the passing down of fandom history

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

I've got a tiktok account where I post videos about how to use AO3. It helps people who are new to the site learn how to navigate and search/filter etc. and I also get to teach people who've been around for a while some new tricks they might not otherwise know. 

Yesterday, I someone asked about the Citrus Scale, so I posted about that. Which lead to posting about the FFN purges of 2002 and 2012. Which led to posting a brief and incomplete timeline of fandom purges. 

And somewhere in there, someone left a comment that said, "Wow. I hope AO3 never purges adult content."

And that's when I realized that so many people who are either new to fandom or new to AO3 have no idea how it came to exist or why it is the way it is. 

So I guess I'll add that to my list of things to make videos about? 

Brainstorm time: what do you wish your fellow fans knew about? What are cool tags or tropes or traditions or history that you think would be interesting to share? 

Comments

[hannah]

Because for a lot of them, they've gone beyond monofannish to only engaging in the fandom by reading fic about one pairing. A few people have told me they won't even read gen on the principle that it doesn't include their pairing, or they'll only read their favorite pairing in certain kinds of stories - beyond excluding squicks and triggers, it has to be unabashedly one way or another or else they won't even consider giving it a try.

When Festivids landed, some of them said they wouldn't watch them because they didn't know the fandom. I had to explain the fandoms included non-fandom things like "marble racing" or "furniture restoration" for them to think about clicking on the link to the collections.

So it's less "all fandom is one fandom" and more it going beyond disinterest into hostile avoidance.

[independence1776]

That hostility is far beyond anything I expected to hear. Yes, in that case, definitely being more open to other things is a necessity!