hours ago, fuzzipueo said:

specific culture

I would call that geekdom, rather than fandom. :)

 

3 hours ago, ryn2 said:

In this use it’s short for the noun “metanalysis.”

Correct. It's looking at the thing from higher level, above or outside of the fiction itself. Often also self-referential.

 

1 hour ago, fuzzipueo said:

the guy from Ancient Aliens, Andreas Katsulas, and the evolution of his hair and turning him into Ambassador Molari from Babylon-5

Your mixing up 3 different people there. The Ancient Aliens guy was not in B5; Katsulas played G'Kar, Peter Jurassik played Londo Mollari. :)

 

And my responses are called "being a geek" (or nerd?). :P (and that's being meta) :lol: 

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That probably qualifies as both geeky and nerdy.

 

Not that either of those is a bad thing. :)

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5 minutes ago, daveb said:

Your mixing up 3 different people there. The Ancient Aliens guy was not in B5; Katsulas played G'Kar, Peter Jurassik played Londo Mollari. :)

 

And my responses are called "being a geek" (or nerd?). :P (and that's being meta) :lol: 

You're correct and I was doing this off my Kindle this morning and in a bit of a rush, too. Sigh. The guy from Ancient Aliens is Giorgio Tsoukalos. Still, funny though.

 

Quote

I would call that geekdom, rather than fandom. :)

The people I know are all geeks and nerds, that's true, but we belong to this broad thing known collectively as fandom, because we're all fans of science fiction, fantasy, mysteries, etc., and that is what originally drew us together. When I think of fandom I don't just think of one specific property, but of a whole group of people who get together and share their interests. You can break things down, of course, into specifics and get a specific fandom for a specific property, but for me, the term's always been much, much broader than that. When I go to a SF convention, it's to be with others who are part of fandom in general, but who have their own particular preference that make specific fan bases for whatever, be it Firefly - known collectively as Brown Coats, Doctor Who - Whovians, Star Trek -Trekkers/Trekkies (depending upon who you ask), etc., but who can stop and talk about much broader topics that are common to all stories, all uni-multi-verses, all fandom, and often do because ultimately, if you go to a SF convention, you go because that is something you want share with other people who understand, even if they prefer Babylon-5 over Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica or Blake's Seven. All very different properties with different goals/plots but I can still talk to someone about how these shows approach star travel, the differences and similarities between Starfuries and Colonial Vipers, who was better in a crisis (Picard or Sheridan?), why the big bad (the Shadows and the Vorlons) in B-5 trump the Borg any day, etc. and we can do it in an atmosphere where other people, who are also part of fandom, will not only accept without judging, but actually might jump in and explain why Farscape did a better job explaining certain aspects of star travel or that something is a complete rip off of something else.

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Fair enough. I don't consider myself part of fandom, so I'm talking about it as an outsider and could certainly be incorrect.

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I think there are lots of reasons for being part of any given fandom/fandom in general (and that broad sense of acceptance is certainly a common one), and many fandoms can accommodate that breadth of interest.  For example, someone can be a Captain America fan because they enjoy period war discussions, support the original creators’ anti-Nazi stance, like to speculate on the implications of deep freeze on performance-enhancers, enjoy conspiracy theories, support cool prosthetic devices, want to examine the psychology of (not) aging, and/or just like to admire Chris Evans in tight costumes.  There’s room for all of that and much, much more.

 

Now I’m fanning about fanning!  :lol:

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