Meta: Teeny Tiny Fandoms

[catwalksalone]

Teeny Tiny Fandoms: The Hows, Whys and Wherefores of Promoting and Enjoying Your Obscure Obsession
Modded at MJ by: lamardeuse




Part One: How The Madness Starts

Where does your obsession begin? Is it in the source or in a single story or vid or artwork that you find on the Net? Did you go through a period of being convinced you were the only freak out there who liked this show/source, or slashed the characters?



Part Two: Finding Other Freaks Like You

Ideas on how to find others who share your love, including:
- doing effective searches (how?)
- zines (older fandoms)
- LJ (many multifandom fans who may be interested in a "new" fandom)
- what else???

Side discussion: the pitfalls of careening madly through the Internet (one that comes to mind: you can't assume everyone you meet who enjoys the show is friendly to slash, e.g. in more "old school" fandoms like I Spy or in new ones that are geared to a youth audience).



Part Three: Creating A (Small, Highly-Trained, Dedicated and Skilled) Army of Like-Minded Freaks

Ideas for promoting the fandom, including:

- recs (if there are any)
- starting a community or group or pimping on an existing comm (ship_manifesto, crack_van)
- setting up a fic challenge or exchange (usually would have to be multifandom) or participating in one (Yuletide, Blast from the Past)
- artwork, icons, fics, vids, knit goods
- creating articles for sale (cafépress?)
- pimping the source (uploads, sending DVDs, sharing links, sharing times when source is airing)
- screencap galleries
- what else???



Part Four: Staying Zen

Ideas on dealing with the frustration of knowing that your boys are never going to be the queen and queen of the prom, including:

- meditation
- yoga
- banding together with other teeny tiny fandom people (there's strength in numbers)

Side discussion on risks of alienation of more popular fandom members - pitfalls to avoid when plugging your teeny tinyness



Part Five: Tell Us About It

Tell the world (well, okay, everyone here) about your teeny tiny fandom! Share the love!

""Totally unacceptable! Full of holes!""

-Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond

Comments

Re: Real Genius!

[executrix.livejournal.com]

It's a very high-end engineering school--I forget if it's supposed to be the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) or CalTech.

BTW they say that at the Star Market (the supermarket chain in the Harvard and MIT area) when the customers bring more than 10 items to the express line, the checkout clerk says, "Which is it--are you from MIT and can't read or Harvard and can't add?"

I don't think it's particularly unusual for 15-year-olds to have sex, but Mitch is indeed a nerd's nerd and in no shape to be having sex during the movie timeline. He and River might make a nice couple at some point when she isn't completely squirrelly.

Re: Real Genius!

[ana-grrl.livejournal.com]

It just seems slightly unclear to me in the movie whether they're in a high school or a university. I know that it's supposed to be this CalTech-esque thing, but the movie itself seems a little unclear with the presentation, you know what I mean?

I don't think it's particularly unusual for 15-year-olds to have sex, but Mitch is indeed a nerd's nerd and in no shape to be having sex during the movie timeline.

*g* Not to mention that there's just no way I would write 15-year-old sex. Just can't do it! Even writing him (once) as 17 made me feel uncomfortable.