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Day 13 - In your own space, write about a moment in fandom that meant a lot to you. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it.
It's October 2001. I've just spent 3 months bingewatching Stargate SG1 on VCR. (Yes, videotapes!) I've run out of episodes to watch - the video store only has up to just before the end of Season 3 - and I'm desperate for more about the adventures of Sam, Jack, Teal'c, and Daniel. (And Hammond. Of Texas.)
I've just moved into a new house situation - share-housing with three other people. I have a nice large bedroom, a small desk, an Acer laptop that weighs 3.5kg, and a phoneline in my room. The laptop has an inbuilt modem, so I can connect to the internet so long as I have a phone line that doesn't have a call in progress.
I come home from work - I've just started a new job, and it's not too terrible, stuff that I can do at least - and figure I'll run an internet search on Stargate SG1 and see if there's anything about when the next episodes might run in Australia...
Six hours later, I've discovered Yahoogroups about the show, about the characters, about the two characters that I really want to see in a relationship together because the show is leaving damn ANVILS everywhere for me to trip over... I've discovered people who discuss the episodes and what this interaction means, or what this line could portend. I've discovered Stargate fanfic...
Six months later, I've written fanfic stories that are generally well-received. A year later, I've made friends in Stargate fandom. Two years later, I've visited them at their houses and gone to cons with them. Five years later, I'm emailing them with random questions and comments about the things we're discussing.
Fifteen years later, and I'm still here.
I'd been in fandoms before, I'd written fanfic. But so many of those interactions seemed...distant. Like I was one person doing a solitary thing, even when I met up with people in groups (like a Terry Pratchett day where six other people came around and we cooked from the Discworld Cookbook).
This was a community of people with similar interests, and I fell in love with it. The potential for friendship. For ideas. For encouragement and writing and storytelling and enjoyment of other people's stories.
The interesting thing is that although fandom became a community of people with similar interests, it also was a community of people with different backgrounds. I wouldn't have learned the things I did about race, gender, sexuality, ableness. I wouldn't have met people whose worth was not in the job they did but in the dreams they dreamed. I wouldn't have met people who've survived on gum and shoestrings, or survived awful situations and come out still standing.
That day, long ago, was my entree to a bigger world than I would have otherwise inhabited; to a broader definition of compassion and love for my neighbour, a greater empathy for those whose situations I haven't experienced, a more varied view of the world and all the things within it.
I remember the quality of the light outside that afternoon, the colour of the walls, the nap of the carpet. I can vaguely picture the computer on the desk. But a door between worlds opened up for me that day and I stepped through.
It isn't a Stargate - not quite. But it changed my life just as definitively as the Stargate changed the game for Earth...
It's October 2001. I've just spent 3 months bingewatching Stargate SG1 on VCR. (Yes, videotapes!) I've run out of episodes to watch - the video store only has up to just before the end of Season 3 - and I'm desperate for more about the adventures of Sam, Jack, Teal'c, and Daniel. (And Hammond. Of Texas.)
I've just moved into a new house situation - share-housing with three other people. I have a nice large bedroom, a small desk, an Acer laptop that weighs 3.5kg, and a phoneline in my room. The laptop has an inbuilt modem, so I can connect to the internet so long as I have a phone line that doesn't have a call in progress.
I come home from work - I've just started a new job, and it's not too terrible, stuff that I can do at least - and figure I'll run an internet search on Stargate SG1 and see if there's anything about when the next episodes might run in Australia...
Six hours later, I've discovered Yahoogroups about the show, about the characters, about the two characters that I really want to see in a relationship together because the show is leaving damn ANVILS everywhere for me to trip over... I've discovered people who discuss the episodes and what this interaction means, or what this line could portend. I've discovered Stargate fanfic...
Six months later, I've written fanfic stories that are generally well-received. A year later, I've made friends in Stargate fandom. Two years later, I've visited them at their houses and gone to cons with them. Five years later, I'm emailing them with random questions and comments about the things we're discussing.
Fifteen years later, and I'm still here.
I'd been in fandoms before, I'd written fanfic. But so many of those interactions seemed...distant. Like I was one person doing a solitary thing, even when I met up with people in groups (like a Terry Pratchett day where six other people came around and we cooked from the Discworld Cookbook).
This was a community of people with similar interests, and I fell in love with it. The potential for friendship. For ideas. For encouragement and writing and storytelling and enjoyment of other people's stories.
The interesting thing is that although fandom became a community of people with similar interests, it also was a community of people with different backgrounds. I wouldn't have learned the things I did about race, gender, sexuality, ableness. I wouldn't have met people whose worth was not in the job they did but in the dreams they dreamed. I wouldn't have met people who've survived on gum and shoestrings, or survived awful situations and come out still standing.
That day, long ago, was my entree to a bigger world than I would have otherwise inhabited; to a broader definition of compassion and love for my neighbour, a greater empathy for those whose situations I haven't experienced, a more varied view of the world and all the things within it.
I remember the quality of the light outside that afternoon, the colour of the walls, the nap of the carpet. I can vaguely picture the computer on the desk. But a door between worlds opened up for me that day and I stepped through.
It isn't a Stargate - not quite. But it changed my life just as definitively as the Stargate changed the game for Earth...
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And this is so translatable across so many fandoms.
Beautifully put! <3
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And I just FB messaged one of the first friends I met in fandom this morning from CA, because she had hip issues overnight and I was checking in on her. They might start in common interest, but they grow in common experience and personality.
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I hesitate to suggest fandom as the cure, but it has certainly helped me.
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I wouldn't have learned the things I did about race, gender, sexuality, ableness.
SO MUCH THIS! I am absolutely certain that I've become a more sensitive and aware person through fandom.
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And the advantage of the internet is that you don't get stuck in your 'social strata' - particularly in more recent years when an internet connection is a basic need, not just a social advantage.
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This specially is so true, also for me: I wouldn't have learned the things I did about race, gender, sexuality, ableness. I wouldn't have met people whose worth was not in the job they did but in the dreams they dreamed.
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The internet gave me friends who weren't within those parameters. And it emphasised (re-emphasised, really, my mother is very socialist and she raised the sistren and me) that people are valuable in and of themselves - are interesting, varied, complex individuals beyond their paycheck or religious affiliation or education level.
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I suspect this narrative rings true for quite a few of us 'oldies' in fandom. :)
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And I feel your pain over the video situation in Australia! It was so nice when we were able to start buying the vids ourselves and watching the episodes in the order they were meant to be watched, not whatever the tv (channel 10, I think?) said we should watch them in.
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The thing that drove me wild about the show scheduling was that they didn't show it by season (or even half-season), they'd show it in random stretches. The stretch I remember is from around late Season Four through to the third or four episode of Season Five. And then they just stopped and there was no sign that they were going to start it up again anytime soon with any kind of regularity.
At least the US got theirs in half-season stints, reliable as clockwork...