Hello and welcome to This Week in Fandom, the OTW’s roundup of things that are happening! If you’re feeling nostalgic, you’re in good company: Sarah Michelle Gellar posted an instagram photo of herself wearing Buffy’s prom dress from Buffy The Vampire Slayer episode Prophecy Girl with the caption “All dressed up and no where to go. “I say we party” #safeathome #prophecygirl”. Are you dressing up for yourself and your pets, or are you more of a pyjama chic fan?
First up, Andy Serkis – the actor behind Gollum/Smeagol in the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films – raised nearly £300,000 during a 12-hour charity livestream where he read aloud The Hobbit novel from start to finish. The money raised goes to NHS Charities Together and Best Beginnings, which support healthcare workers and children.
Fandom journalism has been getting meta this week with Fandom Has A Purity Culture Problem. We might brace ourselves whenever journalists come out with a hot new ‘problems in fandom’ take, but this one by Jessica Mason, a journalist-from-fandom rather than just a journalist-of-fandom, is thoughtful and nuanced. She comments:
Still, fans who jump on the purity train often dress up their morality policing in the terms of social justice. They take real problems like racism and sexism in fandom and lump it in with the fact that sometimes people just like complicated, messy stuff and characters.
Fandom has always been a bit of a messy place; we’re all over here being messily emotional about our favourite characters and stories, with the amazing result that AO3 has just passed the milestone of six million posted works. So if fandom meta isn’t your speed, well, at the time of writing, 1,088, 547 of those 6,000,000 works are tagged “fluff”; we think this the opposite of a problem.
If you do crave more fandom discussion, though, good news ahead: FujoCon – celebrating BL and related media and fandom – will be running online July 11th and 12th. Their website went live this week. We hope this is the first of many fan conventions that will run online, so you can always get a seat to whatever panel you want to attend.
And finally, a spot of light, meme-tastic entertainment: Choose Your Quarantine Meme House, a taxonomy. Your blogger’s personal favourite is “recreating famous artwork with stuff you have in your house” which, if you’ve missed it, can be found on instagram tagged #betweenartandquarantine
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_-uXHZHaMx/
Are you taking to instagram to share outfits, cosplays and art memes? If so, share them in the comments!