The Insanity of Fandom Part 1

Disclaimer:For my own important reasons I am no longer and will never EVER again be part of a fandom! The other reasons will become apparent as these posts progress. I will only mildly like a few nice things from now on.

This could probably be book length or made into a comedy film...which wouldn't be too bad if they paid me for it, but for now it's just a blog post.

First off people always ask "What is fandom?" even though they are usually in a fandom whether they know it or not. If you are a serious fan of a sport like, here in Baltimore (football, Ravens, go purple!) you are in a fandom. If you really like anything a LOT - like a performer, actress, actor, movie, movies, books, music, musicians, anybody or anything that you really, really like and some other people really, really like you are at least on the fringes of a fandom.

More likely you are really in a fandom when you and the other fans are a bit or a LOT obsessed with whatever or whoever it is that you like. The latter is the type of fandom experience I'm writing about. Not just those who casually like something but those who are obsessed fans who take who or whatever they like WAY too seriously. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY TO SERIOUSLY!

Restatement of Disclaimer - I once was that type of fan but I will never go there again. It is a strange and crazy place!

As is my wont I stumbled blindly and innocently into my fandom which was originally The Lord of the Rings movies which came out in three parts from 2001 to 2003 and then I branched off into the EXTREMELY crazy fandom world of actor Elijah Wood. Yes that little actor has a VERY INSANE fandom! That will take up a few other posts, at least! But for now I will stick to The Rings films.

The way I wandered into the Rings fandom was that those movies of my favorite fictional books came out just when I was becoming internet savvy since at that time that I could first access the internet. Let me retract the savvy part. I was a really dumb newbie and knew zilch about the way people act online. That is, they CAN be really insane, obsessed, nasty to vicious, and absolute trolls who will say and do things they would never do anywhere else. Wait! Some of these people DO do these things off line as well. But be that as it may.....

I wandered wide-eyed into the LOTR(Lord of the Rings) fandom through one of the seemingly hundreds of message boards that popped up amongst the already fanatic LOTR fandom of people called Ringers. These folks were already known around the world to be as devoted fans as Trekkies/Trekers and Star Wars fans. But when measured up against those other two fandoms Ringers are completely over the top. And that is saying something!


I was not fully aware of that when I wandered in. (Play ominous music.)

To be continued.............

New Page!!

Now don't get too excited but I've added another page!

http://lifeinfrontierville.blogspot.com/

Go check it out!