Club Jade

I don’t know if I’ve made this clear or not, but I find people who take their fandom too seriously to be absolutely hilarious. As a Star Wars fan, I find it perplexing when other fans take up arms at any hint of irreverent criticism concerning the franchise. Are we not fans of the same fun, cheesy, flawed films? Because I don’t really have a problem admitting that the Star Wars movies (all six of them) are far from perfect. (And yes, the same goes – perhaps even more so – for the Expanded Universe. Embrace the pain! And chill out.)

So, naturally, I take great joy in Jezebel’s takedown of over-serious Twilight fans. Please, don’t let this happen to you. Do you see how ridiculous it looks? And while I’m not saying you have to lay down and take everything, it doesn’t hurt to laugh a little at the expense of what you love. Because, let’s face it – sometimes it just deserves it.

The term ‘fan fiction’ is one of the new additions to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. Here’s their definition, according to the Associated Press:

Fan fiction (1944): stories involving popular fictional characters that are written by fans and often posted on the Internet.

Other new words and phrases making the cut this year are ‘flash mob,’ ‘frenemy,’ ‘sock puppet,’ ‘vlog,’ and ‘webisode.’

The University of Iowa Libraries, with the help of the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW,) has acquired The Fanzine Archive, a collection of 3,000 classic fanzines long managed by Mariellen (Ming) Wathne. The bulk of Ming’s collection are Star Wars titles originally collected by Lucasfilm themselves, a valuable cache of fandom and fanfic history. (You can read more about the collection’s history at Fanlore.)

OTW and UI are intent on securing even more ‘zines and documents as part of their Fan Culture Preservation Project.

WFMU’s Beware of the Blog features a variety of fanzine covers from back in the day, including a hefty selection of Star Wars ones. Has your embarrassment squick kicked in yet? (via)

For years, FanfiX.com was the fanfic archive for Star Wars fandom. The archive started in the late 90′s and was officially dubbed FanfiX.com with the domain purchase in 1997. And then, in 2003, it vanished, and people have been intermittently asking about it ever since. Wombat, one of the site archivists, gives her account.

While FanfiX could never completely archive all Star Wars fic online, particularly after the fandom explosion with TPM in 1999 and the growing popularity of self-upload archives like FanFiction.net during that same period, the loss was a striking blow to the SW fanfic community. Yes, you can still access it via the WayBack Machine, but the possibility was there for a central touchstone for the SW fanfic community.

Are all-encompassing archives like FanFiX or The Gossamer Project practical anymore? Are they even possible? Do we need them? Sometimes I wonder…

Fandom: Like the mafia, in a way. Surprisingly (terrifyingly!) accurate. (via Fandom Lounge)

Yesterday on Fandom Wank, an antique: The Futurians vs. The New Fandom, an altercation from 1939. Nineteen thirty freaking nine! Oh fandom, you really don’t change!

Bonus: Early cosplay!

Here’s one for the EU fans – Swordsmanscoke’s defense of the Legacy of the Force series. Watch out for Sacrifice spoilers!

Everyone actively involved in a fandom – any fandom – should read the story of Msscribe, a woman who allegedly went to extraordinary lengths to get in with a certain group of well-known Harry Potter fans and be popular in the fandom.

There are ten chapters in total at the Bad Penny community, mounting evidence, a Fandom Wank report and a whole lot of dropped jaws.