Fannish Time Capsule

[bironic]

I took an unexpected trip through personal fannish history today when I organized my Gmail inbox for the first time since its creation in 2007.

(I've been using it largely to forward fannish alerts and correspondence to my "RL" account at Yahoo, and then I go over and sign in for messages that need replies. But now it's way past time to get off Yahoo, and Gmail seems the best alternative, which means toggling between two Gmail accounts, which means getting the house in order.)

It was like taking a core sample of the last decade of fan friends, fandoms and platforms. Ten years of notifications tracing back through AO3 and Dreamwidth at their beta launches, Greatestjournal, Insanejournal, Livejournal, Fanfiction.net, Television Without Pity, the House fanfiction archive. Ten years of correspondence with people I've since come to know so well online and in person and with people who've fallen away. Email chains from New York and D.C. and two rounds of Boston residency.

Recorded in the archives were arrangements for my first small get-together with fans I'd met through posting fic, pun and no_detective. My first meeting with deelaundry on Long Island, roga and kass in Israel, ignaz when we went to see a $2 showing of Iron Man at MIT, elynittria at grad school to play Scrabble and watch Life on Mars. My first Muskrat Jamboree and Con.txt and Vividcon; my first Remix Redux; Kink Bingo mod prizes; the fests I'd defaulted on and since forgotten. Confirmation emails of accounts opened at shiny new YouTube and shut down at BAM Vid Vault and blip.tv. Beta comments given and received. Effusive emails sent to fic writers whose work I adored, and, often, delighted replies from them.

It's not that I didn't remember a lot of it -- nor that my fannish history didn't begin earlier than 2007 -- just that the specifics of the conversations and the first revealing of real names and the thank-yous for holiday cards and the fic recs and the theater/restaurant trips and the party invitations rushed back in all their vibrancy.

A good reminiscence for a winter Friday.

Comments

[nightdog_barks]

And from this side, a good read for a winter Friday. :-)

[minoanmiss]

That is a good reminiscnee.

[kass]

Oh, that is so delightful!

[gwyn]

That's so cool. I have been on some similar journey--I was looking for an old post and after I found it, I just kept…going back. So I have this tab open and I read a few old entries every night, and it's so weird to see stuff I completely, utterly forgot about. Some things are painful, some things are wonderful…but it's great that we have records of this fannish history.

[roga]

I still thinking about meeting you guys there when I go to the Old City in Jerusalem! I can't believe that was 10 years ago, holyyyy

[roga]

THINK omg

[cuddyclothes]

That is so wonderful. I was cutting and pasting personal entries into Word. It's amazing how many people I met through the House fandom! I miss the House parties. Now there's barely anyone around. I miss it.

[ldthomps]

One of the best things about journals and email archives is the extra perspective looking back. And it's always delightful to see the original source delight!