Snowflake Challenge #2

[softroe]

Challenge #2
In your own space, talk about your fannish origin story.

gosh… when have I NOT been in fandom spaces…? Thinking back hard on it now, I think my first foray into online spaces was in 2007?

I was a very active deviantArt user, and was on and off LJ though I often browsed LJ without an account. My very first fandoms were pokemon, happy tree friends, neopets, hetalia, vocaloid, soul eater, and just yaoi in general. My god the yaoi.

I was such a yaoi fiend as a grub, thinking back on it now makes me laugh a lot. I was always looking to rp or draw with people, and I remember spending a lot of time on websites like iscribble or sketchfu or like, flipnote hatena. I wish I still had any art from when I was a young deviantart user, but I had such a bad habit of deleting everything that it’s mostly all gone!

from deviantart I hopped to tumblr in 2008-09, and it quickly became my homebase so to speak for a very very long time. It was where my fandom experience really took off, just because it felt so easy to connect with other people, and I felt “cool” for finally having a blog which is what I would hear older people talk about online all the time, so I felt like part of the incrowd LOL!!!!!

sometimes i wonder about who I’d be if I wasn’t apart of fandom, and I truly do not think that me would have ever existed. I love being involved in things, I love being a member of a community, and I love meeting new friends and fans of the things I love.

it feels silly to say I’m grateful, but I really am.

Comments

[vendettadays]

DeviantArt! I've got fond memories of being on there. And Vocaloid! <3 I feel very much the same way about fandom and you've summed that up so well in your post. Thank you for sharing!

[silveradept]

Finding your community is one of the best things that happens when you get into fandoms.

[picori]

Same hat! Tumblr was my home base for so many years because of how easy it was to connect to others, and for me, that same "coolness" definitely got to my head a little, haha! I'm the same way, though—I can't imagine who I'd be if I'd never discovered fandom. It's taught me so much about myself and others! ^.^

[unholyghost]

catch me nodding at the Pokemon, the Neopets, the Soul Eater, the "my god the yaoi" because same.

tumblr really was a game changer when it came to fandom, for better and for worse. finding new people and getting into new stuff was just so ?? fast and easy back then over there?? the fandom osmosis was so real, especially in the early to mid-2010s. also I saw you mention asks blogs in another comment and oof I miss them so much too and wish they'd get more popular again somehow.

and I understand feeling a bit silly about being grateful for it all. fandom is kind of inherently silly, I think, but in the best way possible. but I'm also grateful for all the cool fanworks and people and connection it brings, and I'm glad it's brought you so much joy as well and I hope it keeps bringing you that same happiness well into the future :D

[hellomei]

oh my gosh ISCRIBBLE what a throwback!!! i hear you about finding it easy to connect with other people on tumblr – i think it was a good transition platform from 00s fandom media into the 2010s. it's so nice to know a bit more about you via this post... <3 while we didn't get to know each other through a specific fandom community i'm very very grateful we met through both being fans online!!

[svgurl]

I don't think it is silly to say you're grateful at all. I totally understand and relate to the feeling - I would be a different person too and there is definitely something special about being apart of a fandom community. I don't think it's easy to find that specific kind of connection elsewhere.