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Fandom Unplugged: The Beginning

Posted by Nadia Oxford

“Fandom,” that which compels us to gravitate to others who enjoy our pursuits (video games), can be a difficult thing to tolerate thanks to a certain percentage of maniacs. You would be amazed at how heated a debate can get if it's about whether or not Miles Edgeworth from Phoenix Wright is circumcised. We witness these baffling arguments, and we swear we'll never get so passionate about such stupidities. But the very next week, we lose ourselves in a message board argument and pound out words like “GAYlo” before we pull back the reins and gape in horror at what we've become.

Why do we fall so easily? Is this what comes of the Internet and other technologies that save us enough time to wonder with friends in Brazil about whether or not Dr Light built Roll with certain “hardware?” Or is fandom just part of an ancestral grouping instinct that dates back to a swampy era wherein our ancestors declared everyone to be either “Crug” (“Part of my awesome tribe”) or “Flarth” (“Part of that other, lamer tribe”)?

Game-based fandoms are among the largest on the Internet. Gamers took to the onine world with ease to eke out cheats and fellow fans, whereas grandma was perfectly happy for the Petunia Club to continue its weekly meetings in the Church basement. Video games have always been at the cutting edge of technology, and technology changes quickly. But even riding the edge of the wave won't guarantee that you'll wake up tomorrow in Disney's Word of the Future. Gaming fandom and its accompanying drama long predates the Internet, dating back to the ancient days when we communicated through smoke signals and skin drums.

Okay, nothing like that. Still, pre-Internet fandom was thick with drama, even though arguments were printed through Letters to the Editor that were delivered by old men mounted on racing snails. In the coming days, I'll be looking back at the evolution of gaming fandom, with a special emphasis on how I remember it: the letters to magazines, the schoolyard gatherings, the thrill of seeing Mega Man X art in Nintendo Power and knowing that there were in fact other Mega Man fans out there, even if I couldn't converse with them immediately.

Provided you're old enough to know that the Internet wasn't with us in Eden, what do you remember about the dark ages of gaming fandom?

Related Links:

Roundtable Discussion: The Fandom Phenomenon, Part 1
Brave New Super Mario World
Fandom: Gone to the Movies

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Posted Feb 04 2009, 11:26 PM

Filed under: mega man, phoenix wright, halo, fandom, nadia oxford, game magazines, fandom unplugged

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John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

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