Fandom Snowflake Challenge: Fandom Firsts

[rogueslayer452]

Challenge #10: In your own space, talk about one of your fandom firsts. This could be your first fandom, your first fandom friend, the first fanwork you created, the first fanwork you interacted with... The options are endless!


MY FIRST FANDOMS

I do believe my first fandom was probably Animorphs, the books by K.A. Applegate but more so the Nickelodeon adaptation television series. Yes, fans of the books have heavily criticized the show for not being faithful and for being incredibly low quality with its limited budget, but I adored it all the same. I remember going onto fansites at the time just looking for pictures and anything in regards to the show. I even read my first piece of fanfiction/slashfic for the fandom! It was a Jake/Marco fic on FF.Net.

Following that, a lot of the fandoms that I got into kind of happened around the same time. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dark Angel, and Harry Potter most notably were among the first that I actively participated with online fandom for, as well.


MY FIRST FANDOM WEBSITE

While this wasn't the first fandom website (since I cannot remember exactly the first, it was so long ago and I'm sure it's long been defunct by now), LiveJournal was probably the first biggest website I joined for the online fandom community, and FanFiction.Net was the first collective fanfiction website that I remember reading from back in the day that wasn't from personalized websites.

(Honorable mentions: The Leaky Cauldron, Chamber of Secret Forums, FanForums, and Buffyverse Music Video Database. While they might not have been the firsts, they're some of the earliest ones that I can clearly remember and that I constantly visited for fandom news, updates, and fanworks.)

Comments

[author_by_night]

Oh yeah, I remember The Leaky Cauldron. If there was new HP news, they were always the first place I checked to make sure it was true. LOL.

I remember the CoS forums, but I'm not sure if I ever got into them.

I got into LJ relatively "late" for someone as involved in fandom as I was, around 2004. I did briefly have an LJ account in 2003 as well, but it didn't last long. It was... very very high school. Ironically, LJ was a bit like tumblr for me, where I heard about it for years but didn't really have any reason to get into it, until I finally conceded that was where all my fandom friends were.

[rogueslayer452]

Back then, I would visit any kind of active HP forum or website since I was very deep with the series and the fandom. I even went to some non-English websites dedicated to HP. One in particular, Potterish, because I really liked how pretty their website layout was at the time.

Just a year after me getting an LJ account. :D I think we kind of entered the LJ game at the right time, to be honest. Since they stopped doing invite codes (ironically months after I had gotten one to create my account) the site started growing and gaining a lot of activity and popularity.

[dasmims]

Oh I should re-read Animorphs at some point! The books were great but also a little unhinged as far as I remember. Was the show any good, except for not following the books/having a small budget?

I got into the fandom game very late, so I never got into those spaces, sadly. They always sound like a lot of fun, when people talk about it.

[rogueslayer452]

They were unhinged, but in the best possible way. Looking back it really was a mixture of delightfully bizarre and an unflinching look at how kids being forced to be soldiers in war would be like, the consequences that followed.

I mean, I'd say so, but then again I am biased since I'm one of the few fans that actually truly enjoyed the show for what it was, flaws and all. Especially the earlier episodes because it did have that aspect of doing the best they could with the limited amount of resources available to them at the time to at least make it atmospheric to the books. It is rather dated now obviously, but I do think that, keeping that frame of mind, it actually is decent enough to watch. The unfortunate thing is that the show just kind of...ends, without much resolution to anything, which is a bummer.

Plus, it gave us Shawn Ashmore (and Aaron Ashmore, briefly) both who have been in a lot of scifi projects ever since the show and are quite recognizable within that genre.

[dasmims]

an unflinching look at how kids being forced to be soldiers in war would be like, the consequences that followed.

I only got that years later, when I was randomly reminded of the books and told a friend a out them. And this friend got this horrified look and said something a long the lines of "That sounds worse than the Hunger Games." Well, he had a point there.

doing the best they could with the limited amount of resources available

That's something I love, in Star Trek (the original series) and other shows like it. I'm not sure why, but it's very charming in it's own way.

Shawn Ashmore (and Aaron Ashmore, briefly) I had to look them up but both of them are in shows I love: Warehouse 13 and The Rookie! Looks like both are quite successful.

[author_by_night]

I forgot about invite codes!


I think you're right that we got into it at the right time.

[elizalavelle]

My first fandom was The Wizard of Oz, I didn't even know what fandom was but I was in it lol.

First fandom website... I think I go back to mailing lists. Likely the Everyday Angels (Jewel) mailing list way way back in the day with The Bronze (Buffy posting board) shortly after.

[rogueslayer452]

The 1939 musical or the books by L. Frank Baum? Or a combination of both?

I was vaguely aware of mailing lists when I was first getting into the Internet as a preteen/early teenager, often seeing people talking about them, but I never got into them for some reason.

[elizalavelle]

Both and the Return to Oz movie. Pretty sure I'd seen the 1939 film a bunch before I started school, Return to Oz I watched somewhere in grade 1-2 and was hooked and terrified all at once. I got the 14 Baum books in grade 3 :)