fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2946 ]

[ SECRET POST #2946 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2946 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 038 secrets from Secret Submission Post #421.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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It's probably because fandom tends to skew young, particularly online fandom.

It doesn't, though, with a few exceptions such as One Direction RPF.

I think it does. There are a lot more 12 year olds in fandom than 65 year olds I'd wager. At least online.

If you're talking about things like book clubs, though, I'll give you that.

NAYRT, but I don't know that it's as young as people may think. The older ones (like me) just don't trumpet our ages.

This. There are a hell of a lot of older fans, we just learn to keep our mouths shut so that people don't read us as maternal or some such shit.

Same here. Since younger people tend to be kind of ageist, I don't advertise how old I am.

(no subject)

toshi_hakari - 2015-01-28 05:52 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2015-01-28 08:05 (UTC) - Expand

I don't go around telling people I'm in my 50's. Don't think it's relevant.

Yeah, but there are anonymous fandom surveys done in places, and they seem to suggest that fandom skews young, even when done on fandom communities that tend to skew older.

It makes sense; older people have careers, families, things that tend to eat up a lot of time that fandom used to take up. Mid-to-late twenties seems to be the time when a lot of people either cease activity in fandom or their fandom activity declines.

Edited 2015-01-29 03:24 (UTC)

No, online fandom specifically. I have a lot more friends in their sixties online than in their teens. I'm 31, and that seems to be about the average age across fandom. People my age got into online fandom in their early teens and we never left - people older than me got into it in their late teens or at college, and never left either.

That's true for me. I'm 39, and I got into fandom with newsgroups and message boards and mailing lists when I got to college. :)

Yeah, because anyone 60+ can't even turn on a computer, all they're capable of is sedate things like book clubs, amirite?

I'm not sure you know a thing about 65 year olds. Or book clubs for that matter, because last time I checked they were mostly excuses for sitting around getting drunk and talking about sex (which is usually a hundred times more entertaining than the books).

Do you visit Tumblr?

Nope (http://royal.pingdom.com/2012/08/21/report-social-network-demographics-in-2012/). For example, the average age of Tumblr is 34.6 years old. The idea that "fandom skews young" is a myth.

Tumblr is way more than just fandom, though, even though fandom people tend to look at it from that bubble.

I think though you'll find that younger people tend to be more active in fandom, if only because they have much more time.

When I see those results, for example, I can agree that there are definitely older people IN fandom, but I don't think they're nearly as active as the younger members.

Okay but there are a lot more things on Tumblr besides Fandom.

A lot.

There are other stuff, but the majority of tumblr is fandom related if you saw the 'Most Popular' stuff they did at the end of 2014.

The non-fandom stuff is a minority.

That wouldn't surprise me. I think a lot of people lie about their age on tumblr anyways.

Some platforms tend to skew young, like Tumblr.

Fandom itself? No.

da

I think it depends on the fandom and the medium. I'd frankly suggest most online fandom communities that are centered around fan-media (art, fic, vids) probably tend to be younger than official message boards. Anime is probably usually going to have a younger average age. Old media probably tends to have older fans, too.

I guess it depends on the fandom. Most of my fandoms list their ages as 20-30.

I also think times have changed since most of the people in their 20's have been using the internet most of their lives. Compared to the older generation who probably could only collect stuff or go to actual conventions to be a part of fandom.

Nope. The older generation was perfectly capable of getting online when the internet was widespread. People who are in their 40s and 50s now were in their 20s and 30s when things really started to take off in the mid-90s.

I mean, really, who do you think created a lot of the fan culture, archival sites, and general basis for online fandom that fans use now? It didn't spring fully-formed from the forehead of the internet like a particularly porn-saturated Athena.

That's exactly what a lot of people seem to think. When I first got into online fandom 20 years ago, there was already a infrastructure to work with, and that has been added to and upgraded ever since. But a lot of fans don't know about this "ancient history" and seem to think that fandom started with LJ and tumblr.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2015-01-28 09:33 (UTC) - Expand

Very, very true - and people in SF fandom tended be early adopters of technology, so they were more likely to be online as soon as possible than other people of their age.

53 here and been in online fandom since 1997. So, probably a lot longer than many younger fans.

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