fandom is fun, actually

or, i love loving things a little too much

Back in October, the One Piece anime celebrated its 25th anniversary with a special called One Piece Fan Letter. This special was dedicated to the fans, showing the many ways in which the series has touched the hearts of people all over the world. The characters in the special argued about power scaling, they came up with their own theories, and gushed about their favorite Straw Hats, just like the fans do in real life. You could say that the special was less about celebrating the series and more about celebrating the wonderful fandom that has grown around it.

Inspired by this special, I wanted to talk about fandom culture and the ways in which fans express their love towards their favorite media. People who participate in fandom are often characterized negatively—we all know the jokes about the chronically online weebs and the losers with too many comics and no friends. There are many valid criticisms to be had of fandom spaces (gatekeeping, prejudice, lack of critical thinking, etc.) but today I want to focus on the positives, because at the end of the day, fandom is about loving something together.

Fanart and Fanfic.

This is where most fans begin. You finish watching a show or reading a book series, and you simply need more of it. Unless the thing you are into is super obscure, I can guarantee that there’s at least one fic about it on AO3 and at least one account on Tumblr that is posting beautiful fanart for just 3 likes. If you are extremely unlucky and your media of choice is too niche for even the crazy people on Tumblr, then you will have to open a Word document and start writing your own fix-it fic about your favorite character finally getting the happy ending they deserve. Or maybe you just want to draw two characters kissing.

Fan Wikis.

Maybe you aren’t artistically inclined, maybe you are the kind of fan that really cares about collecting all the little details and keeping track of the lore, and you want to make sure that other fans can easily consult information about this piece of media. What can you do then? Well, you can become a wiki editor, or if a fan wiki doesn’t already exist, you can make one yourself. Here are some of my favorite fan-made wikis:

• A Wiki of Ice and Fire for George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series and its adaptations.

• PlentyWiki for Robin Hobb/Megan Lindholm’s works, including her Realm of the Elderlings series.

• The Coppermind for Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere.

• L-Space for Sir Terry Pratchett’s works.

I think it doesn’t get nerdier than writing hundreds of pages carefully explaining the life of every character in a book series. 2024 was the year I finally made an account on a fan wiki, and the reason I joined the wiki was because the page for a secondary character from Realm of the Elderlings didn’t say which of his legs was injured. Yes, I was so bothered by that lack of detail that I became a wiki editor and immediately fixed that. If you know what character I’m talking about, you get a cookie.

People just like to showcase their knowledge, and fan wikis allow you to do just that. There’s a special kind of fun that derives from memorizing trivia and listing off facts.

Fan Translations.

If you were an anime fan in the early 2010s, you remember watching your favorite show on YouTube, each episode broken into 3 or more parts with color-coded subtitles lovingly translated by the fans (and text boxes popping up at the top of the screen explaining the meaning of certain words). That’s how I watched Ouran High School Host Club for the first time, and I consider that a core memory.

Fan translations, which include fandubs, fansubs and scanlations, are a way to expand the fandom and to facilitate access to a piece of media. In the case of anime and manga, fan translations remain an important part of fandom culture. Even though we live in the era of streaming, where we often take official dubs and subs for granted, fan translations are still vital when it comes to lesser known media.

Now that the Internet Archive is back, I want to share the Polish adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher series, which is fully available on the Internet Archive with English fansubs. While the subs don’t have the same level of quality of an official production, I will always be grateful to the people that made them, in the same way that I’m thankful to all the anime fansub projects that I watched when I was a child.

I also want to share Witch Cult Translations for the Re:Zero fans out there. This site not only includes fan translations of the web novel, it also includes detailed explanations of all the content that the anime adaptation didn’t include.

AMVs.

AMVs are somewhat of a lost art. Nowadays, people just make 30-second edits of random clips set to popular songs and call it a day. A true AMV manages to craft a perfect story in under 4 minutes, carefully matching the visuals with the lyrics. The best AMVs are the ones that you send to your normie friends to show them how cool and epic your favorite anime is.

I’ve always wanted to learn how to make AMVs, I have so much respect for the people that make them. It looks like so much work, and the entire anime community should be forever thankful to AMV makers. Where would we be as a society if we couldn’t watch the Rock Lee vs. Gaara fight set to a Linkin Park song? That’s what I call art.

There are also animatics and manga animations, which are also fun to watch and very impressive work.

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There are many kinds of fan projects that I didn’t get into, but the point is that if someone loves something, they are going to find a way to express that love, and that’s what I like about fandom. It’s okay to love things a little too much, to be “too” passionate about something, to be genuine. As we get older, it seems as though we are expected to grow out of fandom, as if we are supposed to stop enjoying certain things simply because we are no longer teenagers, but fandom is kept alive thanks to the work of people of all ages and backgrounds. You are never too old to be part of this community.

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