Fandom Snowflake - Day Eleven 2018

[themusecalliope]

How’d y'all get drawn into fandom? Fall into a favorite book, or movie? Something about a character caught your eye and made you think… huh, I’d like to know MORE about them.


Day 11

Share a book/song/movie/tv show/fanwork/etc that changed your life.

Okay. Is this supposed to be about getting into fandom, or just a life changing experience thing? Because what you are going to get instead is more of my meditations on the history of fandom.

When I saw Star Wars: A New Hope in the theater I was...5 or 6? It was in the theater for a really long time, but apparently I annoyed my Dad into taking me to see the film. I was obsessed with Leia's hair in the award scene at the end and I remember writing about the film (possibly this was fanfiction?) in first grade. But! This was the mid-70s, and I had no way to interact with others in a fandom for this movie. Home computers didn't really exist. VCRs for home use didn't really exist. My tv was black and white. My friends? Didn't really have opinions about the film.

When I was 10, Benji, Zax, and the Alien Prince (my obscure tv show that no one has every heard of) became my obsession. The best I managed to do was clip some photos out of the TV guide. No one I knew cared about this show. (BTW, I own this show on DVD.)

Escape to Witch Mountain (and really most books by Alexander Key) came to my attention roughly during the same era. I annoyed my parents into renting the film when we were visiting my uncle, because He Had a VCR! Yes. This is the film I ended up seeing over 100 times once we had a VCR of our own. But, apart from the characters from the books/films showing up in an epic crossover I wrote (that no one else ever saw), this fandom was not particularly interactive.

(There were other fandoms in here like - The Original Tomorrow People, the animated Hobbit, Kidd Video, but still, no one to share them with. Just odd looks from my family.)

Then, my Freshman year in High School, I found Doctor Who. In April 1987, I was at the Shakespeare festival in Ashland, OR, and my friend Mindi told me all about this awesome show she liked. When we got home, I tried it. And loved it. And dragged my whole family into the fandom. We found a British food place that sold Jelly babies, and we started going there a lot. (They also serve hot food. If you're ever in North Highlands, CA stop by Touch of Britain.) At some point before I graduated from High School we found a store that sold a Time Lord t-shirt. I joined a fan club. I made friends with some other fans. It was amazing! (Still no internet, mind you, but I did have an Apple IIe and at some point I learned that message boards existed, and used a 300 Baud modem to get there. No fandom message boards though.)

So, really, Doctor Who fandom changed my life the first time. Before I even got to college and discovered the pre-web Internet and PSUVM.PSU.EDU and alt. groups on usenet.

Oh, and before I forget, my friend Mindi and I used to write some Doctor Who fanfiction. We created this awesome new companion that blew things up! ...And then Ace appeared on the show. (insert mysterious music here.)

So, that's my tale of fandoms past. Sorry. Ran a bit long there.

Comments

[meridian_rose]

Benji, Zax, and the Alien Prince - I have vague memories of this show, watching it with my younger sister who it made even more of an impression on :) I have clippings from tv magazines too because that was the easiest, cheapest, and sometimes only way to get information and photos of your favourite shows in the pre-internet era :)

[alessnox]

Wow! I remember the days when the only fandoms were some mysterious trekkies or D and D players who were considered crazy, and they never lived in the same town anyway.

I first interacted with people inside the private game forums they had for things like Tales of Rosella, but then that all folded.

The fannish world has such a wibbly wobbly history, doesn’t it?

[imhilien]

I was a kid when I saw 'Jedi' at the movies, and wrote some fan fic after. In those pre-internet days I didn't share it, because nice girls didn't do that sort of thing. Just being a female SW fan was shameful. Etc.

I also discovered Doctor Who at that time and have loved it ever since.