Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 14:02:06 -0400
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: SF fandom- this has been interesting
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

At 10:01 AM 4/20/05 -0700, Drew Bittner wrote:

>are conflated in the public mind. Maybe it breaks down
>into the worlds of sf readership and sf fandom having
>some overlap but not absolute congruence (one being a
>subset of the other?).

I'd say that SF fandom includes a subset of SF readership.  Media fandom is
a different set, with some overlap on both readership and/or fandom.  I.e.
some read, some read and come to cons, some watch, read and come to cons,
some watch, some watch and read, etc..  I could do a Venn diagram of it,
which would be simpler, but I'm not going to try it in ASCII!

>My fiancee (Katherine, 23, graduating college next
>month) has gotten very interested in sf because it's a
>genre of ideas.

A great reason!  Does she like the "hard sf", or what?

>She has no experience with fandom but
>her preconceptions (before she met me) were negative,
>based on media stories about Trek fans in costume,
>etc.

There are Trek fans who are also SF fans (Rich Kolker, who's in some of the
old WSFA pics pointed out recently was Chairman of August Party for 10
years...August Party was a Trek con, with overtones of SF), but many Trek
fans are media fans specializing in Star Trek, and aren't really interested
much in any other sort of SF.   Not everyone at a Trek con is primarily a
Trek fan either...I went to several August Parties, and was even in the
"Sunday Show" more than once (usually playing Darth Vader...not sure what
Trek episode he was from though) but Star Trek was only a small part of the
SF universe as far as I was concerned, and not the most important part.  It
was just that there was this really cute committee member that I originally
met at an SF relaxacon :-)  ...and then I got to know the others and they
were Good People (tm), so I went to be with folks I liked and help them out
where I could.  It was a lot of fun, so why not?

>From what I've seen, which isn't everything, the media fans are usually
more interested in hero worship, fantasizing about the actors, and
competing with other fans for trivia and fanaticism over their chosen
show(s) than they are in the ideas and other things that are usually more
central for SF fans.  They are like those female rock fans who used to
scream at the Beetles in the early 60s in many ways.  Any sociologists or
psychologists want to jump in here to discuss the motivations?  ;-)

SF fans are generally more interested in the ideas, the strange new worlds
to explore, the problem solving, and other aspects of SF.  This carries
over into their viewing of TV and movies.  I like Battlestar Galactica (the
new series!), but it's not because of who is playing the parts, and I
couldn't win a trivia contest about the show if I tried, but they are
creating an interesting world, with difficult problems to solve that I'm
still trying to work out how they will handle, and they are exploring some
serious ideas, like "what is human?", "how does a society respond to major
threats to mutual-trust?, "where does authority come from?", etc..  I also
like the visuals...particularly the way the spacecraft don't act so much
like airplanes and the way they use long zooming shots to give you a better
feel for just how big space is...and that sound doesn't transmit through
it.  I've liked other shows for similar reasons...like B5, Stargate SG-1, etc.

>She's come around and is very interested in meeting
>everyone at WSFA, but she is rather shy-- don't be
>surprised if she's very quiet at first.

Ok.  Just make sure she knows it's ok to talk to people when she's ready.
One thing about fans is that it can look like they are cliquish, as they
tend to form little clumps and talk to many of the same people all night
and not seek out newcomers to include, but that they generally don't object
to others joining in if they want to.  If fans want to speak privately,
they usually move away from the main group to do so.

>people. Many of us (me included) have very strong
>opinions and express them forcefully; it can get out
>of hand.

Yep.  I'm with you there.  I tend to say what I think, without a lot of the
usual "weaselwords" that mundanes use, as I figure fans should be smart
enough to realize that they are implied.  If I say, "X is Y", that is
*obviously* just my opinion on the matter, and is subject to change with
new data, so what's the point of saying, "So far as I can see, and based on
what I know at the moment, X appears to be Y"?  In response I generally
expect to hear, "No, X is not Y because..." rather than, "I'm very sorry,
but I fear you may be mistaken.  X may be Y in your experience, but I
believe that if you consider..."  The extra stuff is used in Mundania all
the time as a sort of social grease, but the intent and the result are
exactly the same, so why not skip to the chase and just convey the thought
without all the padding?  Fans are tough enough to handle it straight up,
right? ;-)

That makes me wonder about a story where telepathy suddenly appears in all
humans, and most go comatose with fear, shock, embarrassment or sudden
horizon expansion, while all the SF fans reaction is basically, "Yay!
Finally!!"  ;-)

>But like any group, there are those to whom you
>gravitate and those to whom you don't.

Very true.  Interests vary, communication styles vary, senses of humor
vary, among other things.  Sometimes even with a given person from one time
to the next.  ;-)

-- Mike B.
--
"Thirst for victory leads to defeat; not tiring of defeat leads to
victory." -- Yamaoka Tesshu