[NOTE: if you 'fuffle over this, I KEEL YOU!!!]

Hierarchy of Fannish Craxiness
OR
How we justify thinking that other people are nuttier than we are

The levels of fannish craziness are basically like a ladder: rung 1 is batshit crazy, and everyone thinks so, except them; rung 2 thinks rung 1 is crazy, but rung 3 thinks 2 AND 1 are crazy, which is funny, because rung 4 thinks that rungs 1-3, inclusive, are nutso. And so forth. To wit:

1. Kittens, or similar -- fans who become menacing unless they get what they want. (Highest level, c.f., the threats to Joss.)

2. Save [insert show here] campaigns. (Considered crazy *by others*, I would assume, because of the amount of investment on the part of the people involved.)

3. People who run fansites. (Crazy in the sense of, "Dude! It's *just a TV show*!" And barely a rung above #4.)

4. People who are involved in fansites. (Again with the *it's just a show!* reasoning.)

[Somewhere in here is the issue of fic, which runs parallel to this hierarchy -- people who write fic, and people who read fic might just be on the same rungs, respectively, as #3 and #4. Oh, and people who write real-person fic and put *themselves* in the fic, particularly as, say, David Boreanaz's love interest -- yeah, they're probably just a skosh below rung #1 but well above rung #2.]

5. People who watch a show, love the show, and can. NEVER. miss. an. episode! Who, if they suddenly find themselves in an unplanned situation where they'll miss watching it, will call friends to make sure they tape it. Who will call friends who don't even watch the show and ask them to tape it. Who will call 411 to get someone's phone number to ask them to tape it. (That last bit -- the 411 part -- happened to me last week, and an observer labelled the person who begged me to tape as, you guessed it, "crazy.")

6. People who love a show and make a point to watch it, but don't really care if they miss an episode.

7. I don't know what the bottom rung is -- maybe people without TVs? Or totally non-fannish people? Though that's more rung #6, IMO. Dunno.

Eh, I wasn't offended, Steph. I say pretty much the same thing in my title story.

It seemed to me, from the outside, that you were exercising organization skills, learning how to cope with/ignore prima donnas, learning how to get useful work out of volunteers even when they'd rather savage one another. Does it seem that way to you?

I think I walked into with these skills which made things easier.

The things I learned about myself are pretty embarassing. I learned that I did a lot of things to impress my heroes, because i felt so crappy about myself that I thought if I could do something to make them happy, to make them think I was smart and cool, then of course that would prove I was smart and cool.

That's not all of it, of course, I love a good David and Goliath story and wanted just once for the fans to win, to prove that we dorks/kraxy people were in fact powerful and savvy.

But prove to who? Eh.

Tep, you could have just linked to this.

I *do* think the Kittens are batshit crazy b/c of the don't-go-near-an-open-window insinuations

Yeah, but that's a level of threatening other people, real living people, with family and friends. It wouldn't be considered OK regardless to any sort of reason it's attached to, right?

actively worried about my sanity levels and mental health when they found out about my involvement in fandom

People here think I'm straight out insane if I ever say that my online friends are from a tv-show forum. Usually, when I talk about my trip to the USA, I just say "internet friends", and even that makes most people shriek for my sanity, wellbeing, lack of logic and the like.

Tep, you could have just linked to this.

And save myself all the emotional melodrama? Pfft!

YOU, missy, are the one who is CRAXXXXY if you think I'd do something that sensible!....

Tep, you could have just linked to this.

And save myself all the emotional melodrama?

Hmm.

t considers post 7187 and enters notes in file

It's beyond his comprehension as to how I can be friends with certain individuals (that I met online) because of a TV show.

Huh. So, if you met some lady at the supermarket in the soup aisle, and both discovered they stopped carrying your favorite brand of chicken noodle, and shared a moment of outrage and ended up chatting for 15 minutes about recipes and such, and decided to go across the street for a latte to discuss favorite cookbooks and exchanged numbers, and gradually became the best of friends, that would be an acceptable thing, I suppose?

But looking for spoilers or the schedule for your favorite television show online, finding that the show was on hiatus, and seeing a bunch of people saying funny shit about your fave television show, and responding to that, and then gradually becoming the best of friends is kraxy. It's Cause for Concern.

That's so sad to me.

Nilly!

People here think I'm straight out insane if I ever say that my online friends are from a tv-show forum. Usually, when I talk about my trip to the USA, I just say "internet friends", and even that makes most people shriek for my sanity, wellbeing, lack of logic and the like.

Precisely. If all they ever hear about are the crazy internet stalkers and scam artists, the same people who normally marvel at your intelligence and uncommon good sense think that BAM! you're being taken advantage of and don't even know it. How is that different from meeting a random stranger in a bar? Caution is a good thing IRL as well as online. Though I'm liable to give more credence to someone calling herself Steph L. rather than hottsxygrl69.

What's really funny is meeting other friends of Buffistas. "So, how do you know ___?" "Um...Friends of friends? Around town? Randomly?" "Oh, you're a Buffy person, right?"

Though I'm liable to give more credence to someone calling herself Steph L. rather than hottsxygrl69.

hottsxygrl69 was already taken. But you can call me that if you want to.