So, a list of fandoms.

[tzikeh]

Back in 2004, I posted a list of all the fandoms I could think of that I'd ever been a part of, either just with a few other friends, or in the larger sense of taking part in the organized fandom. This included a number of fandoms I'd been in well before fandom hit the internet, whether on mailing lists or on livejournal (I included a few usenet fandoms, but while I took part in the usenet groups, they were not my primary source of fannish input/consumption.

It's been six years since I put up that list.

You guys know me, and many of you have been with me on lj since the beginning, or near the beginning (Nov. 2002, I think). Many of you started following me simply out of shared fandoms. So, here's the list, again. Please help if you can; which fandoms that came up between 2002 and now am I missing?

I realize that there's no way to cover them all, but heck, let's give it a shot.


As media fandom has become more and more widely appropriated and diluted (and I don't mean since 1996, I mean since the early 1970s), there no longer seem to be any hard and fast lines dividing that which is fannish from that which isn't. Rather, each of us defines the term for ourselves along a sliding scale, and then sifts through the teeming masses to find people whose definitions most closely overlap our own, and clings to those people.

The key difference for me between just liking something and being fannish about it is in how I think about the show when it's not on, or the movie when I'm not watching it, or the book when I'm not reading it. If I wonder what the characters do outside of the stories we've been handed, or I tease out the rules of the universe, or I mull what would happen if a story took a left when, in canon, it took a right, then that is the tipping point from enjoying a product to being fannish about it. Otherwise, I could just as well say "I like X" instead of "I'm fannish about X".

For me, being fannish can be both passive and active -- I can be fannish about a show or movie or book without buying merchandise, writing or reading fanfiction, vidding or watching vids, joining lists, heck - I don't even have to talk about it with other people. So long as I'm thinking fannishly about it, the show is now a fandom for me, and not just a show I watch or a movie I saw or a book I read that I liked a whole lot.

A great example of a show I watch that I am not fannish about is Law and Order. I love Law and Order. I can watch it all day, and sometimes I do watch it all day (for variable meanings of "watch." I enjoy the characters, I enjoy the process, I even enjoy the "shocking last-minute twist, ripped from the headlines". If a conversation pops up in chat or something about Jack McCoy's predilection for sleeping with his assistants, I will readily agree that he's got some work-related problems. But the second the show is over, it is gone from my mind. Left to my own devices, I don't think about what Jack McCoy does when the case is over. I don't wonder where Ben Stone is. I don't try to come up with a case and determine how it would go. I am not fannish about Law and Order, but I still think it's good television--or good enough to have on in the background while I'm doing something else *g*. Why didn't Law and Order tip over into my fannish life, where other shows like The West Wing did? Who knows. We talk about "the hook", that thing that grabs you, but I cannot find a common denominator to all of my fannish pursuits over the years, and so, for now, I leave it a mystery.

Here's a semi-exhaustive collection of tv shows I am now, or have ever been (*g*) fannish about. Bold indicates some kind of active fannish activity (attending panels at cons, joining lj communities, marathon viewing/pimping sessions, lj pimp posts, collecting merchandise, buying seasons on DVD, vidding, reading fanfiction (I don't read fanfiction for shows I don't watch, sue me), joining discussion lists, etc.) was involved. I've added a few new ones, that I can recall, but I know I'm missing a LOT.

A-Team
Adventures of Brisco County, Junior
Alias
Alien Nation
American Gothic
Animaniacs
Angel


Battlestar Galactica
Best of the West
Blackadder
Black Books
Boomtown
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
Buffy the Vampire Slayer


Carnivale
Covington Cross
Cupid (the original w/Jeremy Piven)


Danger Mouse
Dead Like Me
Dead Zone
Deadwood
Dexter
Doctor, Doctor
Doctor Who (new series)
Due South
Dungeons and Dragons


EZ Streets


Family Guy
Farscape
Firefly
Freakazoid!


Get Smart
Gvs.E (Good vs. Evil)
Greatest American Hero


Heroes
Homicide: Life on the Street
House
How I Met Your Mother
Hustle


I Spy
Invisible Man


Jake 2.0
Joan of Arcadia


Knight Rider


Legend
Life On Mars (UK)
Little House on the Prairie
Lois & Clark


Mad Men
Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Max Headroom
Monkees
Moonlighting
Muppets Tonight!
Mystery Science Theatre 3000


Night Court
Northern Exposure
Nothing Sacred
Now and Again
Nowhere Man


Oz


Police Squad!
Prisoner
Profit
Pushing Daisies


Quantum Leap


Real Ghostbusters
Remington Steele


Scarecrow and Mrs. King
Scrubs
Six Feet Under
Sledge Hammer!
Slings and Arrows
Smallville
Sopranos
South Park

Sports Night
St. Elsewhere
Star Trek
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: Voyager
Strange Luck


Tick (anim)
Tick (live)
Twin Peaks


Upstairs, Downstairs


Veronica Mars
Voyagers!


West Wing
White Collar
Wild Wild West
Wire
Wiseguy
WKRP in Cincinnati


X-Files

I know I'm missing a gazillion. Help?

Comments

[dorcas-gustine.livejournal.com]

Gvs.E (Good vs. Evil)

Oh god, is there a fandom for this? I couldn't find anything, which says a lot since the Internet is supposed to have everything.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Well, remember, my definition of fandom is not just "joining a fandom." Though I wish there were an online presence. :)

[gin200168.livejournal.com]

I don't know you well enough yet to be much help, but this list just convinced me that we will probably get along quite well... :-)

I like your definition of fannish-- I think your distinction is reasonable and the line I too would draw if asked.

I'd be happy to draw you into the world of Eureka one day, fannish or not.

[heresluck]

Castle? Charlie Jade? D. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog? Firefly? Friday Night Lights? Heroes? Leverage? Life? Middleman? Odyssey 5? Pushing Daisies? Slings & Arrows? Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles? Veronica Mars? Wonderfalls? (I don't know which of these you've even watched, let alone which ones you might have been fannish about!)

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Oh Firefly, and Veronica Mars, and Heroes, and Pushing Daisies, and Slings and Arrows

\o/

Adding to the list now!

[dorinda.livejournal.com]

I don't know precisely where these land on the liking/being-fannish spectrum, but since you pimped me into them I figured I'd toss them in: Hustle and Black Books.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

YAY! Two more to add to the list. Thanks!

[nestra.livejournal.com]

Deadwood?

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

OH, FUCKING COCKSUCKER!