Men in fandom
From Fan History Wiki
A history of male involvement in the fan fiction community
Or: Challenging Assumptions: Fandom isn’t a bastion of femaleness
By Laura
In fan the fan fiction community, there has been at various points in our history an assumption that the community is a largely female one: female driven, female led, a community with feminist perspective or bent, female majority, a history where women are at the forefront. A look deeper into the history of fan fiction challenges this assumption of the fan fiction community being one of female privilege.
There have been numerous explorations of fan fiction as feminist and fan fiction communities containing female traits. In Enterprising Women by Camille Bacon-Smith, the author claims that fan fiction communities are female driven and feminist for a few reasons. Among them was that these communities were less hierarchical, establishing a hierarchy being a male trait. The author also asserted that fan fiction was about communal ownership, not individual ownership. This again is a female trait. Jenkins discusses aspect of female participation and feminism in his book, Textual Poachers. Among the things done was the characterization of fan fiction communities as being largely composed of women, leading somewhat to a conclusion of female driven. These two works are some of the most frequently cited academic sources in the general on-line fan fiction discussion about the topic. They are sources that have become somewhat dated, with the fan fiction community needing to do an overhaul and analysis of their work. General assumptions about the way the fan fiction community works and the dismissing the work of men in the community in doing key activities or how they influence are ones that should be challenged because they are outmoded concepts that do not stand up to scrutiny, dating back to the earliest fan fiction communities.
Before the rise of the Star Trek fan fiction community as the first modern fan fiction community, there were a number of flourishing pastiche communities. These communities include the Sherlock Holmes, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Lord of the Rings, Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Dracula. Many of the writers were men. There names dot the landscape of the zines and books in which their stories were published. The founders of the communities were generally males. Key figures in the membership were male. William Gilmour, Christopher Morley, Vincent Starrett, Anthony Boucher, Edgar Smith, William S. Baring-Gould, Philip Jose Farmer, Stuart Palmer, Adrian Conan Doyle, Ellery Queen, Arthur Whitaker, Francis Little, Robert Bridges, Munro Leaf, Paul Green: The list of men and influential men in this community can go on and on. These men led the community. They dominated the community. They defined these early communities. Women were participants but they were not driving the direction of the communities.
When the early Star Trek community was founded, it was primarily founded by women. They had a lot of male help in terms of where they got the fannish traditions they were building their community on. While the early zines contributions were written primarily by women, they were written frequently with permission from the powers that be. In this case, the powers that be were male and many fen of that era began to develop relationships with these men. The fandom would later fracture and separate from its original science fiction roots. The conflict would play out at several conventions, including one WorldCon. The science fiction, generally a male bastion, did not feel comfortable with having a media product as part of its community. The Star Trek community, was largely composed of women, an estimate by Mary Ellen Curtin puts the community at eighty-three percent female. Ignore the demographics. People make an inordinate deal about them. The difference detailed in several accountings of the events, including the ones spelled out in Verba’s Bolding Writing, make it obvious that the split was not about gender. Rather, the split of the science fiction and Star Trek communities was over leadership and direction.
The Star Trek fandom has had a number of men participating in these early years. In some cases, they were doing some innovative things. Willard F. Hunt was one of the men doing this. In 1968, he and a female fan, Jean Lorrah, co-wrote the first piece of Star Trek actorfic to be published in ST-Phile. Bob Vardeman was a contributor to the second Star Trek fanzine to be published. Later, he went on to become a published author. John Trimble, along with Bjo Trimble, reported about a trip to the set of Star Trek for the second fanzine, ST-Phile 1. John Trimble, along with his wife Bjo, would co-publish several fanzines in the following years. The second issue of Spockanalia contained numerous letters from men attached to the making of Star Trek. In Spockanalia 3, Alan Asherman was a contributor. He would later go on to publish a book about Star Trek. Mike Sobota was leading in the charge in 1970, having founded the very influential Leonard Nimoy and Star Trek Fan Club of Concerned Fans that year. This group, among other things, put together a list of all Star Trek fanzines published that year. James Blish, while a professional author writing professional Star Trek novels, was very influential in fandom as people reacted in various ways to his work. Males continued to pop up with regular frequency in the Star Trek zine and convention community till the present time.
The Anime fandom has traditionally been dominated by men. This tradition dates back to its earliest period, when fandom broke out of the corporate mold. Harada Teruo was part of this trend that started in 1975 when the first Comic Market was held in Japan. Harada Teruo was the chairman of this convention. This trend of males being the more dominant, more visible gender in representing the fandom continues to the present.
The 1970s were a period when a number of men were active in writing and publishing fanzines in a variety of fandoms. The Space: 1999 had a number of men publishing in fanzines. These include Chris Yost, Tom McLaren, Paul Bens, Tod Ellsworth, Stephen Eramo, Mike Heyes. Some of these men were co-publishing fanzines with women in fandom. The Blake’s 7 fandom also had a number of males. They included Robert Aries. One of his stories appeared in the first Blake’s 7 adult fanzine. In the Star Wars fandom, again, there were men. Some of the ones publishing fanzines included Jonas Soderblad, Randy Ash, Victor Koman, Scott Griffith, and Jack Eaton.
During the 1980s, men were still visible members of various communities, giving further proof to combat the idea that fandom was female dominant. David Bruce Bozarth and James D. Bozarth, Edgar Rice Burroughs pastiche writers, wrote "Beyond Poloda" which was published in Tangor's Fan Fiction during this period. Another member of this community was Andy Nunez. The Doctor Who, Space: 1999 and Voyagers! fan fiction communities had Mark Gardner. He was both a fan fiction writer and fanzine publisher. In the Star Wars fandom, there were a number of men publishing fanzines. They included Jeff Johnston, Mart Allard, James Addams, Jack Heston, Jim Rondeau, Mark Fisher, Jonas Soderblad, Tim Eldred, Oriole Throckmorton, Jack Eaton, Glen Scroggins, Homer Sapiento, Tony Chong, Tom Boone, Michael Peters, John Flynn, and Jason Grant.
During the 1990s, men were still an active, key part of several zine based fandoms. They were fanzine publishers, fan artists and fan fiction writers. One of these was Space: 1999. The men in this fandom at this time included Ray Pluck, Stephen Le Vesconte, and Richard Ferrrell. In the Forever Knight zine community, there was R.A. Johnston. In the Edgar Rice Burroughs pastiche community, there was David Adams. Mark Gardner was still active in fan fiction writing and fanzine publishing in the Doctor Who, Space: 1999 and Voyagers! fandoms. The Back to the Future and Quantum Leap fandoms had their share of men involved in writing and publishing fanzines. One male member of both communities was J. Robert Holmes. In the Star Wars fandom, there was Fiorenzo delle Rupi, Peter Iorillo, Mark Richards, Matt Busch, William Bevil, Ed Schode, Jef Czekaj, Jon Bradley Snyder, Bert-Olof Lundin, Karl Rydholm, Ed Baker, Mart Allard, Tim "Sompeetalay" Veekhoven, and Jason Grant.
Men were part of the zine culture. They were writing fan fiction. They were publishing fanzine. These men are remembered years later for the zines they published, the stories they wrote. Many of these men transitioned into on-line fandom, on-line fan fiction. There are enough of them out there that they and their gender had an effect on fandom, did not allow for a willful female dominance of the fan fiction community.
As fandom moved on-line, men were in some cases leading the charge, doing things before women, initiating discussion and starting trends. Their work was important and a lot of the infrastructure that exists in fandom would not be possible with out the work of these men.
In the Babylon 5 fan fiction community, there is Steven Grime, who, in 1994, founded The Lurkers Guide. This site was the most important site in the fandom.
The X-Files fandom had a number of men involved early in the fandom. They included Cliff Chen, who in 1994, wrote one of the earliest pieces of X-Files. The first Gossamer site was also founded by a male. fan fiction, a story that crossed over with an Anne Rice novel.
In the Star Trek fan fiction community, there is Stephen Ratliff. Since 1997, he has maintained the FAQs for the various Star Trek fan fiction Usenet communities. He has helped with the running of various awards in the community. There was also Bob Mosley. He was and continues to post to Star Trek Usenet communities. He wrote fan fiction, gave feedback on stories and was involved in a number of fan fiction discussions including one which asked where Mary Sue was on-line in the Star Trek fan fiction community. Another influential Star Trek male was Jim Wright. His site, the Delta Blues, was an important and respected one because of its episode recaps. They were frequently a place where people went to get story ideas and many women in the fandom jockeyed to get close to him on-line so they could influence his opinion.
In the wider fannish context, there is Xing Li. On October 15, 1998, his website, FanFiction.Net, went live and fandom would never be the same. The way he organized the site, the terms he used would heavily influence the nature of feedback and dialogue in fandom. There is Steven Savage. He acted in an advisory role at FanFiction.Net and assisted with the technical end of the site. He was a key figure in numerous meta oriented fannish discussions with his mailing list turned LiveJournal community, Fanthropology. He also founded Seventh Sanctum and was helpful with with Shinji's Vault of Anime Mistings. There was also Minotaur. This male fan fiction writer created a website with information on how to write accurate male/male fan fiction. He also created one of the larger repositories of links to various fan fiction websites. There was Jimmy Kun, one of the co-founders of FanDomination.Net. That site is currently the largest home of Real Person Fic on the Internet. There is Joe, the creator of FanWorks.Org. His site caters mostly to young, teen Real Person Fic writers and has been growing steadily for two years. There was Mike Neylon. He ran the multi-fandom MSTing site, Web Site Number 9. While this site eventually closed down, it was created during the day when DIBS list ruled and the community viewed itself as having a certain set of standards.
Matthew Lewis, Donny Cheng, Ken Arromdee, Mike Allen, Gary Kleppe, and Alan Harnum were members of the Anime fan fiction community. They were some of the earlier members to push the concept of deliberate badfic on-line in that community. Elsewhere in the anime fan fiction community, there was Jasen Harold Vokey. He was the first fan fiction writer to publish on-line Digimon fan fiction. There was Tim McLees who founded Shinji's Vault of Anime Misting. This site was the second largest MST3K fansite on the Internet for a while, during the period when the fandom was at its height. The only site that was bigger was Web Site Number 9.
The comic book fandom had Darth Yoshi, aka Christopher W. Blaine. Darth Yoshi was active in promoting a number of more obscure comic book fandoms, promoting awards and otherwise giving increased visibility to ignored parts of the fandom. His fan fiction helped kick start a number of comic book fandoms on FanFiction.Net. David Ivanick helped to drive much meta discussion in the comic book fandom because of the article he had published in May of 2001’s Savant #42. In the Elfquest fandom, there was Whip. He was a member of and maintainer of the FAQ for the biggest Elfquest fan fiction mailing list on the Internet in 2000.
In the Harry Potter fandom, there are numerous men who have helped shaped the fandom. First, there is Geoff Janavaris who founded the first Harry Potter MOO back in 1999. Next, there are various programmers for FictionAlley.Org and SugarQuill. One such programmer is David who helps maintain the server for SugarQuill and does a lot of the programming for the site. He also dreamed of and created the TIP site. He did much of this work with the site’s other programmer, James, another male. The fandom also has Steve Vander Ark. In July of 2000, he was the founder and creator of the Harry Potter Lexicon. His website, one of the more popular ones for getting information about Harry Potter canon, has a number of males in key positions. These include Josh Santilli, Kip Carter and John Kearns. Alastair Alexander was another important male in the Harry Potter fandom. After the Claire Fields incident, he created PotterWars in an effort to fight the actions taken by Warner Brothers.
On-line and off, men of the 2000s are finding roles for themselves that they are comfortable. These roles can be big, visible, very public and influential. They include running fan fiction archives, writing fan fiction, running fan fiction discussion communities, acting as panelists at conventions, publishing fanzines, and creating resources used by various fan fiction communities. They are doing things that are not as visible. They are writing fan fiction, sending feedback, posting to message boards, participating in fan fiction communities.
The assumption that fan fiction is the milieu of women, that it plays by female rules, that men are largely absent or lacking influence, that fan fiction is female led is one that, when viewed from a historical perspective, does not hold up. Fan fiction communities seem to have equality of access, the possibility of equal influence for a person of either gender. The demographics, the actions and perspectives of fan fiction community does not make it intrinsically female, nor feminist.
