If you were into the X-Men in 1988—like really into the X-Men—you’d be lucky to find one person at your school who also cared about them.
Or one person who even knew about them.
And even if you found a few other X-Men fans, they probably wouldn’t care about the X-Men in the same way that you did. They probably wouldn’t want to talk about how dreamy the Beast was, and whether it was pervy to have a crush on somebody with blue fur…
I spent my junior high and high school years getting really, really excited about books, comic books, movies and music—and then geeking out about these things all by myself. Inside my own head.
Sometimes, if I was lucky, I could geek out with my best friend, Jennifer, who basically agreed to love some of the stuff I loved out of solidarity. I tried to return the favor. Our friendship was founded on being girls who were obsessed with Star Wars, and we piled a dozen other fandoms on top of that.
“Fandom.” That’s a word we didn’t have in 1988. That’s a word we would have loved.
Fandom is the only thing that makes me wish I could be a teenager again. Or still. I feel like fandom could have changed my life.
Almost nothing in my life was good at 15.
I wish I were just being melodramatic about that. In retrospect, it’s not surprising that I spent all my time fantasizing about the X-Men and reading Beatles biographies.
I had friends—I had a best friend. But I still desperately craved connection. I felt out of place everywhere I went.
Which, I know, is just part of being 15. Every 15-year-old feels disconnected and misunderstood.
But if you’re 15 today, and you feel passionate about something—you can go online and instantly find other people who are passionate about it, too.
You can reach out to them. You can be one of them. You can join the fan community.
Or you can not join the fan community, but still get on Tumblr, reblog a hundred fan posts and add “OH MY GOD, THIS!” to every one.
That’s all you need sometimes. To find someone else whose heart skips the same beats as yours. Someone to capslock “THIS!” back and forth with you.
“THIS!” can be so fulfilling.
I get that fulfillment out of fandom as an adult. When I love something now, I immediately seek out fan art and fanfiction. I find the party online and throw some confetti in the air.
I can’t even imagine how reassuring it would have been to have access to that world as a teenager…
I would have found other people crushing on the Beast. And analyzing Sgt. Pepper’s lyrics. And writing Wham! fanfiction. I would’ve found the ten other people who were devastated when Beauty and the Beast got canceled.
I’m sure I still would have felt like a miserable weirdo from 1986 to 1992.
But I wouldn’t have felt so alone.
Read an excerpt from Fangirl and check out a review!
Rainbow Rowell writes books. Sometimes she writes about adults (Attachments and Landline). Sometimes she writes about teenagers (Eleanor & Park and Fangirl). But she always writes about people who talk a lot. And people who feel like they’re screwing up. And people who fall in love. When she’s not writing, she’s obsessing over other people’s made-up characters, planning Disney World trips, and arguing about things that don’t really matter in the big scheme of things. You can find her blog at rainbowrowell.com and follow her on Twitter!
I would have loved to be your friend at 15. You sound like you are describing my experience, although replace X-Men with Star Wars (my main high school fandom) and Lord of the Rings, which wasn’t as ‘cool’ as it is now. But I also had a friend where our main pastime was analyzing Beatles lyrics and passing notes to each other with snippets to guess the songs :)
I was the ONLY person I knew who was a fan of Star Wars when I was 15. I finally fell in with a nerdy crowd a year or so later, though it was more geared towards fantasy than sci-fi(a better fit for me, TBH) but even among my “besties” none of them shared my passion of geek things.
I was lucky, that I was able to go to conventions and meet the proverbial “2000 best friends you’ve never met” during those pre internet fan years. I was closer to some people I only saw 2-3 times a year without even having their phone numbers than I was to people I’d see every day. So yep, was there, did that :-)
I went to a medium sized high-school and knew at least three people who were more into the X-Men than I was (in 1988). Maybe things were better in Canada?
My teen daughter definitely has way more outlets and inputs for her fandom, though (mostly books, a few boy bands). Twitter is crazy.
THIS.
THIS! I’m about 10 years older and went to very small schools. When people ask about playing D&D or other things, I have to explain that when you lived in Nebraska before the internet, it was lonely being a geek.
Maybe being a girl is part of it? I know as a guy, growing up in a small town, then moving to a big city at the age of 15 (in 1989), I didn’t have a hard time in either place finding other people who liked DnD and comic books. Granted, it was a small group in both places, but they were all guys too. In about 30 years of “fandom” i’ve met some girls who were fans of sci-fi, gaming, comics, etc., but most people like that are guys, I think. I imagine in high school it is harder for girls like that to fit in than it is for guys.
I was lucky enough that my grammar school was really geeky and that most of us were in the same boat. Having said that I was the only person who really liked X-Men although one of my best friends was into X-Force (oops nearly wrote XFactor then) and another loved Spiderman. And we had a brilliant guy in Canterbury who sold comics at a stall and then got his own awesome shop and who got me into Sandman. I still have a bit of a crush on Havoc though.
Amen! My aversion to being perceived as “different” spiraled into bad decisions and leaving what I truly loved behind. Mercifully, my geeky kids are flyin’ their flag high and loving it (plus I get to relive a little bit of my lost years with them – bonus!).
I think things may have been better in the UK – I went to my first convention in 1976, and by the mid-80s had been to at least a hundred for different fandoms. We had the word ‘fandom’ and we had conventions, and I knew at least 100 like-minded people. And we didn’t have the internet. It’s possible.
I was enthralled by Emma Peel in “The Avengers”, “The Man from UNCLE,” Wild, Wild West,” and “Star Trek” as a kid in the 60s. Then the Trek cons started run by fans and all the fan stories written and illustrated in zines. It was great fun to go to a general con dressed a a LOR character way before the films were made or a Trek con as a gofer for Jimmy Doohan. I received letters from people who liked my stories and made life-long friendships. I learned about the SCA from a con and now I also steampunk.
I am about 5 years younger, growing up on the US West Coast, and I remember the joy at the birth of fandom as a teenager. I would hole up in the teachers’ lounge (yes, we were that nerdy!) with the only other student in high school who had been excited enough by the internet to learn html, and together we discovered the listservs for Star Trek fanfic. Ah, I do not miss the dial-up days! I am amazed now how long we were willing to wait for just one story, just one pic….
I do believe that more than 10 people were devestated at the loss of B&tB. I’m too young to remember anything from when it aired, but I’ve been upset about it being gone since I was 10 and learned about it from my mother, who was a fan.