Here's a roundup of fandom then-and-now stories that might be of interest to fans:

• The Houston Press hosted a story about the past, present, and future of music fan clubs, from The Beatles to Ke$ha. "People place pen-pal ads in the back of magazines. They join mailing lists. They discover the Internet and start fan pages. Someone opens up a chat room. Someone else builds a Web forum. The methods have evolved over time, but the reason remains the same: Fans want to connect with other fans." Focusing on the tangible offerings of official fan clubs, the writer observes that "Chamillionaire recently launched the Chamillitary Rewards/Loyalty Program though his Web site. More than just a fan club or social network, it allows fans to earn points (Chamillitary coins) for the things they'd be doing anyway: Visiting his site, watching videos, etc. They can turn around and use those points for everything from phone calls with Koopa to limited gear. It takes being a fan from a passive experience to a active experience. And so the one-way street of fan club delivering information to fans becomes a two-way street where the fan and the artist interact."
• Student newspaper The Elm focused on the changes to sports fandom. "Sports nerds are everywhere. How did we get here?" Citing fantasy sports as "a new avenue of fandom", the writer explains, "For those who don’t know what fantasy sports are, here is a definition from Elm Editor-in-Chief Natalie Butz: 'It's dungeons and dragons for jocks.'" Describing his own activities, the writer says, "I got to spend money on players, analyzing every bit of information, trying to outsmart my opponents in baseball knowledge. What could be better for a sports nerd? I was almost ashamed that I wasted so much time at my auction draft. I promised myself, 'Never again!' But, next year I’ll probably end up doing the same thing. So what if it's a little pathetic? I love sports. I loved sports stats. I love looking at baseball from different angles. The world of fandom is changing, every day getting more in depth, idiosyncratic, and well, nerdy. My advice, to all the other sports nerds out there: soon we will be the norm, just embrace it."
• Unfortunately, fandom shifts often prompt ugly backlashes, as Magic: The Gathering tournament competitor Jackie Lee can attest. "To outsiders, the Hasbro-owned fantasy game is a diversion. To these tournament participants, however, it’s a cut-throat mental battle for a $3,500 prize." Lee reached the semifinals, which was "livestreamed around the globe and commented on by a pair of sportscasters." It was also commented on by many anonymous misogynists. "[H]undreds of viewers began to berate Lee for what they considered her largest offense: playing cards while female." As she recounted, "From 'get back to the kitchen' to comments about how fat or bangable I am, to openly stating one's intention to masturbate, it was pretty much as bad as you could imagine. They grew more and more desperate for me to lose, and when I finally lost my semifinal match, they exploded in delight." The sole woman in the Top 100 ranked Magic players worldwide, Lee is highly visible, and she hopes for more company. "It's been shown that in very heavily male-dominated professions, such as certain fields of science, when the number of women begins to approach 50 percent, the chilly climate evaporates," she said. "I'm hoping that as more women enter the tournament scene, women who play will finally be regarded as the norm, and we can all stop fussing about it."

If you play fantasy sports, Magic: The Gathering, or are part of a music fan group, why not write about it in Fanlore? Additions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, event, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent Links Roundup — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. Links are welcome in all languages!

Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

Here's a roundup of stories on fandom across generations that might be of interest to fans:

• For many people fandom starts young, whether they are in a fannish family or not. Reporter Josie Loza writes about her 3-year old daughter's first fannish experience. "She’s watched and listened to the Nickelodeon preschool pop group [Fresh Beat Band] for nearly all her life." When attending her first concert of the band, "She was paralyzed. She tried to get up and dance. But she was so awestruck she just stared ahead." Many fans can probably empathize with her reaction when she took part in a meet and greet: "She buried her head in my lap. She started to cry a little; not because she was afraid. To her, these were the people who made her happy when she was sad...“They’re really here,” she mumbled. “Yes, baby. And they want to meet you.”"
• From near-toddler to well-known journalist David Brooks, fandom affects many in the same ways. He writes in The Things We Don't Choose about his attempt to switch baseball team fandoms and the importance of early fandom: "I’ve read a bunch of social science papers on the nature of sports fandom, trying to understand this attachment. They were arid and completely unhelpful. They tried to connect fandom to abstractions about identity formation, self-esteem affiliation and collective classifications. It’s probably more accurate to say that team loyalty of this sort begins with youthful enchantment...You lunged upon the team with the unreserved love that children are capable of. The team became crystallized in your mind, coated with shimmering emotional crystals that give it a sparkling beauty and vividness. And forever after you feel its attraction. Whether it’s off the menu or in the sports world, you can choose what you’ll purchase but you don’t get to choose what you like."
• Yet another journalist documented his joint fandom with his son focusing on the generational differences that revolve around media formats and levels of participation with the games: "I watch the Patriots on television with the remote in one hand and maybe a bag of chips in the other. He views them with his Droid and his laptop at his side. While I flip through the channels during commercials, he texts and Facebook chats with friends and checks NFL.com to find out if Cam Newton scored a rushing touchdown to help one of his three fantasy football teams." He continues, "My son also rarely misses a Red Sox, Celtics or Bruins game on TV, but he couldn't name any of the team's radio announcers when I asked him to do so. That's because many fans his age don't listen to the radio very often." Their use of print is also different. "For years, I subscribed to Sports Illustrated and read it cover to cover, except for the swimsuit edition, of course. My son subscribes to ESPN the Magazine, but hardly ever reads it. He ordered it so he could become an ESPN Insider on ESPN.com and read the latest sports news online. My son estimated he spends four hours most days surfing the web for sports news."

If you are a sports or music fan, why not write about it in Fanlore? Additions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, event, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent Links Roundup — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. Links are welcome in all languages!

Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

Here's a roundup of stories on gaming and cons that might be of interest to fans:

• The gaming site Massively recently posted an opinion piece on the "One True Way crowd". "They're fans who insist that one particular incarnation was the right way to go and everything afterward has been a poor imitation. The camp exists with MMOs, as well, and just as with any other franchise, it's arguably the most harmful portion of the fanbase" because it stifles innovation. The writer suggests that because One True Way fans expect new games to simply be 'better' versions of their old favorites, they are refusing to let the natural evolution of gaming design take its course, and are "asking for a return to a time that never existed, for the genre to essentially feed upon its past and just produce the same thing eternally--to watch talent and creativity slowly wither and die, with fans slowly breaking away as they come to realize that the past doesn't hold all of the answers."
• Innovation is alive and well in gaming fandom, however. As this Reno News & Review article on video game orchestras notes "the music of video games is often overlooked, especially in a gaming era in where stunning graphics and unique stories take the stage. But a good score can make or break a game." Fannish music takes many forms such as "Nerdcore—originally dubbed Nintendocore—[which] is any style of music in which the scores from games are covered by musicians, or the musicians create original music inspired by aspects of the game. Chiptune and bitpop refer to music actually made with old school gaming consoles. And there’s the off-shoot subgenres, such as wrock (short for wizard rock, based off Harry Potter) or slackercore (which, true to its name, is hard to define, but is seeped in hacker culture)."
• Indeed, the "Music of Games" is one of several accompanying panels to the Smithsonian's "The Art of Video Games" exhibit which opened this month and will travel to a few U.S. cities in 2012. "The Art of Video Games is one of the first exhibitions to explore the forty-year evolution of video games as an artistic medium. [. . .] It features some of the most influential artists and designers during five eras of game technology, from early pioneers to contemporary designers." The games featured were decided in part by public vote. "The 240 games on the ballot were selected by Chris Melissinos, who worked with the museum and an advisory group consisting of game developers, designers, industry pioneers, and journalists. [. . .] Voting took place between February 14 and April 17, 2011. More than 3.7 million votes were cast by 119,000 people in 175 countries!"
• The Smithsonian GameFest, which took place on its exhibit's opening weekend, was a not-for-profit venture, but Exhibition News pointed out how very profitable fan conventions can be. "MCM Expo Group (MCM), owner of six of the UK's most successful consumer exhibitions, a portfolio of pop culture shows led by the 27,000sqm London MCM Expo at Excel" is the part of the market that is "one of the few to emerge from the recession relatively unscathed." Like Comic Con, its events evolved. "[W]e started to target video games and manga (Japanese fantasy and sci-fi cartoons and animation). The knock-on effect is that we began seeing a transition of brand away from straightforward comics and movies and our audience became much bigger."

Regardless of what video game fandom you're in, why not write about it in Fanlore? Additions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, event, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent Links Roundup — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. Links are welcome in all languages!

Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

Here's a roundup of stories on music fandom that might be of interest to fans:

• Beatles fan Scott Freiman created several presentations on the band, and the latest "Looking Through a Glass Onion: Deconstructing The Beatles' White Album" was recently shown in Schenectady, NY. Looking "is a multimedia exploration of the influential band's eponymous 1968 album" and the presentations began "for my friends, but I've since discovered there's a huge audience hungry to know about this stuff, from 5-year-old kids to 80-year-old grandparents."
• While Freiman's work focused on the band, Do It Again is a film about the fandom of the Beatles' contemporaries, The Kinks. The fan documentary explores the journey of Geoff Edgers, a major Kinks fan and the film’s screenwriter, and what fandom is about. Edgers funded the film from various sources including fans. David Plunkert, an award-winning illustrator and graphic designer, volunteered his services for the “Do It Again” poster wholly because he wanted to draw The Kinks. The film's focus was originally the band, but after the frontman, Ray Davies, avoided participation, the focus shifted to the band's fandom. "In the end, it became the great Kinks fan movie. Here’s my approach — Michael Moore might attack a resistant subject. I stepped away and have respect," Plunkert said. "Ambush Ray? No way. I’m a fan, not a stalker or Mike Wallace."
• The Korea Herald focused on fans as well, in this case classical music fandom. "Such fandom is changing the country’s classical music scene, creating a new audience base and also boosting CD sales" making Korea a draw for international artists. Classical music sales are largely in trouble "not only because of falling interests in the genre but also the rapidly growing online music market." Yet the reception in Korea is different. "This kind of fandom culture does not exist in other countries. And this is why they want to come back to Korea to feel the energy from the Korean audience."
• Lastly, crossover fans of comics and musicals have something to look forward to: Holy Musical Batman!, "a fan-made musical featuring everyone’s favorite Dark Knight".

If you are a music or comics fan, why not write about it in Fanlore? Additions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, event, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent Links Roundup — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. Links are welcome in all languages!

Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.