Ah, fanart. Also known as the art that girls make.
Sad, immature girls no one takes seriously. Girls who are taught that it’s shameful to be excited or passionate about anything, that it’s pathetic to gush about what attracts them, that it’s wrong to be a geek, that they should feel embarrassed about having a crush, that they’re not allowed to gaze or stare or wish or desire. Girls who need to grow out of it.
That’s the art you mean, right?
Because in my experience, when grown men make it, nobody calls it fanart. They just call it art. And everyone takes it very seriously.
Yup.
See also, fanfic, vidding, and being in fandom generally.
I can’t tell you how many fangirls on Tumblr I’ve seen telling other fangirls on Tumblr along the lines of “you’re too old to be in fandom anyway” and uh no
stop doing that shit to each other, stop doing it to yourselves. you are never too old to feel passion and love what you love.
OH AND especially important is this part: you can leverage all those skills you picked up from fandom to launch meaningful professional careers. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen men and women put fanart in their professional portfolios.
And you want to know how you get there? You *continue to network* with the fans around you who are right there beside you right now, doing it with you in fandom, getting better with you, forming circles of influence with you, being awesome with you. If you think you’re hot now, wait til you tell a potential employer you’re so well-networked you have a whole huge community of potential writers and artists and designers and editors and coders around you who are just as talented and amazing as you are, and you know how to tap into their wisdom to make your own work better.
Fandom gives you all of that and more. Don’t EVER feel like you’re obliged to “age out” of one of the best fucking career assets and professional networks and general all-around amazing support groups and sources of empowerment you are ever gonna find anywhere on the planet.Aja’s right on top of it here. Almost all the fangirls and fanboys I knew well in NY Trek fandom went on to become (conventionally) published writers, editors and even publishers. They went where their passions took them, and then far onward into the unexpected.
As for me, they will attempt to pry my fandoms / my fannishness out of my cold dead hands, because I’m taking them with me. After I stop breathing I will stand there on the bright floor of Wherever and (when the welcoming commitee arrives) the first thing I say will be, “Where’s the fan lounge? Because I know I saw this in somebody’s AU Trekfic in 1972…”
