I am, I confess, something of a fangirl. These days there
are a lot of ways for fangirls like me to get our geek on. There are entire
industries which market toys and apparel to them. Tabloids and Twitter help fans keep track of
their favorite celebrities. Social media offers fans across the world a
platform where they can discuss the latest episode of their favorite shows.
Fans can cosplay and meet both fellow fans and content creators at conventions.
They can share their fanfic, fanvids, and other fan-created stuff on websites
like fanfiction.net and Archive of Our Own.
Unless they’re stalking Jody Foster and shooting Ronald Reagan, there’s
no wrong way to be a fan.
While there have always been fans, it wasn’t until the
early 20th century when industries rose to cater to their interest.
The first fan magazine, that is to say a magazine geared towards fans of a
specific aspect of popular culture, was called Photoplay. When it first appeared in 1911, each issue was basically
a condensed tie-in novel for recently released films. In 1915, they reformatted to include reviews
of films, actor interviews, and celebrity gossip. This became the hallmark of
later fan magazines for all sorts of fandoms including film, radio, TV, and
sports.
 |
| Screen Secrets, March 1930 |
Back during the 1920s and ‘30s, local teen Ruth Collin took
full advantage of the fandom industry of her day. Her first foray into fandom was a scrapbook
made between 1926 and 1928, which she filled with advertisements and reviews of
every one of the 87 films she watched during that period. Starting in the late 1920s, she began
subscribing to film magazines including The
New Movie Magazine, Movie Mirror, Silver Screen, Screen Romances, and The Modern Screen Magazine. She got
studios to send her autographed portraits of her favorite stars.
 |
| New Movie Magazine, April 1930 |
 |
| Signed photo of Joan Crawford sent by MGM Studio. The dog did not sign. |
In addition to the collection documenting Ruth Collin’s
fanish obsession, we also have a collection of baseball scrapbooks from the
1940s and ‘50s, and a bunch of 1990s boy band posters. Now all we need is a Star Trek fanzine from
the 1960s and we’ll be all set.
Seriously though, if you have one of those, we really do need one.
Very Interesting to learn about "Fandom" and being a "FAN" of all sorts of things to inclue magazines, blogs, storylines, TV, Soaps, Movies, Talk shows etc and how through time its evolved into what we have today, Thanks for sharing this unique blog !!
ReplyDelete