Things I have learned about Fandom.
Tips for beginners.
I’m staring down my 9-year anniversary here on Tumblr, and I thought I’d share some thoughts from that perspective. I discovered fandom (and Tumblr) when I was 41, so I’ve obviously never been a teenager online, but I think these are pretty universal for newcomers of any age.
- Pick a name that doesn’t reflect your current fandom, because the odds that you will move on in 1 or 5 or 10 years are very high, and changing your url often means that your old friends don’t recognize you anymore.
- Keep your friends! Your current fandom friends are going to migrate to different fandoms than you will. You will generally not be able to convince them to love your Next Hyperfixation. Learn to enjoy the eclectic oddness that your dash will eventually become.
- Don’t be afraid to move on. Fandom is Brownian Motion. You will drift from one space to another as the spirit moves you. It’s okay. In the beginning, it can feel like a betrayal to leave a fandom, to start reblogging things your current friends aren’t in to, to lose interest in their meta/writing/art, to change the feel of your dash. It’s okay! Everyone does it, although some take months and others take years. Just let them know that your hyperfixation has changed, but your heart and friendship has not. It’s that simple.
- Be Kind. To everyone. You have no idea what they’re going through or who they are. Try to not say anything to others that you wouldn’t want aimed at yourself. (You’re going to fuck this up. Everyone does. Give yourself some slack and remember to absorb the lesson, if there’s one to be learned.)
- You are going to stumble. Especially in today’s hypercritical climate. You are going to say something that starts a fire. Just say sorry (if it’s warranted) and move on. Delete that post and take a break for a couple of weeks if it gets too hot. LEARN from it, but don’t fixate on it. Make liberal use of tumblr’s Block feature.
- Learn to recognize wank (“discourse”). Know that if you jump in with your opinion, you will very likely become some rabid person’s target. So make that choice with your eyes open. Try to avoid black-and-white thinking (we're right --> they must be demons). It's really not helpful.
- Online stress is real. Online hurts are real hurts. So learn how to protect yourself. Curate your dash, block people and tags. Learn to recognize when tumblr thoughts follow you into your real life and affect your happiness. When that happens, take a break. Change the makeup of your dash.
- Don’t make assumptions. Your friend might be older or younger than you, might be from an entirely different culture. It’s easy to assume everyone on the other side of your keyboard is a mirror image of you, with similar experiences. They very likely are not, so always tread lightly.
- Guard your personal information. No one needs to know your real name! And probably, they don’t need to know your age, either. Especially if you’re young. You are your url, and in a fandom community, that is enough.
- Being part of a fandom community takes time and effort. You make friends by commenting, reblogging, encouraging others in their writing/art/meta/whatever. If you are a creator yourself, please don’t be discouraged by a slow lift-off. That happens for everyone (except a lucky few).
- It isn’t necessary to make friends with the BNFs out there: make friends with other newbies. Your shared experiences will be stronger for that!
- Have fun! And if you realize it isn’t fun anymore, walk away. People take breaks from fandom all the time, and it’s still there when they return. Even if it’s been decades. 😉
These are all excellent tips! And a lot of this stuff really isn’t obvious when you first wander into fandom spaces.
One neat side effect of “Keep your friends” + “Don’t be afraid to move on” is that even if your friends from Fandom 1 aren’t in Fandom 2, you may see them again in Fandom 3 or 4!
There is no feeling like getting an AO3 notification showing that your favorite writer from 2-3 fandoms ago is now in your new fandom. And not just writers, of course, friends in general! If you liked the same things once, there’s a good chance eventually you’ll like the same things again. You’ll find new fandoms because of what friends from old fandoms start reblogging, and people you haven’t shared a fandom with in years will have their interest sparked by something you reblog.
Not always, of course, but again, that’s okay. They’re still your friends, and maybe someday your fandoms will intersect again.
This is a very good reason to pick a name that’s not fandom-specific, that you can keep both across different platforms and different fandoms. I’m PG on tumblr, twitter, AO3, my podcast, discord, in person at cons, etc. If you see someone going by PorcupineGirl in a fandom space, even if it’s on a platform or in a fandom where you haven’t run into me before, 95% chance it’s me. This makes it easy for friends from previous fandoms to find me or recognize me in new fandoms, easy for people who like my fic to find my social media and vice versa, all that good stuff. And nobody needs to know my real name because PG is my name in this space.
