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Sunday, November 23, 2014

Don't Think "Fangirl", Think "Fanwarrior"


For the sake of convenience, I use the term "fangirl" to refer to anyone in a fandom. But that's not exactly right. 

First, think about the connotations of the word. "Fangirl" suggests a teenage girl who is infatuated with everything mainstream, giggling and screaming and generally being obnoxiously obsessed with whatever the object of their latest attention happens to be. "Fangirl" suggests a person who likes actors for their appearance and not their personality. "Fangirl" suggests a person who is wholly consumed with their fandom(s), taking but often giving nothing in return (except for maybe fan works like fanfiction and fanart). "Fangirl" denotes a very small subset of people who really are not representative of most people in fandoms.

But we are so much better than that. We hold tight to our fandoms, even if nobody else knows about them, even if everybody hates them, even if the book/movie/show is over, even if all the fan works are awful, even if the actors change, even if the writing starts becoming less amazing (I'm looking at you, Moffat)... We stick with our fandoms no matter what because it's not the actors (or the individual episodes, or the [insert relevant noun here]) we love, it's the story. Currently, the word "girl" is an insult (don't even get me started on that whole feminist rant), so "fangirl" implies that we are weak, but we are so far from that. We are not "girls". We are warriors, fighting for what we love.

And of course, wars have casualties. We fanwarriors see the end of our favorite characters, the awful movie adaptations of amazing books, the sadness of characters who are betrayed or separated or forgotten, the sacrifice of a hero or a repentant villain or a supporting character we've come to love.

And we, too, make sacrifices. We wait in line for hours to meet amazing celebrities or watch new movies, we spend countless amounts of money on fan merchandise, we dedicate all the time we have to enjoying and contributing to our fandoms, we abandon all hope of a social life outside of our fandoms.

And of course, we contribute to our fandoms. There are the usual suspects - fanart, fanfiction, fandom blogs, etc. - but there are also bigger, nobler contributions (not that there's anything wrong with fanfiction or other fan works). Harry Potter fans created the Harry Potter Alliance. The website reads, "The Harry Potter Alliance turns fans into heroes. We’re changing the world by making activism accessible through the power of story. Since 2005, we’ve engaged millions of fans through our work for equality, human rights, and literacy." Fans of John and Hank Green are called nerdfighters. Nerdfighters are proud to be intelligent, "made of awesome", and working to decrease WorldSuck.

This doesn't even scratch the surface of how amazing fans are, though. Just remember: we are not fangirls, we are fanwarriors. 

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