In the early days of Starsky & Hutch fandom (1980s), there were strong objections to the existence of slash fan fiction. One of the early slash fanzines Code 7 was published under threat of copies being mailed to TPTB in the hopes of driving slash fans and fan fiction underground.
In response, another zine editor decided to go ahead and publish her slash fan fanzine anyway: “To the sanctimonious bigots who have terrorized several innocent S/H fanzines into hiding by making a big point of pushing them in front of Goldberg, Spelling et all I hereby see your threat and raise you double. ’ I am throwing down the gauntlet – with my fist in it. Pick it up at your own risk.”
To reduce the possibility of exposure, the slash stories were printed in blue ink on a red background.
Fanlore explains: “In the end, the slash stories were printed in blue ink on a reddish background. The zine came with a sheet of red plastic the reader was to put over the page to make it legible. The editor also required a signed “statement of compliance,” numbered the copies, and used coded hole-punches on the pages, supposedly to identify the purchaser of any copy that “fell into unauthorized hands.” These machinations were all an attempt to keep the zine, one of the first slash fanworks, from being dispersed and read by those (including some fans who’d threatened to send it to the studio and other TPTB) who were not supporters and would do the genre harm “
You can read more about her zine Pushing the Odds here and the tensions between Starsky & Hutch fans over slash fan fiction here.
1976 Star Trek Fans
In the 1970s, Star Trek fans would write introductions and have them printed in their local Star Trek Club newsletter. Here are nine bios summarized from an East Coast Star Trek fan club:
* a 14-year old fan who has made a flexible foam rubber model from the beast in 20,000 Fathoms, hopes to animate the beast for a stop-motion movie with his own camera
*a 30-year old fan who says she has read over 800 books
* a fan who loves Star Trek because it offers “an optimistic view of the future in these times of negativism"
*a fan who wants to "into the field of weather” as his profession
* a man who is married and “trying to get her interested in ST”
* a 16-year old fan who loves sports and mountain climbing and wants to “become the first lady astronaut and the Red Sox’s first lady pitcher. ST is proof that if we all cooperate and live together as one world, then the future won’t be so bad… would also like to be a professional writer.”
* a 13-year old fan who says she “works with horses during the summer. Used to want to be an astronaut, but since she hates math, plans have been altered to that of policewoman. A fanatic over our country, horses, and Star Trek”
* a fan who is a freshman in college, “interests include ST, horseback riding and trying to prevent the needless slaughter of animals (for fur coats) and the whales and any other senseless torture. Also likes needlepoint, sewing, reading, square-dancing and school (yes, it’s true).”
Source
Hey Hey, You You
sabrinix:
Come and take my survey! (and reblog this )
I’m doing a project for my Historical Linguistics class on Fandom slang over the years, and I need for people to take my survey, so I have data to study.
The longer you’ve been in fandom (any fandom), the better, but take it even if you’re newer to fandom, I need all the responses i can get.
the project’s due in a week, so take this survey now, and reblog so more people can see it.
thanks for taking the time to do this!
I make no warranties not do I any personal knowledge of this study.
Not Spock’s Brain
plaidshirtjimkirk:
From Not Spock’s Brain, a play by Lezlie Shell:
FANDELIA: (ENTERS) So this is the Hall of Heroes. The House that fans built.
KIRK: What do you want?
FANDELIA: (points a TV remote control at them and they all fall unconscious)
LIGHTS OUT/ LIGHTS ON. SPOCK IS STAGE LEFT ON TOP OF A TABLE. McCOY IS BENDING
OVER HIM.
KIRK: Where’s Spock?
McCOY: McCoy to Kirk. You’d better get to sickbay.
KIRK GOES TO SICKBAY.
KIRK: You’ve got Spock on complete life support. Was he dead?
McCOY: He was worse than dead.
KIRK: Come on, tell me!
McCOY: His penis is gone. It’s been removed surgically. It’s the greatest
technical job I’ve ever seen. Every nerve ending—and there are lots of nerve
endings—has been neatly sealed.
KIRK: But Spock is Vulcan. If it is just his penis, then why is he near death?
His brain should be still engaged.
McCOY: But you forget. He is a slash hero and a slash hero without a penis is—well,
pointless.
Sources: [x] [x]
If you think our fandom isn’t the best, you’re wrong. I wish the full work was somewhere.
aethel:
fan edit from flowercrownharry
what we’ve got for the flower crown meme on the Fanlore wiki so far:
Flower crowns have always been around, but in 2013, they became a widespread meme on Tumblr. According to Know Your Meme, this meme started in One Direction fandom in March 2013, was inspired by a 2011 tweet by Harry Styles[1], and spread to other fandoms by May.[2] The earliest posts in the tags flower harry, flower child harry, and flower crown harry date to March 21, 2013, but Tumblr user hearteyesharry’s post flower child harry is the best harry: a masterpost identifies fanart posted by mainlyapes on or before March 17 as the source of the meme.[3] Tumblr user lourehs claims to have the honor of creating the first Flower Crown Harry manips; her post was dated March 18, only a day after the art was probably posted.[4]Fanfic inspired by the meme was being posted to the AO3 by March 22.[5]
Although Harry Styles’ tweet is incorporated into many flower
crown Tumblr posts, there is a two-year gap between the tweet and the
start of the meme, leaving open the question “why now?” Tumblr user
actualhannibal points to Lana Del Rey and general fashion trends in 2013
as the direct inspiration for the meme[6];
however, actualhannibal was in a different fandom and did not appear to
be aware of the meme’s origin in 1D. The tweet is actually the title of
a 2005 song, I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker (With Flowers in My Hair),
though it is not clear that memers recognized the reference. The song
is about nostalgia for both the hippie and punk eras. A few months
before the flower crown meme started, 1D fandom had experienced a punk edit meme, and edits pairing Flower Crown Harry with Punk Louis appeared very quickly after the new meme started.[7]
Combining the two memes may have happened because punk edits were still
in circulation, but it is equally likely that the song title itself,
quoted frequently with flower crown posts, encouraged the combination.
The Punk/Flower Child link does not appear to have carried over to other
fandoms.
Flower crowns became especially popular in the nascent Hannibal fandom, so much so that the showrunners noticed. In July Hugh Dancy wore a flower crown during a San Diego Comic Con panel. In September, NBC ran a contest for fans to submit photos of themselves wearing (real or photoshopped) flower crowns.[8] The first Hannibal flower crown manip to be posted is thought to be i hate everything (except for puppies, I love puppies)[1] by hettiennes posted on April 28, 2013.[6] Although the start of the show coinciding with the meme may be the proximate cause of flower crowns taking root in Hannibal, cleolinda
speculated that the meme “caught on as the fandom’s way of balancing
the darkness and tragedy and gore by being silly and light-hearted and
imagining Will Graham Having Nice Days”.[9] (Oddly, flower crowns may have caught on in 1D for the opposite reason—Flower Crown Harry was consistent with existing fanon and quickly became canon, to the surprise of nobody.)
References
- ↑ Harry_Styles. “I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair.” 3 Jun 2011, 4:44 PM. Tweet.
- ↑ Flower Crowns, Know Your Meme, updated 10 July 2013. (Accessed 23 September 2013)
- ↑ mainlyapes’s original post was deleted, but this reblog is dated March 17, 2013. happpily’s post includes a different piece by mainlyapes as the origin, but this March 20 round-up post shows that mainlyapes had made at least three separate posts with similar art.
- ↑ In the tags on a 15 June 2013 post, lourehs writes, can
we talk about how i was the first one who made a flower crown edit and
then people started throwing flower crowns on stage can we pretend he
wouldn’t wear them if it wasn’t for me can we pretend i changed harry
styles’ life ok good. untitled Tumblr post by lourehs June 15, 2013, The original Tumblr post contained four manips and has garnered 3,704 notes as of 20 January 2015. untitled Tumblr post by lourehs March 18, 2013,
- ↑ Pure by eatreadwritesleep, posted 2013-03-22, is probably the first and features Punk Louis/Flower Child Harry.
- ↑ 6.06.1 actualhannibal. Flower Crowning FAQ, posted to Tumblr on 20 July 2013.
- ↑ fleurlourry suggested pairing them on March 21, 2013.
- ↑ Official NBC Hannibal Tumblr. Fannibal Flowers Sweepstakes!, posted 24 September 2013.
- ↑ cleolinda. I keep thinking a “pannibal” ought to have something to do with bread, posted to LiveJournal 19 July 2013. Also posted to her tumblr.
stevesbuck:
i just spent like 3 hours on fanlore and holy shit fandom history is entertaining. and mildly terrifying. the harry potter fandom was wild back in the day.
I loved LJ fandom like my own family, but I remember a lot of the same culture of ruling fear and mass bullying that goes on on tumblr from there too–that goes back at least to the 80s and ‘zine culture, where you even had to be “sponsored” by someone at a con to be taken seriously.
We started SJ on LJ, not tumblr–I remember early iterations going back to around 2002-03, it got serious in around 2007, and became impossible to ignore in 2009. So it had been steadily building up until tumblr got started, and many initially went to tumblr to get AWAY from the constant guiltmongering and finger-pointing. If you recall, DREAMWIDTH was originally considered the “special snowflake” haven! My old flist on LJ was all, “Oh, we’ll never move to Dreamwidth, all they care about is talking about disability and alternate sexualities there.” Then they all did…or went to tumblr, or focused on their offline lives.
My point is, the culture’s always had issues, it’s always been in flux, it’s always cannibalized one community after another because it’s never been stable, fandom always aspires to goodness while the means we attempt to reach this end is mostly bullying each other like the mean girls in high school, and we always claim the moral high ground while doing this–hell, the Godawful Fanfic archive in 1998 claimed it was helping the authors it mocked behind their backs with “useful crit.” Everything people are whining about with tumblr is nothing new, but an evolution of the culture we already had, that was already poisoning itself but we were too young and naive and happy to find our tribe to see it.
Anon.
http://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/131867.html?thread=687489819#cmt68748
http://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/131867.html?thread=686760731#cmt686760731
ereshai:
The Wayback Machine is awesome. It makes my completist little heart very happy.
