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Fandom Snowflake Challenge #2
Jan. 4th, 2025 10:19 pmYesterday's challenge was to write about your fandom origin story! I'm a day late, and I sincerely promise that I will be late again ^_^
When I was 9, the Mario video game franchise gave me that spark, and I drew the characters on everything. The Mario wiki is something created by the fandom, right? And I would read that thing every day like it was a book. (I had what was previously the family computer in my room, with only computer-changing downloads needing to go through my mom first. I was set up to be an internet addict, as you can see.) I also scrolled through Google Images like it was an image board. So, in a voyeuristic way, I was "participating" in fandom... maybe???? Also when I was 9, Kidzworld was all the rage in my grade. I made my profile Luigi/Daisy themed, but I didn't really make friends through it nor was I majorly active. How could I be, when there was a Mario wiki I could be reading instead?
But the next year I met a girl who is still my best friend. One day, she wrote something on a paper of mine in class and told me to look it up when I get home. So I did exactly that. And that's how I got into Hetalia. Actual life-changing event, because that's how I got into anime in general, and thus pretty much everything I'm into now.
After watching all of Hetalia I was hooked. I would trace screenshots to learn how to draw anime style. I independently invented text roleplays by writing on paper during a class movie and passing it to my friend. They were formatted like scripts for plays, and I was very surprised to learn that usually people write actual paragraphs when they roleplay, with quotation marks and everything. I did closet cosplays for dress-down days. I begged for my first sketchbook so I could draw my awesome Hetalia Mario AU comic (which you don't get to see unless you come to my house in real life, sorry). I made my Kidzworld profile entirely Hetalia themed. And I liked Hetalia so much I finally bothered to use the KW forums to talk to others about it.
Me and ..... 4? other kids talked about it in General all the time. People told us to make our own forum since we were clogging up General, so we did, and then the Recent Forum Posts would constantly be filled with us ~5 chatting it up about Hetalia almost every damn day. See, on Kidzworld there was a section on the side of the site for recent forum updates, and there were no group chats, so.... everyone saw what was functionally our Hetalia group chat, and sometimes people did post in our forum to say "can you guys shut up" 😭 But other Hetalia fans came in and out too! Of course we all would share good AMVs and whatever you'd call those slideshows with music on profiles' video share thing, fanart we liked as well as our own art in our galleries, etc. The whole nine yards.
I feel like that was my first and only time being "active" with other members of a fandom; time passed and we all stopped using KW, and in future fandoms I would mostly enjoy fan art and comics from the sidelines silently. I can name the amount of times I've had strangers talk with me (not just compliment but really Talk) about anything I've drawn or written on half a hand. I'm kind of questioning what the word "fandom" means now, because in the past when people would say "I don't want to associate with fandom anymore but I like X media" I'd be like "aren't you automatically in the fandom by being a fan?" but now I'm thinking it might. might mean actively creating things based off a property and discussing the property/fan creations with other fans, which means I haven't been in a fandom since I abandoned Hetalia when I was ~14. I just talk with my 1-2 friends about stuff. Might post fanart or headcanons online but the internet is so fragmented and centered around likes that not many people talk with me about the things I've shown them. Especially on Tumblr, which with it's (near?)unlimited character limit you'd think would have been the second coming of LiveJournal, but instead was more of a place to put things you like, possibly with a semi-cohesive aesthetic. I'm sure the vast majority of Tumblr users just like and reblog things and only make an original post once every blue moon... it's not very encouraging of nonaesthetic or unfunny things (unless they can be used to make you look like a good person). Well, part of why I'm cutting my time on big socials is to experience an environment different from that.
When I was 9, the Mario video game franchise gave me that spark, and I drew the characters on everything. The Mario wiki is something created by the fandom, right? And I would read that thing every day like it was a book. (I had what was previously the family computer in my room, with only computer-changing downloads needing to go through my mom first. I was set up to be an internet addict, as you can see.) I also scrolled through Google Images like it was an image board. So, in a voyeuristic way, I was "participating" in fandom... maybe???? Also when I was 9, Kidzworld was all the rage in my grade. I made my profile Luigi/Daisy themed, but I didn't really make friends through it nor was I majorly active. How could I be, when there was a Mario wiki I could be reading instead?
But the next year I met a girl who is still my best friend. One day, she wrote something on a paper of mine in class and told me to look it up when I get home. So I did exactly that. And that's how I got into Hetalia. Actual life-changing event, because that's how I got into anime in general, and thus pretty much everything I'm into now.
After watching all of Hetalia I was hooked. I would trace screenshots to learn how to draw anime style. I independently invented text roleplays by writing on paper during a class movie and passing it to my friend. They were formatted like scripts for plays, and I was very surprised to learn that usually people write actual paragraphs when they roleplay, with quotation marks and everything. I did closet cosplays for dress-down days. I begged for my first sketchbook so I could draw my awesome Hetalia Mario AU comic (which you don't get to see unless you come to my house in real life, sorry). I made my Kidzworld profile entirely Hetalia themed. And I liked Hetalia so much I finally bothered to use the KW forums to talk to others about it.
Me and ..... 4? other kids talked about it in General all the time. People told us to make our own forum since we were clogging up General, so we did, and then the Recent Forum Posts would constantly be filled with us ~5 chatting it up about Hetalia almost every damn day. See, on Kidzworld there was a section on the side of the site for recent forum updates, and there were no group chats, so.... everyone saw what was functionally our Hetalia group chat, and sometimes people did post in our forum to say "can you guys shut up" 😭 But other Hetalia fans came in and out too! Of course we all would share good AMVs and whatever you'd call those slideshows with music on profiles' video share thing, fanart we liked as well as our own art in our galleries, etc. The whole nine yards.
I feel like that was my first and only time being "active" with other members of a fandom; time passed and we all stopped using KW, and in future fandoms I would mostly enjoy fan art and comics from the sidelines silently. I can name the amount of times I've had strangers talk with me (not just compliment but really Talk) about anything I've drawn or written on half a hand. I'm kind of questioning what the word "fandom" means now, because in the past when people would say "I don't want to associate with fandom anymore but I like X media" I'd be like "aren't you automatically in the fandom by being a fan?" but now I'm thinking it might. might mean actively creating things based off a property and discussing the property/fan creations with other fans, which means I haven't been in a fandom since I abandoned Hetalia when I was ~14. I just talk with my 1-2 friends about stuff. Might post fanart or headcanons online but the internet is so fragmented and centered around likes that not many people talk with me about the things I've shown them. Especially on Tumblr, which with it's (near?)unlimited character limit you'd think would have been the second coming of LiveJournal, but instead was more of a place to put things you like, possibly with a semi-cohesive aesthetic. I'm sure the vast majority of Tumblr users just like and reblog things and only make an original post once every blue moon... it's not very encouraging of nonaesthetic or unfunny things (unless they can be used to make you look like a good person). Well, part of why I'm cutting my time on big socials is to experience an environment different from that.
Fandom Snowflake Challenge #1
Jan. 1st, 2025 12:47 pmFor the first challenge I finally made a sticky entry. I had been meaning to do that for a few months, so this was that final push. I feel like it's too long, but what you see is the short version of what I could say and add.
Look, I even added a new wintery icon, although I don't know if it would read as wintery to anyone who hasn't seen the full artwork.
I considered adding a transformative works policy, but I have never really had an audience or fans besides friends, so... Well, all you would need is in the gallery part of my website, I assume. Always credit me and don't repost.
