Fandom: The Fantastic & Frightening World Of

 

Fandom

noun; fans collectively, as of a motion-picture star or a professional game or sport

Fandom, fangirls, fanboys - they’re the full-on, bordering on obsessive fans of anything really: actors, films, TV series, musicians, fashion, comedians, hair styles, cartoon characters, places, design, houses etc.

My name is Carys and I am a fangirl. 

I spilt the things I fan over into two categories. 

1. The constants. The things I adore long term and have done so for a while.

2. The currents. They are what I obsess over in the short term and it’s likely some of the currents will move in to the constants. 

Here are mine:

Constants:

Eddie Vedder/Pearl Jam

Robb Flynn/Machine Head

Aaron Taylor-Johnson

Harry Potter (films/books/actors - in particular Severus Snape, Sirius Black & Bellatrix Lestrange. For the record, I’m a Slytherin and proud)

Currents:

American Horror Story/Evan Peters

Liam Cormier

Jon Richardson

Chris Ramsay

I could go into great detail as to why I love them but I think my tumblr page does that sufficiently.

Tumblr is the spiritual home for the majority of fan girls and boys. 

However, I know my fangirling days started a long time ago before Tumblr. I used to buy any magazine/DVD, watch any show or DVD with my first love - Bam Margera. Ah young love, it was never to last!

But yes, I fangirl on Tumblr, where I can find others who share the same feelings I do for my constants and currents. Usually the fans stick together, you can remain unjudged on the sometimes extremely crude things you feel and say towards those you fan over. In fact, a large majority of the time you are encouraged and are led to believe it’s completely normal to feel absurdly angry for no reason over a famous person you’ve never met flicking their hair and looking 100% beautiful, so beautiful it makes you want to sob into your keyboard and cry to the heavens ‘whhhhhhy? why would you make someone so perfect?!’ until you go outside in to the scary world of real life and you meet someone who smashes the bubble into a million tiny pieces.... sorry, let’s smile and carry on shall we?

Tumblr Speak

For the new to fangirling in the internet (Tumblr) age there are a few phrases that are associated with the general world of fanning but usually each group of fans have collective names (e.g. Harry Potter fans - Potterheads, Robb Flynn (aka The General) tends to refer to his fans as Motherfuckers - I promise it’s meant in a loving, tender way) and phrases to that particular band/actor and so forth.

Here is a quick look guide to some of these phrases:

Feels; a sweeping term for anything you feel towards actor/musician etc. This can be good/bad/indescribable/irrational/angry. You have feels. You never know what to do with feels, they are just there.

asindfbkdfakjj; a keyboard smash. Used when you can’t describe the feels or don’t know what to say. 

ovaries...burst; for women mainly, when something extraordinarily cute/sweet/lovely/sexy is seen and your ovaries burst because... well they just do because your body can’t handle whatever youre seeing or hearing.

^_^; this a squee face, when you see something cute or something that makes you happy and makes you pull a face like that which is a bit feline

shipping; when you take two people in a band/film/TV show and ‘ship’ them together as a couple. I spoke to my dear friend and fellow fangirl, Sarah on this and she said the following:

‘the only thing that makes me laugh about it is people saying "I will go down with this ship" or more simply "I'm on this ship" makes them sound like cargo."I ship these together" On the same boat? Okay then’

So you think you're a fangirl/boy?

So how do you know if you are a fangirl? The dear friend, mentioned above has made a fangirl handbook so I extracted some of the symptoms which are included (if you need the full book, I would find her somehow it’s very useful). 

Usually you are in over your head before you can do anything about it, and fanning is not something new - groupies have been the somewhat ‘controversial’ fangirls of many a great rock band for decades.

Symptoms:

Irrational anger; for example does seeing an actor you have feels for make you angry for no reason say if they look particularly dashing with a new hair cut?

flailing; this is a physical reaction to the above

sobbing; whether in reality or not, you can be sobbing at the beauty of a person or a particularly sweet thing they did. 

The symptoms aren’t a general thing, they can be specific to the individual. Luckily it is easily diagnosed but sadly not easily cured. 

Further to the symptoms here's a few things you should look out for:

• Do you find yourself watching videos on youtube, DVDs or looking at photos of someone/thing that you like more often than you used to? 
• Do you find yourself saying I’ll just watch this 10minute video and 10hours later you’re still watching videos? 
• Do you get very defensive if someone questions why you like said famous person/book? 

Then you may be a fan girl or boy! Congratulations & apologies! (I’m not really sorry, I’m a long lost cause and happy to float on the metaphorical sea of my fangirl tears).

In for the long haul

Being a fan is wonderful and sometimes can be strange. A fellow fan will understand, an outsider will see you as weird and the whole thing very bizarre. You may grow out of it, it may be a passing phase but for some it may be a lifelong dedication that will shape the person they are. It’s not assigned to a certain gender, age group or ‘type’ of person and it isn’t a new phenomena. 

I’ve met people who will travel the country, the continent and the world to see their favourite band, camp outside venues and premieres for hours to sometimes just catch a glimpse of an actress they admire. People may sneer and scoff, but the dedication, passion and adoration of fans is what makes the majority of films, bands, actors, models, politicians, books successful. Without the fans, they are nothing. 

See below, Eddie Vedder with some of the fans. Look at the fans' faces and his. It's pretty self explanatory.

My name is Carys and I am a fangirl who is going to go look at more photos of any one of my constants and currents!

NOTICE: If you have been affected by anything you have read today, please go to tumblr.com and post about it with an accompanying gif and I will get back to you as soon as possible.