Hello, my name is Marc, and I’m a recovering Trekkie.
I know that there are obsessive fans of other things, including sports, Barbie, mystery novels, and the Dresden Dolls, but there’s something about science fiction and fantasy that seems to draw the really die hard fans. The prototypcial example of this kind of fandom might be Star Trek or perhaps Lord of the Rings if we take into account the “Frodo Lives” campaign during the 60s and 70s. (I don’t know which fandom came first.)
What is it about science fiction and fantasy attracts so much attention among fans? When I was heavily into Star Trek I had technical manuals, novels, board games, role playing games, and I attended conventions from time to time. Other than attending conventions, I was pretty much the same way about Star Wars. Many of my friends fell so much in love with Firefly that they dubbed themselves Browncoats, attend multiple Firefly watching parties, and one even got a Firefly tattoo.
I don’t look down on anyone who is part of a fan group. I used to be one of them. I’m just wondering what it is about science fiction and fantasy that draws the die hard fans. Any ideas?
I don’t think sports fandom is much different really. Think about all the people who wear sports jerseys frequently, decorate their homes with posters and memorabilia, read sports magazines, talk about sports every day at work, etc. It’s just so common that it doesn’t seem excessive, compared to the same degree of sci-fi fandom.
For me, trips to conventions were about spending time in crowds where I’d be able to talk about things that interested me, instead of having to listen to everyone babbling about Friends, or Seinfeld, or Survivor, or Big Brother.
It’s an escape from reality, into a world in which the only limitation is the writer’s imaginations; even basic physics, physiology, et cetera gets tossed out the window at the convenience of the plot. Plus, Sci-Fi/Fantasy has more redheads per capita than a Viking hamlet, which is always a draw for geeks.
All that being said, I don’t know you can really identify Trekkies or whatever the equivilent Star Wars, Firefly, Tolkein, et cetera fans are called. There are plenty of people involved in Civil War re-enactment (which is peculiar to me, not very far from Germans hypothetically dramatizing the Kristallnacht, but whatever), romance novel junkies, wine zealots, people who watch professional golf live, et cetera. Sci-Fi/Fanty fans are just more…oddly dressed than most.
Obligatory Galaxy Quest quote:
Gwen DeMarco: (rising up to help injured cute alien) “Hi!.. Hi there little guy…”
Crewman #6/Guy: (pulling her back behind rock) “Jesus, didn’t ANY of you watch the show!?”
I don’t see any sci-fi/fantasy fans rioting and flipping over police cars if one of their movies wins an academy award, but I find myself hoping the Montreal Canadiens won’t win another Stanley Cup anytime soon.
Or failing that, the Montreal cops show some backbone and start shooting to kill.
Before science fiction really emerged as a genre, you had the same kind of fan following for the Sherlock Holmes stories. Heck, you still have that kind of fan following for them; they’re just outnumbered by the science fiction fans now. But there’s not much difference between the folks who conclude that Watson’s middle name must be “Hamish” and argue about who’s the fourth-smartest man in London, and those who calculate the effective speeds of various warp factors and debate the relative power levels of the Wormhole Prophets and the Organians.
Assuming that most things not centered in our reality are a form of escapism (pretty much an inarguable point that I, as a huge SF/F fan, embrace), dealing with entire worlds, realities, and other cosmologies presents a truly endless vault of material for fans to think about, talk about about with each other, debate, read about, and even write about on their own (via fanfiction dealing with unexplored segments of whatever reality or “world” they’re dealing with). I believe that this is the reason that they get so crazily “into” whatever SF/F thing that they’re interested in - because it truly allows them a quasi-endless reality to “escape into.”
I mean, for something like Star Wars or Star Trek alone, there are a million things to think about and talk about - the entire structure of the different forms of galactic government, different types and models of spaceships and the way that they work and operate within the phsyics of the “world” being dealt with, the force, a multitude of alien races and all of their cultures, customs, physiology, etc. etc. And that’s barely scratching the surface.
On the other hand, a sports fan’s (for example) fandom pretty much begins and ends with the surface level, because that thing already exists within our real world. They’ll discuss how Bret Favre plays and analyze his signature moves, but they won’t discuss the way that physics is involved with the spin of the ball that he catches or the history and customs of the city in which he plays, because those things are taken as givens - they already exist in our reality and are common knowledge or just implicit.
On the other hand, something like Quidditch or Blitzball (to use a fictitious sport example) also begs those questions, because it’s operating in a fantasy reality where such things and physics and history aren’t implicit or assumed - “how does the snitch fly? What’s it made of? Does it direct itself or does someone else control it? What’s the history of the sport? How do those Blitzball players breathe underwater? How is the big ball of water held suspended for them to play in?” etc. etc. etc.
One guess is that SF and fantasy, being set as they are in other worlds, appeal most to people who are less than comfortable with this world. Spending time in those other worlds is a way of evading the rules, restrictions, and frustrations of this one.
I hope I’m expressing this in as neutral and nonjudgmental a way as I intend. There are lots of things that can be said both for and against such escapism.
The best SF and fantasy can explore the human condition in ways that more reality-based stories can’t. For instance, the vampire Angel from the Buffyverse was cursed by having his soul returned to him after centuries of undeath, so that he would be tormented by the knowledge of his own monstrous acts. Furthermore, the curse would be lifted if he ever experienced true joy, thus returning him to his previous vampiric self. So here you have this vicious supernatural killer, trying to atone for his sins, but also keeping his emotional distance from the world so that he doesn’t revert.
Yeah, they’re easier to spot (often times). A baseball fan may be just as much, or even more so, a complete nutter about their team than a Trekker may be about Trek, for instance. But all you see is guy wearing a baseball cap, maybe a jersey. With a Trekker, tho, say, at a convention, or at a new movie premeir, you might see them wearing an IDIC pin, or a redshirt jersey, and everybody thinks that weird, even tho the level of fandom is the same.
Even the make up stuff goes for both some sports fans and some sci-fi-ers.
(BTW, even tho I am an Ultimate Trekker, you’re more likely to see me in an Elway throwback jersey than wearing anything large and trekkish. An IDIC pin is about as far as I go, visually.)
Science fiction fandoms long predates Star Trek. The first (very small) Worldcon was in New York in 1939, I think. Uncle Hugo helped get it started with his letters columns, and there were active letter writers even before that.
I think it was highly intelligent people who were interested in stuff that was considered crazy, like going to the moon banding together. Mystery stories and Holmes were considered respectable, but sf was gosh-wow stuff, read by kids in propeller beanies.
SF was the field where fans set up publishing houses to get out books, which had been serialized in Astounding, that the normal presses wouldn’t touch.
Star Trek fandom grew out of sf fandom originally, but had a much bigger base.
But I’m not a fan, I just read (and collect) the stuff.
As a kid I had access to an uncles collection of pulp S.F. mags ,Nebula ,A. Sts.,Fantasy and Science Fiction amongst others which I read voraciously.
In those days it was very much a minority/cult genre and both fans and writers seemed to all be Futurists as well.
The writing though often crude was a lot more imaginative and "out of the box"then todays output and covered sociological.psychological and biological issues as well as the more obvious sciences .
Todays efforts seem to be mostly what we used to call "Space Opera " ie. ordinary topics transported to either space or the future .
The only exceptions to this rule today that I am aware of personally are the stories by Ian M.Banks who has an incredibly creative imagination but whos plots
tand to leave me feeling vaguely depressed at the end ,wondering why the main characters bothered doing anything .
To sum up, Harrumph ! you youngsters call that S.F.? why in my day…
Part of it is the sense of belonging, being part of something. A large section of the group you’re talking about is marginalized in just about all other social aspects, so having something to feel a part of can be important, especially if never have before.
Nothing new there. The very first issue of Galaxy, from 1950, had a back cover ad titled “You’ll never see it in Galaxy.” It had two columns, with the left having a stereotyped Western story, and the right having the same story as sci-fi (and I use the term advisedly) with a pistol replaced by a blaster, etc. Or, what James Blish called the “call a rabbit a smerf” story.
FIAWOL had its opposite FIJAGH (fandom is just a goddam hobby.)
Im have to mention Forry Ackerman’s story “A Way of Life,” which is set in a post-nuclear age. Fandom has taken over the world, since fans had all the mimeographs and could set up communication first. People flew on Heinleiners to go to the capital of Russia, Moskowitz.
