13th Congress of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research

Presentation Abstracts

MERRICK, Helen

‘We was cross-dressing ‘afore you were born!’ - or how SF fans invented virtual community

Many critical studies of ‘virtual communities’ on the Internet figure these online forms of communication as a unique contemporary development. Cultural precedents may be found, however, most strikingly in the subculture of science fiction fan communities. Since the 1920s and 1930s, SF fan communities have developed an identifiable cultural and social identity, produced through unique narratives, lore, specialised language and iconography, expressed through a diverse range of texts, media, exchanges and rituals.

This paper will explore a number of fan narratives and rituals in relation to current theoretical notions of ‘virtual communities’ with particular reference to issues of gender, representation and language. A useful point of comparison is the current concern with ‘gender deception’ on the net, with earlier fan traditions of ‘hoaxes’ involving narrative ‘cross-dressing’. As a number of fan communities now operate online, I examine how fan practices and narratives have translated onto the Internet, and whether or not fan communities are particularly suited to an online environment. Such comparative studies provide valuable lessons for our critical understandings of ‘community’ and cultures in an online world.