Fandom history, my story in fandoms

Fascinating post by coffeeandink Fandom genealogy

There's a few definitions and history here that are mind blowing, and the concept of feral fandom is very interesting.

I'm getting the feeling that I've had a very backward itinary through fandom.

I've started as a lit fan. SF/F books were my first love. When I got myself on the internet (that was 1996-1997) one of the first thing I seeked was discussions about SF/F books in general. In 1999 I fell in love with A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin and for the first time became actively involved in a fandom about a specific set of books. It was however mostly made of discussion about canon, very little creativity involved (though there were some fledgeling attempts at fanfictions)

Then I came to media fandom through Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That was 2001-2002. I was watching BtVS for a long time before I got into the fandom on the internet, and, for the record, it's definitly a shipping impulse that made me do it (It was after watching Out of my Mind that I felt the need to go online talk about it). I became particulary involved in fandom during BtVS's season 6 and started reading and finally writing fanfics. Then I got disapointed with BtVS during S7 and left. While all the other fen I was friend with were getting into other media fandom (AtS of course, and things like SG1, Wonderland, Lost, etc.) I got myself deep into RPGs and spent a year obsessed with Exalted.

Roleplaying Games do not count as "fandom" for most fen. Never mind that they function like fandom.

Then during early 2004 I got myself back into fandom, this time in anime and manga fandom after I'd read Tokyo Babylon and watched X. I started writing fanfics in earnest etc. I think that's when I diversified the most my activity in fandom too, as i started reading fanfics for a lot of series I wouldn't necessarly consider myself a fan of. Or being a fan of series without being a very active/obsessed fan (like with Utena).

In mid 2005 I was starting to be weary with Clamp and weirdly enough (given the mellow respect I have for those books) I got into Harry Potter. Teh Feral Fandom full of people who have no idea about what SF/F truely is (for most people of course, many people do ^^)

I think I've almost systemicaly gone counter to the big migrations of people. And I've gone from "geekier" / more specialized to wider more amateurish fandoms.

Weird.

I think the only thing I have left is comic book and video games fandom ^_^