#Usenet fandom

[miriam-heddy]

Been thinking about 9-1-1 fandom discourse with a look back at the X-Files shipping wars and slash fandom.

I’m an elder fan, I think. For the youngins just playing catch up, long before AO3, the X-Files “Shipping Wars” happened on Usenet. (For a more detailed history, I recommend: https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_X-Files).

Now this is my own recollection, but as I remember it, at the time I entered online fandom, Mulder/Scully fanfiction stories were still popular. And slash stories were still contentious (lots of homophobia toward slash & slash writers, lots of “there is no g-rated m/m, and lots of demands that we keep our chocolate away from their peanut butter.)

Many slashers in XFiles got into fanning the show online & seeking other fans by way of the introduction of Alex Krycek (who became Mulder’s partner while Gillian A. was on maternity leave). There were already Mulder/Skinner stories. Then M/Sk/K stories, and Sk/K stories.

The thing is, Krycek wasn’t in that many eps, really. So fans did a lot of work world-building for him and fleshing him out. Fans did a lot of close reading, both in hopes of figuring out CC’s endgame and bc it was fun.

I don’t recall much antipathy toward showrunner Chris Carter for not giving us what we wanted in a gift box. And, as some fans were reading fanfic before seeing the show, there were convos about, “Oh, so that’s not canon?!” As a subculture of a subculture of a subculture, we did our thing. Others did theirs. And I think most of us liked Scully (and saw her as Mulder’s surrogate sister and bff).

So… I look at 9-1-1 and Tommy fans now and feel sort of baffled by fans saying things like insisting that S8.6 & the breakup was poorly written and OOC. I tried to to perceptions of the breakup as disconnected/coming out of nowhere by comparing the transcripts of the first date with the end, concluding there was quite a bit of foreshadowing. https://www.tumblr.com/miriam-heddy/766816705652654080/for-those-who-said-that-the-end-of-bucktommy-came

Early on, fans began story posts online & in zines with a posted disclaimer and notes. Looking back, these show just how much fandom has changed in terms of relationship between

A fanfic writer and

B) her readers

C) her writing community (editors/beta readers/supporters)

D) show canon

E) the showrunner/The Powers That Be.

Take a look at this (fairly typical) header information(writer disclaimer and notes) from a 1997 story by one of my favorites, torch.

As a thought experiment, try to imagine this in 9-1-1 fandom—particularly in Buddie and Tevan fanfiction communities.

Comments, questions, etc… Whatcha think?

[fanlore-wiki]

Featured Article: .sig (signature block)

This week’s featured article is .sig, short for “signature block”. Very popular during the golden era of forums, these personalized blocks of texts can contain a fan's name, their fannish affiliations, personal statements, in-jokes, shout-outs and many other things.

As .sigs grew in popularity, rules were created around their use and controversies quickly emerged. Learn more about those as well as the many creative uses of .sigs on the Fanlore page!

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We value every contribution to our shared fandom history. If you’re new to editing Fanlore or wikis in general, visit our New Visitor Portal to get started or ask us questions here!

[cecilysass]

It was such an ongoing struggle to watch this show when it was on the air, y’all. I know some of you remember.

[impossiblefeat]

Opinions about Sonic were just as divisive and nuanced in 1996 as they are today.

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

NET.SPACE! This week, Emily and V surf their way to the earliest days of being able to connect with other human beings in cyberspace, and also, once again bow to the king of fandoms that takes place in actual space. First, Emily explains the pure haterade that was the Die, Seven, Die! Challenge after the series finale of Star Trek: Voyager. (Also, we looked up how to pronounce "Chakotay.") Then, to give some context for this unconstrained summer hatefest of fun, we look into what, exactly, Usenet was, and why Alice was the fucking best. Did you Usenet? Were you a September nuisance?

This Week In Fandom History is a fandom-centric podcast that tells you… what happened this week in fandom history!

Follow This Week in Fandom History on Tumblr at @thisweekinfandomhistory

You can support the show via our Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/thisweekinfandomhistory. 

If you have a fannish company, event, or service and would like to sponsor or partner with TWIFH, please contact us via the Tumblr link above.

Please remember to rate the show 5 stars on your listening platform of choice!

[ncc-42069]

Here is your reminder that the groundbreaking “Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5” which predates Wikipedia by 8 years, is still online, ad-free, and endlessly useful.

[beccaplaying]

I loved being a fan of the XFiles back in the day; internet access was not readily available and the fan space attracted academics and professionals and there was a plethora of interesting discourse and intelligent people. I still keep in touch with some of the people I talked to online back then.

And now… fandom can turn into hot garbage on a dime. People who harass and stalk the actors, knowingly and defiantly engage in shadiest shit, and do absolutely nothing to elevate the discourse. It should be fun, but it’s fucking embarrassing being a Pedro Pascal fan these days, which is too bad, because he’s a lovely person. And Outlander? There was a panel at NYCC a few years ago and those people are fucking nuts. Supernatural fans are also scary as hell.

I just don’t have the patience to sift through trash for the gems. And the trash pile is so big and keeps growing. And they are the most popular voices, slinging shit and getting applause. And for people who don’t want it, there’s very little we can do to escape it but still be involved. It’s unfortunate.

Usenet Pedro Pascal space, anyone? And if you don’t know what Usenet is, you’re not invited.

[nbjetsam]

USENET! ALT.OLDSKOOL baby!

[ramorazinn]

Just saw a comment I wrote on AO3. 10 years and 8 months ago today. And I was commenting about how I’d read the fic in the wild 5 years before that. I’m fuckin old, JFC.

[copperbadge]

Tomorrow I will have been in fandom for thirty years.

I can mark the anniversary very precisely because I know the name of the first fanfic I ever read, which is fortunately archived online along with the date it was posted, the same day I read it. I don't believe Usenet exists anymore and I've been here too long to believe that nothing ever disappears off the internet, so I know that archives are truly a gift to history.

I posted my first fanfic not that long after. It wasn't well-written but reading it today I can see that the narrative was sound. People said they liked it, which was kind given how extremely bad my grammar was. I was an awkward teenager with undiagnosed ADHD and praise was rare for me, but when I wrote fanfic someone always said something kind about it. Eventually a few of them took me under their wing and explained things like "where quotation marks go" and "paragraph breaks". Commas, I fear, are a lost cause even today, but they tried, bless them.

I thought about doing something big to commemorate the anniversary, but I couldn't really think what I might do and the world right now is pretty exhausting. I'm forty five and I'm tired. But imagine how much more exhausting the world would be without fandom -- how much emptier my life would be without my friends, this community, the writing I do, the art and beauty fandom exposes me to. So for now I'm just meditating on that a bit -- the richness of the experience, the gifts I've been fortunate to receive, the lessons I've been fortunate (if sometimes reluctant) to learn.

In another thirty years I'll be seventy five, if I live so long. Thirty years ago we didn't in any meaningful sense have digital cameras, let alone cellphones or smartphones, social media, streaming television, GPS. I did a report on the science of cloning for my high school biology class (on the suggestion of a fellow fan) a year before Dolly was cloned. I wrote my first fanfic using a computer running Windows version 3.1. I wrote it in Notepad, still a constant companion.

I hope I live to seventy five. As tired as I am, I'm looking forward to seeing where the next thirty years will take us.

I hope Notepad will still be there.

[olderthannetfic]

Can someone tell me when/why calling everything you don't like or get triggered by is now called "squick" or "ick"? It sounds so strange and unnatural to me. If squick and trigger is the same why not say just trigger? This is a genuine question.

--

Ahaha.

Anon, my child, the main answer here is that you are probably 20 years too young.

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The collapsing of 'trigger' into "Stuff I don't like and now you have to listen to me!!!" is obnoxious as hell. I don't think we need to police the boundaries of triggers, but the general concept is that something triggers and episode of PTSD (or, in another context, triggers an allergy or whatever). It doesn't mean the content is double plus bad: it means you have a medical type issue that is literally induced to flare up by encountering the thing.

--

'Squick' was all over Usenet when I was a young thing in the 90s. I gather it came out of BDSM circles originally. By the time I'd heard of it, it had already been co-opted by trolls to mean the sound of skullfucking. (That's the dick through eye socket or trepanning hole meaning, not the vigorous blowjob meaning.)

A squick is something that makes you go "Ew! Gaaah! Back button! Back button!" Like listening to the sound of brain matter squishing as a dick is forced into a skull, for example. Squick, squick, squick, squick.

It's more than just something you don't like: it's something that inspires a visceral "Get it away!" reaction.

The point of the term was and is to have a way to say that a kink grosses you out personally without implying that it is necessarily gross for others. It was useful for negotiating BDSM scenes and equally useful for talking about your fic preferences.

'Squick' was a staple of fandom jargon on Livejournal all through the 00s. Fans on Tumblr routinely say we should start using it more frequently again precisely to combat the flagrant misuse of 'trigger'.

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"Ick" I've only seen much more recently in fandom, usually in the form of "__ gives me the ick". Urban Dictionary makes me think this has spread everywhere in the 2020s—perhaps via reality tv or twitter or something? I use it myself, but I couldn't tell you who I caught it from.

There are plenty of older definitions, and I do vaguely recall hearing "the ick" used in the early 00s as a general term for the flu/a passing virus/etc. 'Ick' as an exclamation and 'icky' as an adjective are just regular words. But this particular flavor of "the ick" does strike me as a newer fad even if there are a few old definitions that seem to match.

[topaz-eyes]

This is Usenet and mail list erasure. In the mid 1990s, alt.tv.x-files.creative and similar Usenet newsgroups were the places to be.

[neil-gaiman]

This was a conversation on the Internet almost 25 years ago. It's about physical fandom, and ways of talking and communicating in physical fandom, some of which we would now talk about in reference to neurointerestingess rather than to fandom. It came up over on Bluesky talking about people who pronounce words wrongly because they have only encountered them on the page.

The poster who brought it to my attention, Scott Kullberg, said "I remember an old USENET post about a speech therapist's analysis of fannish speech. One of the things she noticed is that it's common and not considered rude to interrupt with this kind of correction."

Fascinating for me because a) it checks out in some ways, b) I wasn't at the event it describes but I could have been and c) reading the thread makes me nostalgic for an Internet that's been eaten by something else. (I also very much enjoyed Patrick Nielsen Hayden's contribution.)

[outlanderskin]

In 2017, I came across this text about fandom and since then it has been an illustration of this crazy and magical universe of fan life, which I call fan experience. Even though I've been going to Outlander Cons since 2015, it was when I met my Spanish friends that I started to not feel alone even when surrounded by people at these events. And at this LandCon, in addition to my dear Spanish friends, I was able to meet other friends from Tumblr. For years we've been following, reblogging, commenting, laughing, protesting and, above all, supporting each other. And suddenly, there's that "Tumblr username" in front of you and you can finally look the person in the eyes and tell them how much you admire them and thank them for walking alongside you in this fandom, which is so toxic in many ways, but where true friendships can create an oasis. Thank you for everything, girls.❤️

"Fandom is focus. Fandom is obsession. Fandom is insatiable consumption. Fandom is sitting for hours in front of a TV screen a movie screen a computer screen with a comic book a novel on your lap. Fandom is eyestrain and carpal tunnel syndrome and not enough exercise and staying up way, way past your bedtime.

Fandom is people you don't tell your mother you're meeting. Fandom is people in the closet, people out and proud, people in costumes, people in T-shirts with slogans only fifty others would understand. Fandom is a loud dinner conversation scaring the waiter and every table nearby.

Fandom is you in Germany and me in the US and him in Australia and her in Japan. Fandom is a sofabed in New York, a roadtrip to Oxnard, a friend behind a face in London. Fandom talks past timezones and accents and backgrounds. Fandom is conversation. Communication. Contact.

Fandom is drama. Fandom is melodrama. Fandom is high school. Fandom is Snacky's law and Godwin's law and Murphy's law. Fandom is smarter than you. Fandom is stupider than you. Fandom is five arguments over and over and over again. Fandom is the first time you've ever had them.

Fandom is female. Fandom is male. Fandom lets female play at being male. Fandom bends gender, straight, gay, prude, promiscuous. Fandom is fantasy. Fandom doesn't care about norms or taboos or boundaries. Fandom cares too much about norms and taboos and boundaries. Fandom is not real life. Fandom is closer than real life. Fandom knows what you're really like in the bedroom. Fandom is how you would never, could never be in the bedroom.

Fandom is shipping, never shipping, het, slash, gen, none of the above, more than the above. Fandom is love for characters you didn't create. Fandom is recreating the characters you didn't create. Fandom is appropriation, subversion, dissention. Fandom is adoration, extrapolation, imitation. Fandom is dissection, criticism, interpretation. Fandom is changing, experimenting, attempting.

Fandom is creating. Fandom is drawing, painting, vidding: nine seasons in four minutes of love. Fandom is words, language, authoring. Fandom is essays, stories, betas, parodies, filks, zines, usenet posts, blog posts, message board posts, emails, chats, petitions, wank, concrit, feedback, recs. Fandom is writing for the first time since you were twelve. Fandom is finally calling yourself a writer.

Fandom is signal and response. Fandom is a stranger moving you to tears, anger, laughter. Fandom is you moving a stranger to speak.

Fandom is distraction. Fandom is endangering your job, your grades, your relationships, your bank account. Fandom gets no work done. Fandom is too much work. Fandom was/is just a phase. Fandom could never be just a phase. Fandom is where you found a friend, a sister, a kindred spirit. Fandom is where you found a talent, a love, a reason.

Fandom is where you found yourself"

[tfwiki]

On Waspinator’s page, you guys note that he was originally scripted to die at the end of the first season, but the story editors convinced Hasbro to spare him because of his popularity online. Do you guys happen to have a source where I can read more about that, or even better, know what sites the early Waspinator hype might have been on?

Most of this information can be buried on archives of alt.toys.transformers on Usenet, and this would be where most of Waspinator fandom at the time would be stored. (Plus any discussion of what Larry DiTillio or Bob Forward would have said at any BotCon panels.) Not terribly user-friendly to search, these days, but that's where it'd be! Here's one post from the late Larry DiTillio talking about some of what you're asking about:

Plus there's mention from Larry of some of their other intentions for Season 2 that didn't pan out because of Hasbro Needs.

[mllebleue]

A trek BBS

(By trope-specific i mean for example all the slash fics hosting websites, or the nsfw-only ones, etc)