Changes in Fannish Culture?

Andrhia said:

I seem to remember some lamenting a couple of years ago about the graying of fandom.

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"Graying" as in fewer younger people? Seems to be more gripe than reality.

What I've noticed over several decades is that fandom is getting bigger, with more people reading and watching SF/F/H movies as well as reading SF/F/H. And getting more varied, too, with more soft-core fans.

Another trend is more second- and third-generation fans, who were first introduced to fandom by their parents.

Too, fannish culture is part of the overall culture. We're becoming more tolerant in our approaches to race and sexual differences because society in general is becoming more tolerant.

Andrhia said:

It's super interesting to me how a few of you now have mentioned a younger crowd at sf/f cons. I seem to remember some lamenting a couple of years ago about the graying of fandom. Was that just plain inaccurate? Or has there been a turnaround?

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I'd be interested in learning what percentage of the younger fans are there primarily for the gaming, TV or movie aspect of the genre, instead of reading? One big difference between SFF and other genres (like mysteries) is the huge number of movies, TV shows and games that utilize their tropes. I used to play WoW, and while many of the players were also avid readers of SF and F, not all were.

But it's my understanding that YA fantasy and urban fantasy are popular with younger readers. Not sure how many of those go to cons, but it does bode well for the future of the genre, as reading is a habit that is best developed when young. But this doesn't mean that there won't continue to be changes in the kinds of SFF stories that sell best.

But attempts to anticipate this can be tricky. When I first started writing my own novel (a second world fantasy with a more modern narrative style) a couple of years back, people told me that "traditional" fantasy for adults was dead and it was all about paranormal romance or urban/contemporary and YA fantasy now. But I haven't heard that mantra so much lately.

I've been going to cons since 1976 -- media cons at first and later cons more focused for readers. Also been to some comic book cons (I'm friends who an actor who has been a guest at these). They're all very different in personalities, depending on the con.

Before the internet, fandom was nice and friendly. We stayed connected through snail mail and wrote continuing adventures about our favorite TV series. Then a con would come up, and it would become a major adventure. People would come in from Canada and England, and we'd have blast.

It changed within a few years of the internet becoming more accessible broadly. I'd see a few fans proclaim themselves as experts and "hoard" information. They'd hand out bits and pieces because they liked the attention they got at having information no one else did. A lot of the fans I saw seemed to be living in a bubble where the rest of the world didn't exist, or had a very skewed sense of the rest of the world. One who tried control that branch of fandom seemed to be having an emotional affair with a fictional character, and another person was so immersed in the actor/character that she would be in real trouble with the actor eventually dies.

I'd also see the fans producing stories -- often very poor -- at an astounding rate. With the easy access of the internet, everyone wanted more stories NOW. Eventually those writers started stealing other fan writers' work to keep up, and there were a lot of instances of outrage over this. Before the internet, a lot of the fans were either in it for the fun, or because they wanted to be professional writers and many did graduate to that like A.C. Crispin. But after the internet, it seemed like people were only interested in getting praise.

I got to the point where I couldn't deal with the people any more, so I dropped out and stopped going to cons. I restarted a few years ago, but this time to cons that were more focused on books. Those cons are more intimate and less commercial. I've found workshops about writing, the business of writing, science, diversity, disabilities. I have noticed a large number of people with disabilities attending. I have not experience any sexual harassment -- not in all the years I've attended. But I also have never ever been to a con party. I have seen panels though where the women panelists did not participate, though I can't speak for the reason why.

I think the biggest difference from when I started going is that cons became acceptable to attend. I still remember seeing photos in the newspaper in the 1970s. The reporter would find a little boy with Spock Ears or the sloppiest looking fan, the implication being that cons are for kids or misfits. Last year, Mysticon got written up in the Washington Post Magazine with a wonderful article that made me think about going next time.

I'm relatively young, and I probably fall into the internet side of fandom, since I've never been to a con.

Something that I've noticed with fans my age is that they tend to follow a standard pattern:

People who tend to confine their fandom to the net, and may not even know that people who live near them/their friends are actually also fans. They may have a separate group of con friends or internet friends who they talk fandom with that does not much overlap with their normal circle of friends.

Certainly I rarely have the chance to discuss books with my friends offline, and until very recently most people I know did not discuss their reading interests with each other. There was a great deal of gaming and television talk, however.

Before joining AW, I was mostly involved in anime/manga fandom, and not so much SF fandom, because I preferred books to TV, and my home town had only a small population of "fans", and many of them were not the type of people I wanted to hang out with. For example, it only took one visit to my high school's anime club to convince me I wanted nothing to do with offline fans/nerds/geeks, a sentiment that lasted all four years. The only SFF thing I did with others during school was play Magic: The Gathering.


I don't much care for a lot of the online gaming fandom, and even my offline friends who game have some pretty bad attitudes about sexism and good manners, and that includes the girls.

I think a lot of the stereotypes about fandom perpetuated by the media and fandom itself are very harmful. The fake geek girl stereotype. The elitist hard-core fan archetype. The fangirl archetype. I've seen all of these cause trouble on and off line.

I also don't know how "cool" being a geek is still. I've seen a lot of pushback from people when fandom and geeky activities start to infringe on the "normal" world. For example, I do boffing at school, and we get tons of flack from students about "larping" in public and embarrassing the school during prospective student and parent visit days. I think it's less that fandom has become cool, and more that it has become more acceptable to be open about it.


The competing fandoms thing is also something I saw less a few years ago. I developed my ideas of fandom based on inclusivity, because until a few years ago, that was my experience. Now fandoms spend a lot of time hating on each other and bashing, and treating people who like both of two competing fandoms really badly.

Long ago, back in the 80's, I would get together with friends to play D&D. As we fought goblins and searched for treasure we would also talk about various fandoms. Star Trek, Star Wars, Transformers (the original cartoon), GI Joe, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, and various comic books were the main topics of discussion.

We were most definitely not the, 'cool kids' and we knew it. But the feeling was always that we were in our own little club. We played D&D and talked about the things we liked. There was a sort of sense that we were outsiders who had out own secret language and hidden ways. That sense of being different was a big part of what I enjoyed about fandom back then.

Now, today, much of it is focused online. Many of the people you might discuss things with are only known to you by their internet identity. If you are a Harry Potter fan you will find over 600,000 fanfiction stories and literally thousands of web sites and blogs where you can read opinions about almost every possible aspect of the story and characters. The fandoms have become much larger and far more accepted than they used to be.

I am not saying that's a bad thing. It is kind of fun to be able to talk about various titles 24/7 and to have tons of material at your fingertips. My own experiences of writing fanfiction and getting reader responses would not have been possible ten to twenty years ago.

But it is very, very different. What once felt like being part of a small club is now more like being a member of an organization. It is kind of fun to be part of something so much bigger and wide spread, but I do some times miss the sense of being an outsider and treasuring something special that the wider world would never understand.

Liosse de Velishaf said:

…For example, I do boffing at school, and we get tons of flack from students about "larping" in public and embarrassing the school during prospective student and parent visit days…

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This reminded me of a somewhat telling anecdote that happened to me last summer. A group of my guy friends and I headed over to a field near the University with a bunch of foam swords to beat the ever-loving crap out of each other. On the way there I had a brief conversation with one of them, because he was quietly burning with embarrassment about being seen with a foam sword in public. I actually felt similar, because it was pretty far from normal behavior, but I talked him (and myself) out of it by explaining how weirdness like this was normal behavior around the University, and nobody was calling us out on it - the most we got were some odd looks.

The point was that this was something we were worried about being judged by, because it was somewhat outside the acceptable "cool geek" boundaries. LARPers and people who play RPGs are often considered less cool than videogamers or people who play MMOs, and as a result by deciding to hit each other with swords we were outside the range of normally acceptable geek behavior.

That said, a lot of what was once considered uncool has migrated into coolness. Just not everything.

StormChord said:

This reminded me of a somewhat telling anecdote that happened to me last summer. A group of my guy friends and I headed over to a field near the University with a bunch of foam swords to beat the ever-loving crap out of each other. On the way there I had a brief conversation with one of them, because he was quietly burning with embarrassment about being seen with a foam sword in public. I actually felt similar, because it was pretty far from normal behavior, but I talked him (and myself) out of it by explaining how weirdness like this was normal behavior around the University, and nobody was calling us out on it - the most we got were some odd looks.

The point was that this was something we were worried about being judged by, because it was somewhat outside the acceptable "cool geek" boundaries. LARPers and people who play RPGs are often considered less cool than videogamers or people who play MMOs, and as a result by deciding to hit each other with swords we were outside the range of normally acceptable geek behavior.

That said, a lot of what was once considered uncool has migrated into coolness. Just not everything.

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Although boffing at my school is sponsored by the RPG club, we do not do actual larping, except once a year. The way people continually make that distinction makes it obvious that they are trying to avoid certain associations which the public often makes towards larping.

But surprisingly, we've had many random people join in, including a bridesmaid in her dress and heels. So it's clearly becoming somewhat more acceptable than it used to be.

Okay, hang on: What is "boffing?" I've heard the term before, but for some reason I always assumed it was...dirtier.

Rhoda Nightingale said:

Okay, hang on: What is "boffing?" I've heard the term before, but for some reason I always assumed it was...dirtier.

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Yeah, I'd be curious of the meaning too (though I know I could Google it).

Also, of "larping". The only "larping" I did in college involved too much beer and hugging a toilet on my knees afterwards...

Rhoda Nightingale said:

Okay, hang on: What is "boffing?" I've heard the term before, but for some reason I always assumed it was...dirtier.

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It is, here at least. If I boffed anyone other than my husband he would be quite upset, let's put it like that...

I don't know about boffing, but larping is Live Action Role Playing-ing.

I learned that from a Supernatural episode where the lead characters were accused of larping themselves.

I knew what LARPing was -- I know a few and I've tried it myself once or twice


Boffing is something quite different (here)

Boffer swords?

I have never heard of those!* Mind you, I mostly know reenacters, and they use steel (blunt) swords/axes etc (with or without padding depending).


*A quick look shows up it's mostly a US term, so that explains that. We just call them foam swords...

^Yeah, that's about where I am with the terminology as well. Although I do live in the US. Wonder how that happened. 0_o

It's also been called "boffering" here in the states; I assume because of the homonym in British English having to do with... things about which I will not speak here.

And yes, it is mock combat with foam weapons--and one of the only forms of combat I know where I can "kill" people wielding spears and swords and bucklers with just my trusty dagger or two.

Nothing pisses a geek off more than having two 3-foot "longswords" and getting killed from the front by someone with an eight-inch dagger. As with the more traditional definition of the word, size really does matter.

I was at a con where they used foam swords for a demo -- and still managed to break a demonstrator's nose.

The city I live in seems to have a social season that revolves around cons. The largest one of the season is happening over this very weekend. Since I hate crowds - especially crowds that expect me to have knowledge of all sorts of obscura I may not have any interest in - I sit that, and most other local cons, out. I am both old school and new school geek (yay for being bottom end Gen X?) I actually started a science fiction fan group that had around 10 people that came and went - and, over the course of 6 years, I'm suddenly managing almost 700 members - for a local fan group. I have mixed feelings about the success, because I don't see more people the same as successful organization. Convention culture differs completely from the events that I run - what I do is quieter, more family oriented and doesn't do costume contests or trivia events etc. But there are so many people bleeding over from the con that want ALL culture to be con culture that I am constantly fighting pressure to become that. It kills me that these people, who are supposedly outsiders or attracted to outsider art, are the very people demanding homogeneity in their expression of fandom. It puts me in an awkward position because I want to support the cons - but I certainly don't want to be part of that culture.

Rhoda Nightingale said:

Okay, hang on: What is "boffing?" I've heard the term before, but for some reason I always assumed it was...dirtier.

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I was thinking boffing came from boffin, to mean to act as a boffin.

Rhoda Nightingale said:

Okay, hang on: What is "boffing?" I've heard the term before, but for some reason I always assumed it was...dirtier.

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Okay, think there are two competing terms here. I think boffing is an older slang term for sex (here in the states, it was more used by my parents' generation, but sounds like it's still common in the UK), but also a more recent term for fencing with padded swords?

But I could be wrong. The first time someone told me she was into "filking," my reaction was to smile stiffly and say, "Um thanks for sharing."

Until I discovered what it really meant.

Linda Adams said:

I was at a con where they used foam swords for a demo -- and still managed to break a demonstrator's nose.

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While we have never had serious injury in the group I boff with, face shots are considered invalid hits, although crotch shots are valid (I've been told because people generally want to take a break after receiving one anyway. ).

I have had glasses broken, and we've broken some weapons on people. But the style of boffer weapons we use tend to be less damaging than some of the other styles. We've actually banned weapons based on the fact that their design style was for a boffer style that usually wears armor.

The 1983 film Risky Business (the Tom Cruise one) is evidence that "boffing" may have had sexual connotations in the US, though IIRC - been a long time since I saw it - the word had to be explained to the central character and therefore to the audience as well. But I digress.

I went to my first Con in 1991 and have been going to Eastercon and Fantasycon in the UK for all but a few years from 1992 onwards. Also the 1995 and 2005 Glasgow Worldcons and the 1997 London World Fantasy and 2010 Brighton World Horror and I'll be at World Fantasy in Brighton later this year. The only non-UK con I've been to was the 2010 Worldcon in Melbourne. So this is entirely from a British perspective.

On the diversity issue, the image of friendless geeks gathering together to dress up as Klingons (or whatever) dies very hard in British media. The conventions I go to are more about the written genre rather than media, though they do cover that, but costuming is in a minority and much of if confined to the Masquerade at Eastercon. It isn't my thing at all.

However, both recent Glasgow Worldcons did attract attention from the media and you could guarantee that someone in outlandish costume will be the one out of as many as 5000 attendees would be the one to get their picture in the paper. At the 1995 Worldcon, there was a visiting American (male) who spent the whole con dressed in a black basque, red bikini briefs, stockings and suspender belt, fox ears and fox tail. Guess who was the one who got in the local paper? That Con also had an article from a local paper about someone who wondered in, paid the day membership thinking it was something to do with Star Trek, couldn't find anything of interest and seemed to think everyone was on drugs - all written up in a local paper under the headline "Weirdos' Con branded a rip-off".

That said, SF particular does attract minority types. At a typical Eastercon - and particularly a Worldcon - I see fans who are unusually tall (less often unusually short), morbidly obese fans, disabled fans, LGBT fans and fans who would be I guess somewhere on the Asperger's/autism spectrum. I have to wonder how many of these feel isolated to some extent in everyday life. There was a Locus con report once which described a Worldcon as something like a Gay Pride march - a parading of difference. (The writer of that article is himself gay, by the way.)

As for overall membership, Eastercons did hit a slump between 2000-2007ish, not helped by a notoriously bad one in Blackpool in 2004 (a scary place, and the con was not the best organised either) and the 2005 Worldcon overshadowing the Eastercons in that year and the next, and the original 2007 Con being cancelled causing another one to be organised at short notice. That said, the three Heathrow Eastercons in 2008, 2010 and 2012 attracted record numbers, 1300+ each. The one this year in Bradford was very good. I'll be at the one in Glasgow next year. But as far as I know there hasn't yet been any bid to organise one for 2015.

eyeblink said:

On the diversity issue, the image of friendless geeks gathering together to dress up as Klingons (or whatever) dies very hard in British media. The conventions I go to are more about the written genre rather than media, though they do cover that, but costuming is in a minority and much of if confined to the Masquerade at Eastercon. It isn't my thing at all.

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Y'know, I was in London for Halloween one year, and I was struck by how few people cared or even noticed. Me and my two buddies (from Oklahoma and Birmingham, respectively) were the ONLY people we encountered who dressed up. I was stunned. Like, we were the ones getting stared at in the Underground. It was weird.

Which is to say, I guess the dressing-up-in-costumes thing is more American? And I kind of wonder why? I've only been to a handful of cons, but there are ALWAYS people in costumes.

Halloween had pretty much died out as a holiday in England before some asshats broadcast a documentary about how you could get free stuff in the US. Now we get people coming to the door with their hoodies drawn down over their faces demanding cash.