Talking Fandom: Fandom First Friday for September!

[otw-staff.livejournal.com]



Did you know fanzines are nearly a century old? Find out more about key events in fannish history as we celebrate Fandom First Friday!

From legal victories to sweeping social changes, fandom has helped shape our world. Some examples where fans spoke and things changed:

- The first science fiction ’zine, The Comet, was published in 1930 by the Science Correspondence Club in Chicago. The term “fanzine” was coined by Russ Chauvenet in the October 1940 edition of his fanzine Detours. “Fanzines” were distinguished from “prozines,” (a term Chauvenet also invented): that is, all professional magazines.

- Fans mounted one of the first letter writing campaigns to save a TV show. It worked! Star Trek was saved from a fate worse than a warp core breach, i.e. cancellation. It returned for one more year, and of course later spawned a whole new era of Trek goodness that likely never would have been without fandom. It also led to a plethora of other ‘save our show’ efforts worldwide!

- In the early 1990s, fandom went online with everyone else. The “Forever Knight” fandom (1992-1996) is credited with having the first online mailing list for fans. Quantum Leap, Highlander, The X-Files and Due South became some of the first series to garner their own fan fiction writers and followers.

- At the turn of the 21st Century, fandom has gone participatory in whole new ways: easy posting of images and video has brought conventions and pictures from movie and TV sets to millions more fans than would have had access to it only a decade ago. From (which are also far older than you may realize!) to shared, online theorizing – everything about being a fan is more immediate these days.

Here are some links with more thoughts and musing on the fine art of fandom:
A Brief History of Media Fandom
Fandom, Participatory Culture and Web 2.0 – A Syllabus
Boldly Writing: A Trekker Fan and Zine History, 1967 – 1987
Fanore Wikie: Articles about the chronological history of fandoms

Can you think of ways in which fandom has changed your point of view? Do you see the practice of fandom changing over time, and in what ways?

PS: There’s a significant fandom moment that the OTW is celebrating this month: The 20th issue of “Transformative Works and Cultures” will be published on September 15th!

TWC is an international, peer-reviewed journal published by the Organization for Transformative Works. TWC publishes articles about transformative works, broadly conceived; articles about media studies; and articles about the fan community.

In its various editions, you can read an amazing range of papers about fan fiction, fan vids, film, TV, anime, comic books, fan community, video games, and machinima. An index of the first 19 editions is right here.

The OTW will be celebrating throughout September, starting with a feature highlighting a unique aspect of TWC’s publication, the Symposium section, which allows contributors to bridge the gap between academic study and fan dialogue about their own activities.

The issue itself will be released September 15, and it will be followed by reflections from several contributors on its history on the 17th. Celebrations will culminate with a live chat featuring several of TWC’s early contributors on September 19. The chat will be held in The OTW’s public chatroom from 16:00 UTC to 18:00 UTC.

So here’s to fandom, on this Fandom First Friday – we hope you’ll share your thoughts on the ways that fandom has shaped your world, or your view of it. We’d love to hear what you think!