What was the final airdate for Buffy?

May 20, 2003.

Most of my post-college jobs have been in some sort of social benefit area: civil rights/EEO law, non-profit,

I didn't know that about you. Cool.

You know what I always found interesting about fandom is that people are thrust into roles in which they are completely unfamiliar with and would never have outside of fandom. Someone who was never popular might suddenly find themselves the BMOC. Maybe most people think you have an odd sense of humor but when you're among your kind, you're the funniest person in the room. Perhaps you're a bit of a social misfit but when you're with your peeps someone says, "that's ok buddy, you can hang with me" (before you know it you're talking to girls!) Some people may find themselves suddenly in some kind of leadership role.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this but it's something about being among your kind and it bringing out traits in you that either you didn't know you had or wish other people could see. They laugh at the jokes people normally don't get. They think your smart because you have oddball theories about story arcs. All of sudden, you believe you are smart, you are funny, you can make a website, you can write fanfic that people will read and enjoy, you can organize events, or any of the other countless things people would have never have done without the support and acceptance of fandom.

Fandom is the place where people get your jokes.

Yes. And fandom is the place where people get that not all of your fannish references are jokes, simply because they're fannish.

Fandom is the place where people get your jokes.

Yes. And your book references, too.

And your Sondheim references. Well, I guess that's really Betsydom. Still.

In fandom, you don't have to include all the backstory when you're commenting on something. When I'm comparing something in SG-1 to Christianity in my class, I have to explain what SG-1 is and why something on a SciFi show might relate to real life and still people look at me like a weirdo because I watch TV and have a brain. Here, people get it.

In a whole bunch of sharing with some kravvers (there's an odd fandom, right there), I mentioned that my "Other Interests" section on my day job's intranet was basically "Teaches krav maga and watches television."

The instructor I was talking to was quite surprised. Didn't think I was the type to watch more than ten minutes of TV. I told him, no, I'd recently come to accept that TV was a hobby of mine, the way some people follow sports.

I think in LA, that might be easier to get across than in other places--he came down to "Oh, I dated a woman who followed TV like that, but she was in the business."

I don't think he was ready for the full fandom discussion.

Yeah, outside of LA (or at least in Education), where people are really proud of not watching any tv, it is not, in general, considered a reasonable hobby. This is, IMO, unreasonable, but it's not like I'm convincing most of them of most of my other quirks, either.