The Oral History Project

The OTW supports fans who want to record oral histories of their local fan cultures and communities. If you are interested in running a history project in your community, please let us know. We can help!

We currently have two active oral history projects:

* Vidding History: This project is set up to document the experiences of many of the foremothers of vidding: that is, the community of pre-digital, live-action media vidders who were creating between 1975 - 1995. Current interviewees include: Kandy Fong, Sandy and Rache of the Media Cannibals, and Morgan Dawn. We would like to have as many vidders as possible involved in this project; if you were vidding before computers or before 1995 and are interested in being interviewed, please contact the Vidding committee. (An edited version of the interview with Sandy and Rache of the Media Cannibals was published in Transformative Works and Cultures, Issue 6, 2011.)

* The Media Fandom Oral History Project: This project will be an audio record of media fans telling their fandom history in their own words using their own voices. The goal is to preserve a record of media fandom for future generations. The project is being run by Morgan Dawn and Franzi Dickson and underwent a pilot test at Escapade 2012 under the Escapade convention sponsorship. The goal is to now expand the program to a wider audience to capture both slash and non-slash fandom’s history.