therearecertainshadesoflimelight:
“why are you in fandom when you’re 20+”
because we built this kingdom, motherfuckers, with the trekkie zine housewives before us.
So here’s a story. One Fourth of July I was walking down the street and ran into a BNF who I’d met a couple of times at a slash-centric con. It turned out she lived in the same building as one of my boyfriends at the time, which was nearby, so she invited me to stop by. She had a small group of friends there, and one of them was an older woman with short, white hair.
“How old are you?” she asked.
I told her my age, probably about 28 at the time.
“I’ve been reading fanfiction longer than you’ve been alive,” she said.
Here’s another story. A couple of years ago at GeekGirlCon they had an “elders speak” panel. It included some women who had organized Star Trek cons in the 70s and 80s. So, first off, we really have always been here, this is a kind of geekiness that has always belonged to women. And they talked about women doing fandom back then secretly, about having to ask their husbands for money so they could travel to meet other fans. And two of the women on this panel were a couple who’d met each other in fandom.
One of the main reasons I go to slash cons is to connect with my foremothers in fandom. A lot of them aren’t on Tumblr or Twitter, some never even really got into LiveJournal. But they’re still here, doing their thing, having Fourth of July parties and emailing with their friends about fandom. Our elders are our history, our proof that we have always been here, that “media fandom” (fandom of Western TV and movies) is our house that we built with our hands.
respect your fandom mothers and grandmothers you ungrateful little buggers
It’s just hilarious to me that kids on here think that your interests fundamentally change as you get older. Your responsibilities change and, hopefully, you start looking at things and evaluating with more life experience….which, btw, is why a lot of the over 30 people here side eye the shit out of you guys many days. Because lived experience and life experience makes you see things in a different light…even fictional stuff. But you don’t just all of a sudden turn 30 and become this boring person who has no interest anymore in all the nerd things and fandom you liked at 15 or 20 or 25. You are the same person. You still need an outlet for your interests and you still crave those safe spaces to geek out the same way you do as a kid. We’ve always been here. Other women came before us.
FYI In 1993, the most popular Superman website was run by a woman named Zoomway. She was a life long Superman fan who started the site after Lois and Clark hit the air and she had thousands of women (many of whom were older btw) who followed her site. She wasn’t some 20 year old kid. She was a grown woman with life experience decades older than most of you who was writing feminist commentary about Superman and attending fan expos before any of you were born. I was only a kid when I first starting reading her writing and she was the one who introduced me to Superman fandom. She died of cancer a few years ago and her loss was deeply felt.
Women older than you built literally every iconic fandom you post about on here.
I need the community I’ve found within my fandom more now at 43 than I ever needed it at ages 18 or 20.
The more life wears on me, the more I live and love and lose, the more I treasure this space of flails and joy and analysis over episode ephemera, shared with a chorus of voices flung far and wide around the world, small sections of which have become friends, shining lights who I look for whenever I log on.I joined fandoms when I was 18 and I’ve never looked back.
Been in fandom 20+ years and counting <3
(also, omg ZOOMWAY)
First fandom 40 years ago. Still here. Squee is for life, not just for kids.
I started out in serious actual fandom participation at 13 or 14. I am almost 35. Fandom is a big reason as to why I am still around to see 35. Fandom has given me a means and a reason for surviving. Maybe I didn’t build the very house, but I have been helping to make the house a home, too, and I hope the young ones of now find their lights and their reasons for being somewhere in the fandoms that they belong to.
I’m 34, and I’ve been in fandom since I was 13. Guess what, the impulses never change, only the choice of canon.
On the downside, that magical day when you will be a Real Adult and thus have only “Real Adult Interests”? It’s not gonna come. I have literally never seen this happen with a person who is significantly invested in fandom. Not ONCE. Your new fandom may end up being Roman history, or the equivalent of Downton Abbey, but there will always be a fandom, given approximately twelve months for your brain to do what it does.
On the upside, if you accept this now, your future will look a lot less clean and bleak and alien to you. You will never successfully Stepford Wife your brain into only having “appropriate” interests, and that’s a good thing.
So anyway, move over, kid. We’re both welcome here. There’s room at the table for all stages of the fannish lifecycle.