A woman (Lucille Ball) single-handedly made sure that Star Trek got put into production and become more than a two-pilot never-been a group of men wanted it to be.
A woman (Bjo Trimble) orchestrated a letter campaigns when the show was in danger of cancellation after its first season.
Three women, (Joan Winston, Eileen Becker and Elyse Pines) was instrumental in creating the first ever exclusive Star Trek convention. Winston even wrote a how-to guide about it in 1977.
So tell me again how women are fake nerds and pushing in on men’s spaces in the Star Trek fandom. You wouldn’t even have one if not for women.
Actually, early Science Fiction fandom was so overwhelming women-dominated that men zine’s editors used to choose female-sounding nick and pseudos to gain more creditability because fanzines and fan fiction was fangirls (or fanwomen and fanladies regarding theirs age) domain
you read more about it in We was cross-dressing ‘afore you were born!’ Or, how sf fans
invented virtual community by Helen MerrickFan girls
In case this section gets cut from my article on the Tim Roberts/Cumberbatch fandom backlash, I’m stowing it here, because this is a hugely important point that I’ve never really articulated before:
All this overemphasis on etiquette and fear of fangirl hysteria is arguably rooted in sexist stereotypes of female fans as too hypersexualized and brainless to behave with decorum in public spaces. Yet the fans haven’t delivered the mindless frenzy the media was expecting. At worst, isolated reports of shrieking fans seem to be an extreme exception to much more widely-reported evidence of well-behaved audiences enjoying themselves.
But even though fans have been generally well-behaved, they’ve been stuck with the stigma that their behavior has been just the opposite. Roberts’ tweets and the backlash from many of his supporters show how easy it is to generalize, stereotype, and dismiss female fan culture.
Moreover, the pattern of this vitriol going hand in hand with misogynistic, sexualized insults suggests that the real fear is not a lack of female decorum but an abundance of female expression. Fangirls, and people who actively participate in fannish cultures, have wrested control of their own pleasure, and how that pleasure is expressed, away from a society that would rather they kept a lid on it, thanks.
The cultural language that dehumanizes and demonizes fangirls does so because it fears what happens when female fans express unrestrained joy and pleasure in their hobbies, their favorite celebrities, and their consumption of media, rather than the stereotypical things women are taught they should value instead. A woman attending a theater in public as an ebullient and occasionally noisy fan is a woman who has given priority to satisfying her own pleasures and love of culture. She is the total opposite of a quiet, domesticated housewife living a private and insulated life.
Fangirl culture isn’t aligned with the image of obedient housewives or quiet, submissive sexual partners. No wonder Roberts was led to describe female fans as ruined sexual organs. Their behavior was never for him.
one of my favorite things about fandom is that the exchange of intellectual and creative property is a legitimate form of gift giving. like ‘i’m so enchanted by you, i love you, let me tell you a story’
when someone casually mentions the thing ur obsessed with
EVEN THE LOOK IN HIS EYES IS THE SAME.
the many forms of shipping
casual: well I mean if I had to ship them with someone it’d be them
aggressive: they can’t fucking stand each other omg I love this
angsty: one of you better be in a coma
fluffy: CUDDLE FESTS, FOREHEAD KISSES, NOSE-BOOPS
heavily supportive: I will draw/find every fanart I can of them until my fingers bleed
EXCESSIVELY supportive: I should be studying for finals but instead I am up at 4 in the morning reading some fanfiction a kindergartner wrote because there’s literally nothing better
THIRSTY AF: they better do the do everywhere in every way possible I better see some tongue action, some personal kinks, and if I don’t see a dick in an ass in five minutes I swear to god I will shove a brick down my throat
obsessive: the wallpaper on my phone is my OTP, I have t-shirts of my OTP, my profile pic on every account I own is a pic of my OTP, my entire room’s walls are covered in a collage of my OTP, the plushies I have of my OTP are making out right now, my entire life and my every source of happiness depends on these two fictional characters being disgustingly in love
emotional: legitimate sobbing over the ship
headcanon/AU: the canon version of these two assholes actually doesn’t work at all but the fandom version is BEA TUTIf UL and is LOAD ED D with glorious hcs that just make so much sense they connect with my soul
musical: (listening to ipod) omg A could sing this to B
canon: the only reason I am calm is because it actually happened
NEVER-GOING-TO-BE-CANON: (faint crying mixed with incoherent guttural noises)
beyond hope of salvation: all of the above
by this point my entire stance on being in fanbases is that it feels like i’m trying to live peacefully in a secluded cottage and do my own thing while also witnessing the fall of the roman empire right next door
i have three types of headcanon
- actually supported by evidence in the text or subtext
- nothing to confirm or deny it either way so it’s up in the air
- yeah that’s definitely not what canon was going for at all but i do what i want, so
“Punch me in the face/But scholars argue…”: Tech, Age, and Fandom
Sometimes I wonder if a lot of the problems in long standing fandoms boils down to age difference. I don’t mean “oh, those pesky kids” vs. “ugh, old people,” though it often does take that form. Rather I can’t help but wonder if a lot of it has to do with generational differences and experience– not only what age you were when you entered fandom but also what level of technology you came in on. Fandom is, for better or for worse, become more and more mainstream. Because of that, people are more willing and able to joyously share their fan experiences.
If you are an older fan, a good amount of the fan experience has been about shame– hide it from friends, family, freak out if anyone ever mentions fanfic (”oh dear god, did they find my tumblr???”)– and about struggling to find people like you. Talk to an older fan about pre-internet fandom; it’s a whole other ball of wax, which I can only assume involved secret handshakes and wearing certain flowers on your lapel to correspond to the waxing/waning of the moon. Even now those older fans worry about their bosses finding their fic or a family member catching wind of it.
So much of fandom was nerdy, taboo, and weird, and while we still see some of that (especially when discussing slash), I think the difference in technology has changed things.
I’d definitely agree with this, particularly the conclusion. I suppose technically I’m an older fan (I’m 36), but I never really engaged with other fans until tumblr. At least not on this scale. I’ve always let my geek flag fly (I was the weird Star Trek fangirl in high school), but tumblr has let me really embrace my love of these things.
So I get the squee but I also understand the discussions. I’ve never been afraid of showing my fandoms, but now I have a closet full of Doctor Who shirts.
And I remember the shock I felt the first time I saw Doctor Who merchandise in the store.
So I guess, being in that weird not quite a millennial not quite gen x age bracket, once again lets me see both sides.