# Which fandoms are you actively involved in?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-fandoms-are-you-actively-involved-in/916053>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [July 22, 2020, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-fandoms-are-you-actively-involved-in/916053 "2020-07-22T23:49:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2020, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-fandoms-are-you-actively-involved-in/916053/1 "2020-07-22T23:49:19Z")

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By “actively involved”, I mean you regularly spend time, online or in person, interacting with your fellow fans in some way.

I’m a _fan_ of many books, but in terms of _fandom_ I have three major ones.

1. **Silmarillion**

**What keeps me involved:** In a word, fanfiction.  
I can’t say why, exactly, but when I first started reading fanfic, something about Tolkien’s world just _clicked_ with me. First Age Disaster Elves… double-clicked with me? Anyway. I just kept reading and reading and reading, and somewhere along the line I passed the Nerd Event Horizon. The Silm fandom hits the sweet spot of being popular enough that the stories keep coming, but not so popular that it’s ninety-percent grammatically-challenged thirteen-year-olds writing self-inserts; checking out what’s new on AO3 is relatively Safe For Brain.

**Involvement**

- Read/comment on fanfiction
- Write fanfiction
- Belong to fandom-specific fic archive
- Belong to fandom-specific Discord
- Participate in Back To Middle-earth Month

1. **Order of the Stick**

**What keeps me involved:** OOTS updates on a relatively regular basis (compared to, say, most print series); fertile wild mass guessing ground combined with a community of hardcore WMGers; frequent Words of God from the author (and a forum database cataloging them).

**Involvement**

- Belong to fandom-specific message board
- Know IRL fans
- Backed a Kickstarter

1. **Cosmere**

**What keeps me involved:** Brandon Sanderson’s writing speed means there’s always a fresh book; multi-series interconnected universe; fertile theorizing ground combined with a community of hard-core theorizers; frequent Words of God from the author (and a website cataloging them).

**Involvement**

- Read/comment on fanfiction
- Belong to fandom-specific message board
- Follow Tor rereads
- Backed a Kickstarter
- Joined Cosmere/Stormlight Reddits

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**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2020, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-fandoms-are-you-actively-involved-in/916053/2 "2020-07-23T00:26:05Z")

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I’d just like to say, before this thread really gets started, that I am so impressed with (and a little jealous of) people who have the dedication and free time to be involved at this level.

I have friends who send me links to stuff; music, TV, movies, or live theater offerings. It’s all I can do to prioritize one or two things to make sure to get to in a week. While they’re all asking “Did you watch that 4 hour Monsieur Hulot/Macbeth mashup yet?” “Whadja think of Warhol’s Empire? Ya gotta watch til the end!” “You binged all of The Simpsons last night, right?”

They seem to have 4-6 hours a day to devote to their favorite media… _hmmm, maybe if I weren’t posting here…_