But true status is not related to opinion. In other words, if I am the Head of Production, I can fire you whether you like me or not. If I am first chair violin, I am a better player (or paid and given parts as if I am better) than third chair, no matter what third chair thinks.

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please feel free to come to the next con I attend and defend it.

Hey, I already know no one else (except maybe Allyson) agrees. I need no acceptance.

Does that mean that costuming is not fannish?

I don't think your attitude to costuming defines costuming.

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Well, somebody had to hire you as first chair. Which is where the rub comes in; third chair may think that you couldn't produce a true A if you had a tuning fork stuck up your nose, but her opinion doesn't count.

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I mean, I know my experience of fandom, but what's the difference between someone who's a fan of the show and someone who's in fandom? It's nearly an eternal, unanswerable question.

Fandom implies community. I always figure the bottom cut-off for a fan to be a citizen of a fandom, is either participation in group fan gatherings (f2f or cyber), and/or self-identifcation as part of fandom. A lot of people who would self describe as fans of a show, don't know the term fandom, and would never go to a con, or bother posting (with any regularity) on a fansite. Some fans visit fandom, but don't join it, over time. For example, people came out of the woodwork to post at the Bronze, after New Moon Rising. I wouldn't count them as part of fandom just for that, if they never came back, and didn't have any other group-of-fans contact.

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I don't think your attitude to costuming defines costuming.

But my experience is that costumers recognize other people's condition; they make no effect to produce it. People in hall costumes don't wander the halls saying "Isn't this lovely? I know a cheap sewing machine you could try."

Whereas Suela, for Farscape, did everything short of putting a DVD in her garter and flashing it on streetcorners. And more power to her.

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But popularity is NOT the same thing--status has to do with someone recognizing you as better, and it doesn't matter whether they like you or not.

My experience says differently. Popularity in my teens meant power. Sometimes, quantitative skills or possessions (your definition of status) could confer power (jocks, rich kids), and sometimes it couldn't (nerds). But popularity always meant power, and not liking. That's the whole concept behind sucking up, isn't it?

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Hmm. I don't try to convince people that Historic Costuming Is Cool, although I very happily talk to people who share my interest. Does that mean that costuming is not fannish?

I'm unclear what you mean. Do you seek out other costumers/spend your time planning for the next RenFaire-like-thing, or is costuming something you enjoy, but that doesn't inspire you to go to great lengths to geek about it. Costuming can be very fannish, but that doesn't mean that someone who enjoys costuming is going to be a fandom-type-person about it.

(Just woke from nap. Sorry if my request for clarity is unclear.)

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I don't see anything inherently evangelical about fandoms, no. In fact, the idea that a fandom is something that makes you special (even if the mundanes aren't sophisticated enough to realise your true brilliance) and isn't open to everyone doesn't contradict my feeling of fandom at all.

Suela's an exhibitionist. That's all. Like I'm a krav exhibitionist, but that doesn't mean I'm in a martial arts fandom.

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Do you seek out other costumers/spend your time planning for the next RenFaire-like-thing, or is costuming something you enjoy, but that doesn't inspire you to go to great lengths to geek about it.

Pretty much B. I may be a fan, but I am shy. So I read mailing lists and buy books and (rarely) sew some.

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Do you post to the list, Betsy? Do the other costumers know of you, the way you know of random Buffista?

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