Comments | accioslash: It Was A Very Good Year...

accioslash

It Was A Very Good Year...

Aug 28, 2013 17:40

Although I'd been on the fringes of fandom for years, I really became active in 1981. I've had periods of greater and lesser involvement, but once I was involved in fandom, I never felt like there was a time when I was entirely outside of it. I've posted about my experiences with old school fandom and 'zine editing before, but that's not what I ( Read more... )

Comments 31

emrys_mk August 28 2013, 22:02:30 UTC

I miss all those things you mentioned. Fandom in 2002 was different than it is now. I miss the smallness and the idea of writing fic just to write it rather than everything being written for fests and exchanges.

But there is a lot to be said for change and I am happy I once again am excited to be involved in fandom.

atanvarne_lj August 29 2013, 03:38:37 UTC

... and the idea of writing fic just to write it rather than everything being written for fests

Oh, yes! I can't remember the last time I wrote something because I just had a story to tell instead of a deadline scaring me silent.

accioslash August 29 2013, 04:29:27 UTC

It's not that I don't miss the Harry Potter fandom of 2002, because I have so many wonderful memories of that time. Canon was still open - and this was my very first fandom whose canon wasn't already closed! I pored over each and every book, followed each of JKR's interviews, dissected theories by others and created my own about what would happen in the next book. I argued with people over whether Snape was Voldemort's man, Dumbledore's man, or his own man, and read every fic I could find on Switchknife's recs list and Ink Stained Fingers. Followed the D2D and the Severus Snape Fuh-Q Fests. How could anyone not have good memories of those times?

But I also have wonderful memories of today. There are still amazing HP fics being written, art drawn, and new friends to meet. It hasn't only ever been fun and games, but I'm enjoying myself enough that I'm still here.

I miss the smallness and the idea of writing fic just to write it rather than everything being written for fests and exchanges.I recall more challenges back then ( ... )

akatnamedeaster August 28 2013, 22:21:10 UTC

Oh geez, Usenet. Back in the days of Usenet I was still a young pup and really into Disney movies of the 90's and spent a lot of time on rec.arts.disney, a few years later I was using it to download Farscape and Trek episodes piecemeal. Took literally hours to download one. :P I can't say I miss it ( ... )

accioslash August 29 2013, 04:50:24 UTC

Took literally hours to download one. :P I can't say I miss it.

OMG, I know! I think about all the work I did trying to make my zines look ~pretty, the time, the effort. And I know I could do what took me six weeks of fairly non-stop work today with my computer over lunch.

sold them on school grounds or at the record shop across the street from school.

Oh, I would have loved to find something like that. No one I knew in hs did anything like that at all. But this was the 1970's. My after school job was in a bookstore and one of the older guys (he was probably 20) hooked me up with a sci-fi letterzine through a group of students at KSU. The first round-robin fic I wrote for it was in Star Wars fandom. I don't think there was a pairing. Regardless, I'm sure it was complete crap. I also remember Della Van Hise put together a real magazine in Van Nuys, California that made it all the way to a little independent bookshop in Akron, Ohio. I read that thing to tatters.

And I will never forget the middle aged lady who would ( ... )

lilyeyes August 29 2013, 07:00:11 UTC

OMG - I still have a box of ST: TOS fanzines in storage I ought to give to someone who could make use of them! Where is dementordelta when you need her!

Oh and old = SMHS class of 1976

accioslash August 29 2013, 23:31:53 UTC

Suddenly I'm feeling much better about the class of '81. ;D

And actually there are a number of university libraries that accept donations of early zines for their collections. I passed along several boxes of early gen zines, but I still have a huge number of them stored in my basement.

plaid_slytherin August 28 2013, 23:52:26 UTC

I am so nostalgic for the 2002-2004 era lately. Those are the HP glory days to me. I can remember running home from high school to see if something like the Draco Trilogy had updated. I remember copying chapter after chapter of longfics into Word so I could read it offline because my mom needed to make a phone call. I read a Snarry Jane Eyre fic right alongside the real book for English class (it was better with Snape. I wish Catcher in the Rye had had Snape in it. I bet Snape hates phonies.) I was so happy to go to college and have high! speed! Internet! because that meant I didn't have to choose the "text menu" on the Lexicon. And Yahoo! groups! And having to ask for a password for things. I joined as many Yahoo! groups as I could. I think that was when fandom was transitioning from Yahoo! to LJ and yes, my first LJ account needed an invite ( ... )

suitesamba August 29 2013, 02:50:19 UTC

OMG. High school in 2002.... I am soooooo old....

atanvarne_lj August 29 2013, 03:39:22 UTC

Right there with you, bb.

VPHS, class of 1978.

accioslash August 29 2013, 04:55:48 UTC

I had a kid in high school in 2002. But, yeah, you are pretty old....;D

Thread 5

rane_ab August 29 2013, 03:46:18 UTC

This made me smile because I was born in 1981 ( ... )

accioslash August 29 2013, 05:41:08 UTC

I am stunned at the speed with which stuff changes in fandom. People are all about tumblr these days, but I'm already looking for the next big move. Tumblr will still be around - there are still successful print fanzines and Yahoo groups - but it will be interesting to see what comes next. I often wonder if I would have lasted as long if fandom moved then at the speed it does now. I mean, 18 months between zines was fast. People wrote a handful of fics over years instead of weeks or months. And I could still be active and work two full time jobs and raise a family (ten of those years as a single mom). I don't know if I could have done that now. Though when I had less time, I was far more organized, so who knows?

it's so odd sometimes to see people come in and experience their first fandom and all that entails, and sometimes not realising they're rehashing those same old discussionsThey do seem to go in cycles. Some things don't ever seem to get any resolution - how do you define gen fics/why can people sell art and not ( ... )

citiesandsigns August 29 2013, 07:32:48 UTC

I discovered fandom when I was really too young, actually - mid-90s (I was born mid-80s and I still think of myself as the young one in fandom, although tumblr keeps proving me wrong over and over again), when we first got an internet connection at home and I fell onto usenet where I found people talking about LotR. But fandom as in fic writing and shipping came rather later; I knew it existed but I didn't actually meet it right away. My exploration was also quite slow - I come from a really rural area and getting an internet connection to actually work was its own adventure. Even as dial-up goes it was unstable and slow and you had to go and make a cup of tea while you waited for a page to load even if it didn't have any images on it. Then I moved to London and lived in a building that didn't even have its own phone line, so I didn't have access to any sort of a reliable internet connection until I was 21, although I did have friends at university who let me use theirs. (And I started writing fic in earnest when I was... 19, I think ( ... )

accioslash August 29 2013, 23:45:04 UTC

I still think of myself as the young one in fandom

It's hard to make that adjustment in attitude even long after it should be obvious because I was at least a decade (and often two decades) younger than many of the other fen and only started being one of the old-timers in HP fandom. It was a bit of a shock. Though I do have a lot of contemporaries here now.

As for too young, well, people are so different. I really became aware of the existence of slash fic when I was eleven. I may be over-estimating my maturity at that age, but I think I would have been able to handle the subject - especially as it was back then. I think I'm too young at 50 for some stuff written today. ;D

I come from a really rural area and getting an internet connection to actually work was its own adventure.

I don't think of my community as that rural. But apparently internet companies disagree.

It's when I felt most like I was part of a community that had my backThat would be tough to beat. And actually what I have always liked most about fandom ( ... )

citiesandsigns August 30 2013, 14:31:56 UTC

LoTR fandom pre-films was full of people who were several decades older than me, so yeah, basically, that. And though I was in fandoms where people were closer to my age after that I kept ending up with friends who were at least five years older than me, which is still a pretty significant experience gap for a teenager ( ... )