Vladislav GONCHAROV
FANDOM IS DEAD - AND WE ARE NO LONGER...
(C) V. Goncharov, 1995.
The debate about the death of fandom can be persistent and lengthy
- but, with all the diversity of opinions on this matter, it is clear that
was understood by this word four or five years ago, no longer
exists. Now it is also impossible to deny or ignore the fact
that in place of the old fandom and, partly, from the same material
rial, a completely new structure emerged, known as the tolki-
nistics, the Tolkien movement, or the role-playing game movement. Moreover, the hara-
It is interesting that recently even here there has been a trend
use the terms “fandom” to describe your party
or "J.R.R.T. fandom" (see "Talisman" #10). Well, when something like this
terminology begins to be used by a person who had until the very
recently the reputation of a particularly stubborn and fanatical interpretation
nista - this fact inevitably makes you think...
Without touching - at least here and now - the entire spectrum
reasons for such an evolution of fandom, let us pay attention to only one
from its aspects. Namely, on the factors that create information
field of the environment we are interested in. Or, more simply put, to fanzines.
In those distant and almost biblical times when
clubs for science fiction fans were just being created and fans from
tri-club communicationbegan to move on to communicating with their own kind
famous outside their club, such publications were for them
something like Efremov's Great Ring - a package of information about
himself, sent beyond the boundaries of his inhabited world. Often,
even without hope of an answer in the foreseeable future. At best -
counting only on correspondence communication.
But then conventions appeared - first "Aelita", and then
her and others. People appeared who had personally visited “other worlds” and
bringing back the freshest impressions from there. Some information has appeared
rational field of movement, uniting all its parts and giving
the opportunity for every fan to have a more or less complete understanding
about what is happening at the other end of the system.
And then among the fanzines those with the club scene began to stand out
information switched to information about the environment - what, who, where,
with whom, when, how and how much - thus becoming one of the fundamental
factors that create and support the above information
tion environment. Actually, thanks to her, the fandom felt like a fan-
home in the full sense of the word - that is, movement, united
not only by common aspirations and some formal structure
swarm, but also the consciousness of the involvement of each of its members in all
other actions of this party.
Fanzines and fanzining have become one of those whales on which
the fandom rested for the time being.
Technically the printed releasepublications of two to three dozen pages
and with a circulation of several dozen copies it was not very difficult -
typewriters, and even computers (at least locally
work), quite a lot of people had them. With photocopiers for reproduction
there were no special problems either - in those days they even had their own
early works by Pikul and Chase in mass editions printed
whether.
However, soon after perestroika and democratization the
cost accounting - and it turned out that oats had suddenly risen in price because
printing technology suddenly became quite easy and efficient.
creative way to make money. Than all photocopier owners and
got busy. In a word, the freebie was covered with a copper basin. Small hopes
publishing houses, in the development of which fans also played a role, do not
justified - with the end of the first wave of the book publishing boom
unexpectedly it turned out that the mass reader appreciates a good translation from
with a smart afterword and a soft cover he prefers a bad sub-
news release without annotation, but in a glossy hardcover with nude
type and volume number in the series on the spine. And this product is
only the tough sharks of the post-Soviet business, who
first and fandom, and its short-circulation and completely non-commercial
the publications were, to put it mildly, a damn thing. In general, "kapytalizm"
as Arnold Schwarzenegger used to say...
But new times have passed and even newer ones have come. Infor-
matization andcomputerization has moved from institutions to homes. And when
The quality of copiers and other duplicating equipment has exceeded the limits
external demand for their services. That is, simply put, the opportunity to de-
making money on them gradually faded away - and now they are back into the world
God's Majesty, Mrs. Freebie, has appeared.
The result was not long in coming. If the computer flickers on the table
pewter, and on the right hand, an absolutely free man froze in anticipation
a laser printer for the layout and a photocopier for printing from it, then the hand itself
involuntarily reaches for the keyboard...
It's a matter of little things - information and the environment to which it is in-
the formation will be interesting. And Wednesday, as we have already found out,
First of all, information about her is interesting. Therefore new
printed publications should appear only where they already exist
environment for their distribution. You don’t have to look far for examples.
In addition to "Feng-Gil-Dong", which few people talked about a couple of years ago
I knew that we had already entered the All-Union... excuse me, the All-English arena
Vladivostok "Third Theme" and published since the end of 1993
Moscow "Talisman". And these are only publications that have a solid
volume, circulation of several hundred copies and already numbering
seven or more issues. As for the others - that is, small
small, small-circulation or not promising to move forward
the first number - then their number is also approaching double digits
digital: "AKM" (Donetsk), "PAL1", "Q" and "End of an Era" (Moscow),
"Morita" and "Last Hit" (Saratov), "Search for Middle-earth", "Cher-
ny Cormorant" and "Fan-Era" (Ekaterinburg), "Fourth Epoch" (New
Kuznetsk). At the same time, it is not at all surprising that
Almost all of the publications mentioned above are Tolkien. Much
What's more surprising is that they still call themselves fanzines. Apparently
the memory of the previous generation was still preserved. And, next
Consequently, the previous civilization did not perish without a trace, but remained
leaving behind some kind of memory. At least in the form of terminology.
However, let us remember once again that fanzines are not only a product of
environment, but also the way of its self-organization. And also the means of its
free dissemination of information in it, including analytical
ical character, that is, allowing the movement to feel not
only as a single whole, but also to control their own evolution.
However, we have now moved on to issues of further development
Tolkien movement, as a natural (or unnatural) continuation
resident of the former Soviet fandom. And this, as already indicated,
above, is not the topic of this article. Since here I require
This is a very special conversation...
Uldor,
former ring bearer,
now little-known literary
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