From: nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Nancy Lebovitz)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.fandom
Subject: Re: Sharyn McCrumb and fans
Date: 16 Dec 92 03:20:00 GMT
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences

In article <user-151292224332@hf-mac16.uio.no> user@computer.uio.no (PC Jorgensen) writes:
>Sorry about reviving an old issue, but I didn't have the possibility to
>post messages until now...
>
>"Bimbos of the Death Sun" is one of my favourite books and pieces of
>comedy. 
>Although the fictional con is very gaming-and-costumes oriented, a
>"straight"
>literature fan [like me] could also find a lot of familiar stuff,
>hilariously presented. [some of the characters are in fact very similar to
>prominent Scandinavian fans, but since I do not know who's reading this,
>I'll just keep
>my mouth shut.... ;-)]
>
>But there was something that struck me, and that was the emphasis on the
>fans 
>being so little successful in "the real world" [the famous filksinger
>working as a hospital orderly, the con manager who's manager of a
>supermarket's vegetables section,  and so on] and holding
>"low-status"-jobs, despite their very intellectual (or rather: well-read)
>appearance. And the main female protagonist 
>once mourns the inability of fans to cope with  "real life".

As far as I can tell, American fans (the ones who go to conventions--
that's the part of fandom I'm familiar with) are all over the map in
terms of income, though the majority are middle-class. I don't have
percentages, but I know a lot more people with professional jobs than
menial jobs. People who run conventions seem to be pretty likely to
also have professional jobs.

>At least in Norwegian fandom "it ain't necessarily so" - well, we have our
>portion of nerds and weirdos, but a lot of us are moderately successful in
>our professional lives as well (no government ministers or bigshot
>businessmen among us, but that's not to be expected).
>
Likewise--I don't know of any fans with extremely high status in Mundania.

>So - is this a real feature of American fandom?

No. Hatred and misrepresentation might be features of Sharyn McCrumb. 
>
>This is from a Scandinavian viewpoint intersting, because:
>
>a] a Swedish fan claimed retorically a couple of years ago that the
>percentage of "human wreckage" [his example was - among others - people who
>
>had been declared unfit for or objected to National Service (!)] in Swedish
>fandom was much larger than in Swedish society as a whole, and

Probably true for American fandom as well. At this point, I'd say that
a majority is too old for military service, anyway. Furthermore, I think
that the proportion of handicapped people at conventions is higher than
what I see on the street....and then there are all those anarchists and
libertarians who don't want to be in the military....Human wreckage, 
that's us.  :-)

>b] the PR manager of the last two Norwegian cons made a habit of appearing
>in national newspaper and talk about those strange nerds that meet every
>summer in the vicinity of the University, and about their being bullied at
>school, dispised by members of the other sex, inability to cope with the
>"Rat Race" etc. [One of these articles led to several embarrasing questions
>from a femal co-worker, by the way :-)]

Well, the PR manager being socially inept enough to talk like that might
prove his point.....

>So, the topic is: are there more nerds in fandom than elsewhere? 
>
Possibly. I live in fandom as much as I can because I've found that
it's a kinder and more pleasant environment than society in general.

I believe that the great secret of fandom is that you aren't going to
like everyone there--it's just an unusually good place to find friends.

>I myself must admit that the weirdest people that I have met, are fans or
>have been, but I do not think that the unwordliness and nerdness some want
>to postulate is so universal.

I agree that McCrumb wrote a cariacature.

Anyway, the weirdest person I've ever met was a woman at a cat show who
kept telling me that she'd spent $100,000 in the past year on showing
her cats. She also told me she'd done Portugese bull-fighting (on 
horseback).

Probably the second, third, and fourth weirdest were in fandom, though.

Nancy Lebovitz
calligraphic button catalogue available by email
nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu

Fandom--not your ordinary elite

=