When I was reading through ‘The Night of a Thousand Wizards’, I knew that I got way too excited for a media reading. The Harry Potter series basically took up 1/2 of my childhood (the other 1/2 was taken by those great anime films made by Hayao Miyazaki). I’m a fan of both until the day I die. As an 8 or 9 year old kid, I dived into the world of magic way too quickly and hard than I should that for years I wished that I could have a Firebolt and fly away from my school and straight into Hogwarts’ dining hall. One of my favorite Hayao Miyazaki’s film is Kiki’s Delivery Service. The protagonist is a 15 year old girl named Kiki and she’s born a witch. Her transport method is a flying broom and she’s got a cat that talks. And it was my DREAM to have a pet that talks human language to me. I was so fascinated by the world of magic presented in the films and anime that real life became intolerably boring to me haha (and that’s probably the only downside of getting into them too deeply). And another thing that I had to mention is that I pretended that I was a cat the whole summer because my parents took me to see the musical Cats when I was around 6, and I fell in love with it. Yes. You heard me. I fell in love with a musical in which cats could sing and dance. I had a scarf around my waist and left a bit to the back so it looked like I had a tail. And I would dance and sing and act like those Jellicle cats and that gave me such satisfaction that words cannot describe. See, that’s how weird I get when I see something so good that I just want to be a part of it. At that time, I had no social media account or any friends that were also into it to talk about it with. I was my own fandom and enjoyed it immensely even it was just me. It wasn’t until later that I started to explore the Internet did I find out that I could talk about the thrills and feels I got whenever I watched it with someone who enjoyed it just as much as I did. In short, FANDOMS AND FAN COMMUNITIES ARE A BLESSING TO ME.
The lecture was articulating the concept of ‘fandom’ – a social phenomenon in a very academic way which took me a while to look into. To me, being in fandoms is undoubtedly the longest activity that I’ve ever been in and it’s 2K17 and my fandom game is still going strong. And I, for one, enjoy fan art greatly and see massive values in them. I honestly don’t get why some people are negative about them and think they are not real art or legitimate culture. Some of the best novels that I’ve read are fan fictions and some of the most amazing artists that I’ve know create paintings and drawings and comics that are based on their own imagination of the original art. All these fan art creators attribute to the original artists and the artworks correctly with great respect. I don’t see why this is not acceptable and is okay to be dissed by those who don’t see the wonders in them. And I just don’t understand why fans are often perceived as a group of brainless and emotional adolescents who don’t know what they’re doing. I come across with comments like ‘a fictional character isn’t worth your time’ and ‘fan girls need to chill’ and ‘omg they’re completely out of their mind for paying 200 bucks for just a 50th year anniversary edition mug’ way too often. I get so offended by these comments because why do you care?????? Fans support the artist and the artwork by doing things that show their affection to it and that’s no doubt a good way to keep good works coming. The profit that fans contribute would encourage the artist and the company to keep producing artworks that the fans enjoy. It’s a win-win in many cases. And some people really need to get over the fact that a fandom is simply a group of people who share the same interests and love to discuss about it, which means that there’s a great variety in age, gender, cultural backgrounds, race and nationality.
I think being in a time like now, whenever people see something and have the desire to discuss about it, they would search the whole internet just to find someone who shares the same views with them. Ever since we entered the Digital Age, the strong connections between anyone and anything made it all so easy for us to find a place or a community to discuss about things that we care about. First it’s the radio (since 1930s), then it’s television (1950s) and then it’s the Internet (1990s). All these development of media has made it possible for people to reach out for more information and find other groups of people who share the same interests. In Harry Potter series’ case, the fans usually ‘hang out’ on Pottermore.com for newly updated information. If you want to see some fan fictions, go to fanfiction.com or archiveofourown.com and search Harry Potter. If you want to see some fan art, check out some tumblr pages. Want to see some funny videos of the characters? Go to Youtube and search ‘character’s name + funny moments’. Want to actually socialize with other fans? Go to Instagram and follow some fan accounts and you’ll have 50 internet friends who love the same thing as you do in no time!! And most exciting of all, you can go to twitter and talk to J.K. Rowling and she replies her fans all the time!! HOW COOL IS THIS?? Without the Internet or the fan community, life would be so miserable and lonely because you can only read the books and watch the films again and again and possibly being mistaken by your parents that you’re in a satanic cult or something. To me, fan culture is a beautiful way to keep the original artwork ‘alive’. As if as long as you can talk about it with someone, the story does not end. As long as there’s new arts based on it, the fictional world is still wild and fresh, waiting for you to venture.