You hear all these “you’re not a real fan unless” and it lists a hundred things, but I met a dude today who saw my Deadpool pin and asked what my favorite story arc was, and I explained that while I loved Deadpool, I was new to Marvel (I only really got into it a year and a half ago) and hadn’t been able to find a lot of the comics. Instead of making a face or a derogatory comment, he just offered to send me all the stuff he had. That is a true fan.
I told the guy at the comic shop when I went in for Black Widow that I’d seen a few Harley Quinn panels on Tumblr and thought it looked badass but didn’t know where to start because my entire involvement in DC fandom was watching the Batman cartoon as a kid. This guy sitting at one of the tables playing Yu-Gi-Oh, wearing a comic shirt and carrying a definitely-hardcore-fan amount of swag, spins around and goes “dude! You’ve never read DC? Check out the back issues wall. They’ve got all kinds of Harley Quinn.” He then proceeded to explain how “New 52″ was a spinoff, and had some split opinions in the fandom, but either continuity is good as long as you pick one and stay with it so you don’t get mixed on what’s going on.
True fans love to see other people loving the stuff they love.
See how easy it is to be “that cool person who helped me get into X” instead of “that asshole who made me feel bad for not knowing everything about X”?
IT’S NOT EVEN DIFFICULT TO NOT BE A SHITLORD. YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE. And you never had one.
Like… Seriously, gatekeeping fandoms only harms the fandom. A series with only 5 hard-core fans is doomed to cancellation. A fandom with 100,000 fans ranging from ‘I just like seeing the ___’ to ‘I KNOW EVERYTHING’ will last for years, decades even. (Centuries, for some. Look at Shakespeare.) The fandom with 100,000 fans is more likely to receive spin offs, sequels, prequels, etc. The fandom will have more fanart, fanfics, and conversations to be had. The fandom with the more fans will get more conventions. If anything, encourage fans to join, in fact non-fans with the fandom virus by piquing their interest. Never shame someone for buying/wearing/appreciating merchandise. Never shame someone for showing an interest in a series.
Exactly! The only way a fandom can survive, and the only way it can have more content to enjoy (official or not) is by having the most people possible in it – and the only way to have that is to accept a wide range of kinds of fans, casual and fanatic alike! There’s a lot of great notes on this post, but they’re all focusing on being nice to newbies (which is great, please do!) but we really need to talk about gatekeeping towards existing fans who aren’t “the right kind”.
People who know damn well who Wolverine is, but only from the movies and aren’t interested in the comics. People who adore new Doctor Who, but never bothered to catch episodes of the classic Doctors. People who do a killer Legolas cosplay, but are bored by Tolkien’s actual prose. People who are into a specific part of the media but not all of it? Or people who have never written fanfic, cosplayed, attended a convention, or been part of the online community? Yeah, be cool to them too. Not everything is for everyone and that’s okay! Have fun talking about the things you do have in common. If you don’t have anything, oh well move on.
If someone likes a thing – they’re just as valid a fan as you. Full stop. Kill the idea of fannish qualifiers. There’s no such thing as an ‘imaginary’ fan.
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A Glitch Named Anti 