The Fan Experience

An historical overview and analysis of emergent trends of the fan experience demonstrate that fans enter new modes of creativity and dialogue with each other and with producers via the use of technology, yet much of the fan experience would be familiar to 1930s-era members of the Science Fiction League. Fans are people with a common interest who create a community—a fandom—that revolves around a shared sense of purpose. Early fans engaged in fandom for a reason: for example, they thought science could save the world. With late 1960s-era media fandom came pointed advocacy, with fans banding together in common cause. Part of the fan experience is the fan–producer relationship, which has often been fraught, as fans may feel powerless even as technology has permitted dialogue between the two. Though the fan experience varies greatly, it revolves around fandom, the community fans create.