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That Fandom Feeling
May. 9th, 2023 11:56 pmWhat does it mean to be "in the fandom" for something? I think everyone has a different personal answer to this question. I've spent a lot of time mulling over the question of which fandoms, past and present, I can say that I was "in"; in a way I think it's easier to define in hindsight, because the fandoms I distinctly remember spending a lot of time interacting with are definitely fandoms I would count. But if I could go back and ask my past self at the time, would I give a different answer? (More likely I'd just be confused by the question, because I feel like it's something I didn't think to define until I'd been in fandom for some time).
My personal criteria that I've alighted on usually involves creating fanworks, because that's how I know that I'm definitely Fandoming, but at the same time, there are fandoms I would say I was in that I never published a single work for, but I was interacting with a lot of fanworks and thinking fannish thoughts and generally engaging with the fandom for a solid block of time. There are also fandoms I've published at least one work for that I wouldn't necessarily count as one of my fandoms.
But what about fandoms where there aren't a lot of works to interact with? I'm a big fan of the webcomic Questionable Content, but it has an absolutely tiny amount of fic; I think there's more fanart for it, but it's sort of dispersed around and I don't really stumble across it casually. I even wrote a QC fic for Yuletide in 2019, but at that time I definitely didn't consider it to be one of my fandoms, just a comic that I liked and was happy to write for.
Then last Yuletide I was gifted a QC work of my own about a pair of characters I really wanted to read more about, and I went on a prolonged binge of the comic archives and had all sorts of thoughts and feelings about the characters and I started coming up with ideas and I realised: I am fannish about this, actually! I had an idea for another DW post I was going to write about "slow-burn fandoms", where you're into the canon for a long time and you're kiiind of adjacent to the actual fandom but you're not in it, but then you suddenly realise you have Fannish Feelings for this fandom after all 😂
That's what happened to me with QC. Even though there's not a lot of capital-F fandom to interact with or consume, I still get this sense that I'm fannish about it. But I can't explain what it is exactly; it's a kind of excitement, I guess, and a realisation that the canon/fandom has become a kind of brain-happy-place that I'll go to during an idle moment and be like ":3 :3 thinking about Those Guys :3 :3"
It's interesting to pinpoint the moment that I tip over into a fandom. I feel like I fall in and out of fandoms a lot these days, but maybe I'm just paying closer attention to it now than I was in the past? Last month I started reading and reblogging a bunch of Tumblr posts about the D&D movie but I was going, 'I don't know if I'm fannish about this, I just liked the film', but in my heart I knew that I was already in a new fandom. I'm reblogging a load of stuff and I'm interacting with fanworks and even sort of making friends because I want to try being social in a fandom for once instead of just making fanworks (not that there's anything wrong with "just" making fanworks!). And of course, the big tell, I've published 4 fics so far. But even without that, I just have this... feeling. The brain-happy feeling. I think about Them and I am 😊
My personal criteria that I've alighted on usually involves creating fanworks, because that's how I know that I'm definitely Fandoming, but at the same time, there are fandoms I would say I was in that I never published a single work for, but I was interacting with a lot of fanworks and thinking fannish thoughts and generally engaging with the fandom for a solid block of time. There are also fandoms I've published at least one work for that I wouldn't necessarily count as one of my fandoms.
But what about fandoms where there aren't a lot of works to interact with? I'm a big fan of the webcomic Questionable Content, but it has an absolutely tiny amount of fic; I think there's more fanart for it, but it's sort of dispersed around and I don't really stumble across it casually. I even wrote a QC fic for Yuletide in 2019, but at that time I definitely didn't consider it to be one of my fandoms, just a comic that I liked and was happy to write for.
Then last Yuletide I was gifted a QC work of my own about a pair of characters I really wanted to read more about, and I went on a prolonged binge of the comic archives and had all sorts of thoughts and feelings about the characters and I started coming up with ideas and I realised: I am fannish about this, actually! I had an idea for another DW post I was going to write about "slow-burn fandoms", where you're into the canon for a long time and you're kiiind of adjacent to the actual fandom but you're not in it, but then you suddenly realise you have Fannish Feelings for this fandom after all 😂
That's what happened to me with QC. Even though there's not a lot of capital-F fandom to interact with or consume, I still get this sense that I'm fannish about it. But I can't explain what it is exactly; it's a kind of excitement, I guess, and a realisation that the canon/fandom has become a kind of brain-happy-place that I'll go to during an idle moment and be like ":3 :3 thinking about Those Guys :3 :3"
It's interesting to pinpoint the moment that I tip over into a fandom. I feel like I fall in and out of fandoms a lot these days, but maybe I'm just paying closer attention to it now than I was in the past? Last month I started reading and reblogging a bunch of Tumblr posts about the D&D movie but I was going, 'I don't know if I'm fannish about this, I just liked the film', but in my heart I knew that I was already in a new fandom. I'm reblogging a load of stuff and I'm interacting with fanworks and even sort of making friends because I want to try being social in a fandom for once instead of just making fanworks (not that there's anything wrong with "just" making fanworks!). And of course, the big tell, I've published 4 fics so far. But even without that, I just have this... feeling. The brain-happy feeling. I think about Them and I am 😊
