wickedwords

Lately, I've been thinking about origin stories, the stories that people tell about how their world came into being, and about the way fans talk about their origins. To my way of thought, most people start in fandom within a single community founded on a very focused interest, whether that interest be a TV show, a book, a movie, or a whole genre of stuff. This silo-style community has existed forever, wherever people have gathered together and bonded over their love of something, building friendships out of their passions for minutia and detail over something that the rest of the world just doesn't understand. So Sherlock Holmes fandom was a silo in the 1800s, as was 'Little Nell' fandom. There was probably a Hercules silo back in ancient times, when all the Herc fans would hang together and talk about their favorite stories, and who told the best rendition of the 12 labors.

In fact, I bet of these silos were incubators, what I call threshold fandoms, that brought a lot of new people into that one fannish community. They learned what fandom was within the confines of their silo, their community of origin. Back in the day when we had gatekeepers to fandom, the gatekeeper would teach you how to interact with other fans, and define appropriate behavior. The gatekeeper created a mask, a template, for what was expected in being a member of the community, and that, in turn, became the expectation about what would happen in any fannish community.

Media fandom began as one of these silos. In begat, begat, begat terms, Science Fiction fandom begat Star Trek Fandom which, in turn, begat Media Fandom. Before the late 1970s, there was no such thing as a media fan; everyone was a fan of their specific fandom, whether that was Star Trek, The Man from Uncle, Led Zeppelin, James Bond, or The Lord of the Rings. The origin fandom was all: father, mother, sister, brother. It defined who we were, and who we interacted with, the geeks, the wonks, and the nerds. We were all soul mates (if you include bitter enemies in the definition of soul mates), and we'd always be together.

In 1975, though, the world changed. Because 1975 brought Starsky and Hutch to the table, and from that point on, things could never be the same.

I can't really describe the acrimony that existed as old Star Trek and K/S fans fell under the spell of Starsky and Hutch. It was so bad, the first Starsky and Hutch zine planned to publish completely anonymously, no names attached, because of fear of reprisal. Women who were made of strong stuff vowed that they could and would put their fan names on their fiction, no matter what friendships it cost. It was a bloody civil war.

By 1977, a sort of accommodation was made, with fans agreeing that both silos could exists, and turning cold shoulders on the defectors to the other camp. But 1977 brought "The Professionals" and "Star Wars", and suddenly, there were a heck of a lot of silos around. Fans needed a way to talk about people interested in more than one community, and so they came up with a term: Media Fan. People looking around at all the sources of fandom, and realizing that "hey, wait a minute, I did this same sort of writing thing back when I was a Led Zepplin fan", and out came the drawer fic that people hadn't admitted to having, back before the great schism. It became the umbrella term for everything, no matter what the source, as long as the community and the social network remained the same.

And in 1978, that media fandom community begat the first Media West con, albeit under a different name.

So to my way of thinking, this is the point at which Media Fandom really begins. There are silos and communities before it, of course, as we didn't fall out of the ether completely formed, but the creation of the term Media Fandom was a symbol of accommodation, embracing the diversity of those who were Media fans.

This story is not completely true, and it relies on history and experiences that aren't universal, and have been talked about and retold so many times that it's hard to see the truth. But I like the ideas in it, that we created the term media fandom out of a desire to preserve friendships and find a middle ground, where we could all exist.

YMMV, of course, as we all have our own origin story. But I think this one is mine.

A while back, queenzulu asked for some meta on "Fandoms I Have Known." It became more of a history of me and my participation in Fandom, rather than talking a lot about the fandoms themselves. So, for 14valentines, I finished putting the finishing touches on it while elynross read through it so I wouldn't subject y'all to my random capitalization and spelling.

( My Life as a Fan )

The 14 Valentines Issue of the Day: Women and Voting