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F!S Anon Meme (the ??th)

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That's about it, though!

(Today's post is below.)

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Am I the only one who not only got into fandom as a teen, but told their parents pretty soon after the fact?

In my case, it was because I shared a computer with my parents, and chances were they'd find the sites I was on or walk in on me anyway. So I told them. They were fine with it, but when they told other family members, they weren't so fine with it.

OTOH, I knew people who did, and I knew they did because their parents made them leave fandom forever. Which is kind of sad, but given that this was 2002, completely understandable. It's weird for me now though, because when my niece first got facebook I was horrified, and yet felt really hypocritical. But she was only twelve at the time, I was in high school, and I definitely didn't have my name and everything out there. I still don't.

I told my parents about fandom because I didn't have any friends to share it with.

I didn't tell them about porn, though.

I dunno. My parents knew I was pretty geeky and I'm pretty sure they knew. They knew I wrote fic (at least, my dad did). I drew fan art and wrote fic with my brother even before we had the internet, so.

They might have known about the porn, but I never told them directly.

My parents kept a pretty watchful eye on my internet use, but never really had a problem with my fandom involvement. Of course, back then it was mostly just fanfic on FFN and fanart on DA, and a couple of well moderated fan-forums. I didn't start getting into communities like LJ until I was a little older. I imagine they would have had more of a problem with those - there's no way I would have been allowed on Tumblr if it had existed back then. But by the time I was 17 or so it wasn't really an issue at all.

It probably helps that I never had (and still don't have) any interest in the more explicit parts of fandom. I might have accidentally stumbled upon someone's lemon fic, but my parents never had to worry about me going out looking for it and I suspect they knew that.

AYRT

Ahh, yeah, I'm pretty sure my parents wouldn't have liked LJ either! Like you I was on ff.n and forums that had mods, and while I went to some of the more explicit parts of fandom because I liked the tamer stuff they also had there, I assured my parents I wasn't reading those fics.

I got into fandom quite young - reading horrible OOC humour fics on ff.net, posting on the main forum for the fandom at the time, etc. and told my mother about it.

Instead of having a frank talk with me about Internet safety, she made up an entire fake news story about pedophiles in my area, who "oh look, just so happen to be posting on these fandom websites here and here!", forced me to give over my email password and chatlogs so she could read through every conversation I'd ever had (including MSN conversations with irl friends), and basically scared me shitless. I went to school every day for a week, shaking. Even though I hadn't given out any personal information whatsoever besides my first name and the country I lived in.

I didn't engage in any fandom activities for a while after that. It's a shame, actually, because I recently rejoined that fandom and a lot of the fans there are people from the old days who stayed in touch and grew up together - something I would have been a part of if I'd stuck around, too.

What do you mean told them about it? I've never used the word fandom to my mom. But of course she knew about the things I was interested in and that I spent a lot of time on the computer talking to other people about said things. I don't think I ever have talked to her about specifics like fan fiction, role play, or meta.

When I first got into things I was like 13 at the time, so I suppose it was unavoidable that she'd be sort of into what I was up to. She was still way more lax than most parents would be.

Same. They have always known I spent time on the net talking about my interests but don't realize what fandom truly is. (Which is fine by me.)

I never talked about my fandom stuff and my mom never gave a shit. she drove me to meet some of my online friends. it was pretty cool

I got into fandom when I was about 15 (so '96 or so, pretty much as soon as we got the internet at home) and I remember explaining fanfic to my mother shortly after because she caught me printing out something I wrote. And I remember showing her my first website - although I wouldn't tell her the url - just because I was really proud of learning html. None of my offline friends cared about fandom or internet stuff in general, so my mother ended up hearing a lot about it just because there was no one else who would listen to me (almost 20 years later, she's still super interested in my fandom involvement). She generally knew what I was up to (although all the porn I read would have surprised her), and while she didn't want me meeting up with anyone I'd met online - and I didn't until I was in my 20s - she never monitored my internet use and seemed happy enough to let me do my thing and make friends and whatever.

I got into fandom as a preteen, and I did tell my mom. She didn't look over my shoulder or check my browser history, I just wanted to tell her everything at that age. I wasn't into smut or anything worrying back then, so she was supportive.

My mom actually got into fandom before me so...you know. I didn't need to tell her. She already knew.

There was no "fandom" when I was a teen in the sense there is now; the internet only came along in a big way after I was grown up. But my kid is 15 and in fandom, discusses it with my husband and me openly and is following me on Tumblr. (She is not, however, on Facebook and, to my knowledge, hasn't put her real name and face out there at all. I hope I've taught her better.)

I got into fandom when I was ~10 (which was almost twenty years ago) and I told my parents right away because it didn't occur to me NOT to tell them? I wasn't in the teenager "Ugh my parents are stupid about everything" phase yet, so it seemed natural that, when they asked me about my day, I tell them about the message board I found on AOL and all the people I was talking to.

I honestly think it was the best possible turn out because they sort of half-assedly monitored what I was doing in fandom for a couple months, realized it was boring as hell to them and they didn't want to wade through hundreds of kids' message board posts about cartoons they didn't care about, and kind of let me go off on my own? So by the time I was older and curious about the more mature stuff, they had long since given up caring about my fannish endeavors as more than just a "that's nice dear, have fun writing your stories" thing.

I find it confusing that apparently people don't...approve?...of fandom. like what is there to be Not Okay about?

AYRT

Well, I know when I got into it, it was in 2000, so the world was convinced any teenager who touched a computer would be stalked. It wasn't so much anti-fandom as it was a general waryness about teens having access to the internet.

Honestly I don't approve of fandom for myself. It's an interest I don't share with anybody IRL, so it's hard for me to imagine it being anything but a place I escape to. It's all time I should be spending in other ways.

I started going to conventions at age 14 and my parents were not only cool with it, they encouraged it. My mom was thrilled when I started cosplaying because I asked her to teach me how to sew.

Hell, they even let one of my fandom friends stay at our house for a week and even now, years later, they still ask me how she's doing.

I spent my teenage years (first went online in 2002) scared that if my father knew I was talking to strangers on the internet, he would sell the computer. This was rather paranoid on my part, but he verbally abused my mother so in my mind there was very little he wouldn't do.

I told my parents when I was 15/16 and my mum was worried about the legality of fanfiction and got me to stop writing it. I've had writer's block ever since and I kind of secretly blame her for it ever since I made that connection :( I feel bad about that.

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