God, it can't be healthy to read this much metafandom

[paraka]

So. Instead of working on my vid, doing research for my vid, or, you know, packing, I spent the night reading metafandom posts. I'm a little behind, so I'm still reading all the privacy issue ones and haven't hit the Fandom History "Don't feed the trolls" posts or the "FanLib has been shut down, Ha!" posts.

That said, it really makes me curious. What would you do if you were outed in fandom? What would you be afraid of happening if your fandom names and RL names were linked?

Personally, I don't think I'd be *that* worried. For one, I have a really common name. Actually, I have a name that is shared by a well loved character in a show with a nice big fandom out there, so if you google my name, you tend to get hits on him instead. Also, at this point in my career, I think all I'd get would be some mocking from one of the guys at work if people found out. I read fanfic during my lunch at work, I've had coworkers ask me about it, and I've even explained what it is. I told my boss last month that I wanted days off so I could go to a sci fi convention. When I mentioned I thought it might end up being lame (FedCon had a lot of actors from shows I don't watch), she assumed that I was saying that because I was ashamed and encouraged me to be happy about it. I regularly talk to my family about my fannish activities (although I don't think my mom could handle the slash part. She was really uncomfortable when she knew I was watching QaF) and my mom encourages me to vid.

I think my big concerns would be for the future. Currently the only thing that might get me in trouble is the snarry archive I run. I would have no problem telling people that I read slash, but they might not get the appeal of Harry and Snape, with the whole Harry being a kid and Snape as old as his parents parts. I worry a little because being in politics appeals to me and I don't think I'd want my fannish life to be part of a counter campaign if I ever ran for anything. But, well, I'm one of those people who thinks fandom is a way of life, so I think no matter what I do in the future, fandom is going to be a part of it. And I'm not particularly interested in hiding that aspect of my life.

So what about the people on my flist?

Comments

[paraka]

Your namesake is prettttttyyyyy! *veg*
Ha, now I'm just picturing myself writing fic for that pairing and making him a total Mary Sue, I mean come on! He has my name! That's just *asking* to be Mary Sued. :P

Yep. I'm like you. My workmates, before I retired, knew all my travel was to sf/media conventions, and that I worked on the local ones. I was always talking about shows and fandom, as it was just the way I was.
*nods* I also work in an environment where people are friendly and ask you a lot about what you do outside of work and to be honest, I don't do a lot other than fandom. I'm not going to try and lie if someone asks me what I did on my vacation.
I'm always a little surprised when people do. I once lived with a woman who was really super into fandom. If you went to her house she had fandom stuff on all the walls and would go to all the cons, etc. But she told me she doesn't let "RL people" know about her fannish stuff. She said she'd come out at work about being a lesbian before she would admit to being a sci fi fan. I found that really weird.

I think only the slash has been a secret, and I think that is more from conditioning than anything else. I've never been shy about supporting gay rights... But I started out in a slash fandom where you needed both a secret handshake and someone to vouch for you in order to be allowed into the club.
Secret handshake aside, I generally don't come out about slash either. It's not really because I'm ashamed of it, or because I was told to keep it a secret, it's more because a lot of people just don't understand the appeal. Males finding lesbians hot is well established but no one understands why women would find gay men hot. It's just not worth it to try and explain.

LJ is really the only place now that I use a pseud. My yahoo.groups all have the sig Linda, my first name.
That's very similar for me too. I find it a bit weird to refer to myself as paraka. On mailing lists or when I'm chatting with people I always call myself Lindsay. Hell, the way my email is set up it shows my first and last name, so they all know my name over there if they care to look. Plus I use my LJ email, so it really wouldn't be hard for the mailing list people to put two and two together. Granted googling my RL name doesn't bring anything about me up, even if you're patient enough to go back to the 50th page of hits (which I've done in the past).