Itās true of Curative and Creative Fandom- and to an extent itās the same with religion (Iām thinking of older versions of it, where everyone knows their role in society as prescribed by the archetypes). Fandom offers at least a way to choose the roles we are prescribed- but ultimately, writers or artists are fans of being writers and artists and the fandom allows them a good outlet for that in a way where they can create community, rather than simply aimlessly making art without connection. Yes, there are plenty of non-fandom artists; same as non-fandom curators, but in fandom the outlet is given direction under the control of the person, rather than an institution. Because how often do wiki archivists scoff at the characterization given by an actor, versus a regular wikipedia archivist who simply adds the information into the article.
Heās correct. And, heās wrong. I donāt think itās boring to speak to such people because he is missing his own point. Someone is a fan of curating information; they fixate perhaps on Star Wars, but rarely have I found those people SOLELY worry about Star Wars. Even the āmotherās basementā crowd also know a lot of esoteric information about how to build models, how the 1970s movie industry sold tickets, how the script mirrors certain events in the Roman Empire or WWII and thus you can get into long rambling story time hours about what might have happened if the Blitz happened a year earlier. Maybe if you only engage them literally on the film itself- but I think if you engage them in the way THEY engage in the film? Hell, even ask them about their preferred method of HTML when archiving Star Wars facts- thatās another facet of it.
