Is There Anything Unique About Fandom

Is There Anything Unique About Fandom?

Science fiction fandom likes to think of itself as being unique and in some manner different from the mundane mainstream of contemporary culture. But, it really isn't.

The ordinary member of society engages in work, fullfilling the basic physical needs (eating, hygine, and sleep), procurement of resources (food, drink, and cleaning and hygine products), social interaction (friends, family, co-workers, aquantainces), and the leisure activities that serve to fullfill their individual mental and/or emotional and/or spiritual and/or additional physical needs. Leisure activities may be solitary or occur within groups. Whe a group activity, they may be informal (getting together with a group of friends to see a movie or to play a game of cards) or more formalised (attending a dinner party, playing the weekly curling match, participation in some form of club or organisation). Of the more formalised leisure activities that individuals participate in, some of these may occur within the context of a subcultural group -- be that religious, eyhnic, political or leisure-based.

Most individuals balance their leisure activities, i.e. they have several different leisure activities that bring them into contact with different groups of individuals. Some persons, however, focus their leisure activities. One activity is given primacy over the others so that they interact with an overlapping set of groups or just a single group of individuals. This is most common in regards to leisure activites that occur within a subcultural context.

Science fiction fandom is a leisure-based subculture. Little theatre groups, internet newsgroups, amateur sport clubs, historical re-creation groups also have leisure-based subcultures. On the surface, it would appear that these leisure-based subcultures have little in common, but, if you look deeper, there is a pervasive sameness to all of these groups.

All have their own subcultural acronyms, sayings, and history -- both mythic and actual. All have their internal politics, feuds, and power struggles. All have a sense of tribalism, whether it is mild or strong. All have some individuals who make the subculture their way of life -- be that little theatre, rugby football, the Society for Creative Anachromism, or science fiction fandom -- to the exclusion of all other activities. All have individuals who engage in status climbing games in persuit of ephemeral power. Ephemeral because in the grand scheme of things outside of the subculture, the fact that you have fought your way to the top to become the Queen of props, or the Grand Poohbah of the newsgroup, or the Baron of Itsyourdelusion, or the Bonspiel Master of the Lower Lonsdale Curling Club, or the Grand Wizard of the consuite, really means very little. Maybe you can put a spin on it and work it into a resume, but that is all that it is worth in society as a whole.

So science fiction fandom is really no different from these other leisure based subcultures -- except for the ideology of superiority. Now all of these subcultures have some form of ideology of superiority, but it tends to be relative to the subculture's competitors. To rugby football fans, their team is superior (or should be) and their sport is superior to its strongest competitor -- soccer. Little theatre people view themselves as being superior to those who don't support the arts who are viewed as being competition, threat, or both. Roman re-creation groups tend to view themselves as superior to the SCA -- a competitor. Internet newsgroups members view their newsgroup of choice to be superior to similar competing newsgroups. Science fiction fandom views itself as being superior not to competitors, such as comic book fandom or Star Trek fandom (in fact, these competitors tend to be viewed as potential allies and/or poor delluded souls who are on the right path but have yet to see the light), but to everybody else. (This could be an indication of paranoia within science fiction fandom -- that everybody else is seen as being a competitor or a threat.)

And what is the basis of the superiority of science fiction fandom?

science fiction fans are regular readers
science fiction fans are scientific literates
science fiction fans have a "sense of wonder"

It is indeed true that science fiction fans are regular readers. This does place them within a select group within the general population -- that of those individuals who regularly read as a form of entertainment. However, this is not a group that encompasses only science fiction fandom. There are other genres with their own readership. In addition, the vast majority of science fiction readers are not science fiction fans. At best, this superior trait is a shared trait that is not exclusive to science fiction fandom.

Science fiction fans claim to be scientific literates. The question that must be asked first is, relative to whom? Relative to Christian fundamentalists who believe that the universe is a mere ten thousand years old and that humans and dinosaurs where comtemporaries; yes, science fiction fandom does have a greater level of scientific literacy -- and so does most of the genreal populace. I have heard the worst kind of junk science and psuedo-science spouted from the mouths of science fiction fans over the years and seen much of the same drivel on fan websites. Overall, the scientific literacy of fandom cannot be said to be that much greater than that of the average individual in society.

Now there is a subgroup within fandom, the fans of "hard science" science fiction who do display a high degree of literacy in regards to the physical sciences. Alas, these persons usually tend to be abysmally ignorant of the social sciences, as well as the humanities. They find it to be perfectly realistic that four hundred, two thousand, ten thousand years hence that the social and economic structure of future society will be just the same as it was in the late twentieth century. Endnote This is not scientific literacy, as far as I'm concerned. To be scientific literate, you should have a basic grounding in both the physical and the social sciences, not just one or the other.

Science fiction fans have a "sense of wonder"... There are so many different definitions of this term within science fiction and science fiction fandom that it is difficult to discuss this supposed superior trait. Regardless, it doesn't matter any more. The term has passed into popular culture, because all of us now experience either a "sense of wonder" or a dread of "the engines of the night" in this world of fast paced technological change. The wonder of brave new worlds, fantastic new technologies, strange sights never before seen, and godlike powers are no longer the private reserve of science fiction readers or of science fiction fandom. It is part of mundane, mainstream culture. When such topics are reported, albeit briefly and poorly, on the tabloid news programmes they cease to be subcultural; they have moved into the cultural. Same goes for the antithesis to the "sense of wonder", "the engines of the night" -- the dark nightmares of the possible abuse and threat that could arise out of these new technlogies and capabilities. Again, this is not a trait exclusive to science fiction fandom.

So, just what is unique about science fiction fandom? Only the flase perception that science fiction fans are superior to everybody else. Guess what, they're not.

Endnote:

Yes, the writers do employ the device that things will mostly be the same as they are now and they do it because they are writing fiction. They are trying to tell a story about people in a fantastical setting and they have to use the reference point of contemporary culture. One, because, in most cases, it is the only culture that they truely know. Two, because it is, again in most cases, the only culture that the intended readership really knows. Consider the simple boy-meets-girl tale that is Day Million and imagine how incomprehensible a longer, more complex story would be if it were written in this style. However, there is a big difference between a writer using a literary device to communicate to the reader and a fan believing that a literary device is how the future is going to be.

Swill @ 30 -- thirtieth anniversary site

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