question about "being a fan"

[hairy-flower.livejournal.com]

I don´t know if it´s okay to ask such a general question here. If anyone find it improper, feel free to let me know ;)
I was just wondering: what do your friends/family say about you "being a fan"? I mean especialy if you´re reading or writing fanfictions?
I was writing fictions long before I had the PC, long before I knew something as "fanfictions" exist. Then I discovered the fanfiction.net and the and whole new world with it. Though I wasn´t able to tell it anyone until like... six months ago.
What about you?
In the society I live in the fanfiction and its writers are something like exotic animals. People think they are weird and it´s something everyone laughs at. If you´re a writer, you usualy don´t talk about it, we usualy don´t know about each other(u should see my surprise when I discovered my former schoolmate reads fanfictions too! :D).
I was wondering about your experience. What about your parents, friends, partners?



(Lately I realised I became something I call ,,hidden slasher". I was always avoiding slash and I am still pretending I do, but... I don´t. In fact I am big H/R shipper! And there is only one person from my surrounding who knows about this! Being a fanfiction-writer is like ,,Uh... she´s a weirdo, don´t touch her.", but being a slasher is ,,OMG! DON´T LOOK AT HER OR SHE´LL BURN YOUR RETINAE!")

Comments

[bookgodess15.livejournal.com]

Lots of people are "fans". Some of them just watch the show, some of them just stalk MGG, some of them lurk on LJ and shake their heads at all the silly obsessed people, and some of them devote hours and hours and hours of their life to contributing to the fandom.

Fandoms are not a new thing, but the way they exist today is something that has been brought on by the internet, and they are--in my opinion--slowing becoming more mainstream. It used to be that fandom was something for really, really weird people (ie, Trekkies), and there were things called FanZines that would be full of fanfiction, and you had to subscribe... Now, with the internet, it's becoming less freakish. Most people that I know (I'm eighteen, granted, so I'm limited to people of my own age) have heard of it and think it's anywhere from "cool" to "kinda creepy". Much as it pains me say this, the anime and Twilight crazes have helped bring a lot of people into fandom. I know of lots of writers who are out of the proverbial closet, and people think it's neat.

I, personally, am in the closet. I got into fandom when I was eleven, and I was open about it then, but by the time I was thirteen was calling it my "weird phase" and insisting that I was "more normal, now". Then I got into slash when I was fourteen, and in my area, homosexuality is not something that exists. It just doesn't. Period. So there was no way I was coming out.

I always thought that fanfiction was something I would grow out of, like a phase, but I haven't. I'm in college, now, and I don't participate as much I did in high school (the amount of free time that I had during high school was absolutely ridiculous, but I still keep up with it. It's my indulgence.

Anyway. This probably belongs more on my journal more than it does on this thread, but... *shrug* You know what? Be ballsier than I am. Be a slasher, be proud of it.