Thoughts on Fandom
Sep. 10th, 2006 07:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhionnach40 years ago Star Trek aired in the US for the first time. It took a few years for it to make the trip across the Atlantic to Britain where it was shown by the BBC. I don't think I actually managed to catch it when it was shown between seasons of Dr Who on Saturdays at teatime due to the somewhat strange behaviour of my father who had to get his fix of football. I have a vague recollection of seeing the Enterprise in space before he switched over saying something like "we're not watching that rubbish". I know I managed to eventually see it when it moved to Monday nights for the 2nd season when it was on against Coronation Street, that refuge for those without a life.
I discovered Star Trek when my parents went out for the evening, leaving me to my own devices. I knew I certainly didn't want to watch soap crap so switched over and discovered that "Patterns of Force" was showing. After that I was hooked. So much so that I defied my parents for the first time and demanded to see Star Trek every week. The tactic I was forced to use was to stand in front of the TV screaming and shouting until they gave in, realising that they weren't going to see their soap drivel. I watched it for years, with varying degrees of success as my parents tried to break my addiction.
Star Trek wasn't the first SF I watched. I had seen most of Dr Who, and had watched all the Gerry Anderson stuff until he brought out Joe 90 after which I gave up on him (apart from UFO). I was also a voracious reader, hampered only by the antics of the local librarian that I have mentioned in a previous post.
I joined a fan club, Star Trek Action Group, and my very first convention was Terracon 77 in Liverpool. I've been going to conventions ever since. I eventually discovered that there were local fans and began attending Warped Out, which was the forerunner of what developed into Glasgow's Away Team. Then came 1980 when Glasgow had it's first Eastercon. That's when I learned that there were general SF fans out there. Even although the universities had SF groups, as a student I knew nothing of their existence. I guess they hadn't learned the concept of advertising. Or worse, I was a MEDIA fan, and they didn't want the likes of me in their midst.
Once I began mixing with SF fans of various shades I began to learn that I was a member of a much despised and looked down on group, being a Star Trek fan. I learned that there were such things as fannish fans who produced little fanzines which talked about what they had for breakfast or the colour of their toilet paper, and who never seemed to talk about SF. My previous exposure to fanzines was of the Star Trek variety which contained stories about the characters. What these fanzines were was soemthing else. The fannish ones appeared to run the fan rooms at conventions and looked down on anyone who wasn't in their little clique. I learned that they didnt like media fans, considering us as something they had trod in. They seemed to have this idea that media fans didn't read books (come to my house and see how wrong that idea is!). And they didn't like people wearing costumes.
I therefore wore my Starfleet uniform and other assorted costumes at the Glasgow cons just to annoy them and because I liked wearing it. I ran the Star Trek room at some of the Glasgow cons and was on the committee of Albacon II - it says so in the programme book.
I grew tired of the bias displayed in the BSFA so I let my membership drop. When I moved to London it seemed as though the Tun had various pockets of fans so I didn't need to bother about the fannish ones. But I do recall the glare I got from a certain fan when I got in the lift at the Brighton Worldcon as I was wearing something that he considered to be a costume.
Nowadays, the fannish ones seem to have either dropped off the face of the planet, or gone quiet. Of course, it's a bit difficult looking down your nose at media fans when this year's Eastercon had the new Dr Who season opening included in the programme items!
However, I have never been to a Novacon, having been put off by the perception of them as fannish. And I really think that the 95 Worldcon in Glasgow missed out on 500+ bodies when they didn't do their pitch to the Away Team in the way I thought it should have been done.
I discovered Star Trek when my parents went out for the evening, leaving me to my own devices. I knew I certainly didn't want to watch soap crap so switched over and discovered that "Patterns of Force" was showing. After that I was hooked. So much so that I defied my parents for the first time and demanded to see Star Trek every week. The tactic I was forced to use was to stand in front of the TV screaming and shouting until they gave in, realising that they weren't going to see their soap drivel. I watched it for years, with varying degrees of success as my parents tried to break my addiction.
Star Trek wasn't the first SF I watched. I had seen most of Dr Who, and had watched all the Gerry Anderson stuff until he brought out Joe 90 after which I gave up on him (apart from UFO). I was also a voracious reader, hampered only by the antics of the local librarian that I have mentioned in a previous post.
I joined a fan club, Star Trek Action Group, and my very first convention was Terracon 77 in Liverpool. I've been going to conventions ever since. I eventually discovered that there were local fans and began attending Warped Out, which was the forerunner of what developed into Glasgow's Away Team. Then came 1980 when Glasgow had it's first Eastercon. That's when I learned that there were general SF fans out there. Even although the universities had SF groups, as a student I knew nothing of their existence. I guess they hadn't learned the concept of advertising. Or worse, I was a MEDIA fan, and they didn't want the likes of me in their midst.
Once I began mixing with SF fans of various shades I began to learn that I was a member of a much despised and looked down on group, being a Star Trek fan. I learned that there were such things as fannish fans who produced little fanzines which talked about what they had for breakfast or the colour of their toilet paper, and who never seemed to talk about SF. My previous exposure to fanzines was of the Star Trek variety which contained stories about the characters. What these fanzines were was soemthing else. The fannish ones appeared to run the fan rooms at conventions and looked down on anyone who wasn't in their little clique. I learned that they didnt like media fans, considering us as something they had trod in. They seemed to have this idea that media fans didn't read books (come to my house and see how wrong that idea is!). And they didn't like people wearing costumes.
I therefore wore my Starfleet uniform and other assorted costumes at the Glasgow cons just to annoy them and because I liked wearing it. I ran the Star Trek room at some of the Glasgow cons and was on the committee of Albacon II - it says so in the programme book.
I grew tired of the bias displayed in the BSFA so I let my membership drop. When I moved to London it seemed as though the Tun had various pockets of fans so I didn't need to bother about the fannish ones. But I do recall the glare I got from a certain fan when I got in the lift at the Brighton Worldcon as I was wearing something that he considered to be a costume.
Nowadays, the fannish ones seem to have either dropped off the face of the planet, or gone quiet. Of course, it's a bit difficult looking down your nose at media fans when this year's Eastercon had the new Dr Who season opening included in the programme items!
However, I have never been to a Novacon, having been put off by the perception of them as fannish. And I really think that the 95 Worldcon in Glasgow missed out on 500+ bodies when they didn't do their pitch to the Away Team in the way I thought it should have been done.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-09 09:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-09 09:26 pm (UTC)My favorite memory was watching the first ever Voyager episode - so many people in the room I had to stand against one of the side walls with many others. In fact watching anything with fans improves the experience :D
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-04 03:50 pm (UTC)T
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-16 11:50 am (UTC)By the time I was involved in conrunning (Lucon first, then the "-asm" series), we had a core group who were spread across a spectrum from die-hard trekker to full-on lit-crit fanzine fan, and we thought this was reflected in our programming. We must've been doing something right when we started getting bashed for "unfairly" stealing "customers" from some of the English media cons.
Then not long after,
We dropped out of producing Matrix and hence of the BSFA about the time we moved up to Edinburgh (late 1994 for me, early 1995 for Jenny) and got involved with Intersection. Yes, most of the con organisation was London-based (including the folk running the media side of the programme - if there'd been something akin to a national media con, rather than regional events, then they may have known more of the Glasgow fen, and known who to get in touch with), but they did make some attempts to involve local fans. And to an extent they succeeded in involving those who could afford it (and turned a fairly blind eye to those who couldn't but turned up anyway). I'd be surprised, though, if the bodies missed really added to 500 or more: that's the kind of numbers Hypotheticons and Albacons were getting in the mid-90s, even counting the Saturday-only day members.
What should they have done in 1995, and to what extent did 2005 do better?
By the way, if you're wondering where the fannish people have gone, they're right here on LJ - posting, as often as not, about media SF and fantasy (Doctor Who, Torchwood, Robin Hood and all the new American series). They were the people who insisted on including the new Doctor Who season opener in the programme, as well as the rash of Buffy/Angerl programme items over the last few years). Funnily enough, many of the people who would have called themselves media fans back in the eighties are also on LJ, posting, as often as not, about the trivial round of everyday life.
I think you'd have a lot more fun at a Novacon than you expect: Birmingham has a similar catchment area to Glasgow in size, and you get a lot of local fans coming along who don't consider it to be exclusively fannish. True, they have a disco rather than a masquerade on the Saturday night, but hall costumes are not unknown (the year I was on the concomm, we had Storm Constantine as guest, and there were rather a lot of folk in costume).