TW: Harry Potter
I've a tiny thing to fess up to. I'm 45 now and in my early 20s, I was involved in a small, often ridiculed group on the internet. I was a fangirl. That's not true, I never stopped being a fangirl.
I've been on the Internet for a long time. I had email during the late 1990s due to university. My first participation in a Fandom was consummation. One of the first websites I ever came across was for my favourite band at the time: Spacehog.
On that site were pictures, on other sites were bootlegs and hard-to-get music tracks. The site also covered when the band did gigs.
Later on in 2001 with Lord of the Rings, there was another fansite, more websites dedicated to fan fiction archives. There was meta. A small group I wasn't a part of communicated with each other. They met up and collaborated. I lurked, fascinated with the creation and this group of people having fun.
I had work, then finishing up my university degree. I had no time to even consider if I wanted to find out more about this group. I was content to watch as fandom commentary on the films was created. Meta-fiction came as a commentary and critique on some fanfiction. The communities were rich and had been around for some time, but the movies caused a kind of Eternal September for the Fandoms as canon changed. One meta-fiction referred to it as a canon quake. Which at the time felt appropriate.
Then 2004 came and some friends invited me to a Harry Potter film. The third one. I'd resisted the Harry Potter books. In 97 I remember some of my fencing friends were parents and they were hugely into Harry Potter. It sucked them in as they read to their children. So I watched the earlier films while babysitting my friend's child. I read all the preceding books before the film.
Then my friends having got me to do this persuaded me to join Livejournal.
It was amazing. Some of the LOTR fandom folks were on here. I even got to talk to a few of them. Fandom communities can be kinda magical. People come together in groups because of something they love and feel inspired by. There was even more meta-commentary, small remote inner circles of friends who'd met each other. Livejournal's blogs and community group blogs facilitated group communication. It pointed people at other fandom spaces.
So of course there was more drama.
I watched and was entertained as Fandom Drama happened, not realising that I was getting the start of an education in community dynamics. There were cults, catfishing, "the nanny did it." Some of the abusers moved on to different fandoms.
Spooling forward to 2013, I joined Tumblr to look at the commentary on The Hour (An Excellent News Drama about the BBC). Then the Fox by Ylvis dropped. A small community had formed on Tumblr. I got to communicate with the Norwegian Fans, and they welcomed everyone. It was awesome.
Before I knew it some of us went to Norway to watch the Spectrum show they put on. I got to see the technical rehearsal. I even got to meet up with someone who had contributed so much to the Lord of the Rings fandom. She's awesome and took me to some really cool sites in Oslo. I hope to see her in person again one day.
Then in May, we ended up in Bergen again. Seeing the live performance was awesome, yes. But I mainly liked meeting up and talking to my group. There was mild competition between the Facebook group and the Tumblr group, but some of us were in both communities.
Then drama started hitting the Tumblr group.
It's a funny thing when you're considered one of the inner circle, even when there's not an inner circle. This time, I'd posted meta-commentary, made jokes, and spread good-meaning glitter via a warm message. New people joined and observed. The community grew and the drama grew.
In the end, I left.
I still enjoy the content. However I've not the desire to revisit the group, it was a place in time and space. I've always been realistic rather than nostalgic.
But all of these experiences in Fandom communities gave me insight.
The thing I've noticed over the years is that our technical communities are extremely similar to fandoms. While we're talking about software, it's still something that humans form around.
We pick our software and it's not always for purely technical, logical reasons. Even when you are telling yourself that you are, the human factor counts. What you think is a purely technical reason, may still be rooted in some form of emotion. You become part of a Project community because you love the software, you're inspired to use it and sometimes by the developers.
We have our BDFLs who create that software and we put them on a pedestal. We have a parasocial relationship with them, just as much as some fandoms do with their actors, artists musicians and writers. The moment you go up on a stage and do a talk, end up with some followers or create a software project, the parasocial relationship isn't far behind.
But Esther, I hear you ask. What does this have to do with community? We're professionals. What about the entitlement? The hassle, the lack of support for our project sustainability?
Communities form around a commonality. Humans are emotional creatures. It's not enough to have an abstract goal of "Make stuff better, free from Billionaires." People need to care, and they need to have an emotional connection to each other.
In order to get folks behind your project to care enough to fund you, to give you their free labour, you have to forge a connection with them. It's not enough to have a movement and say this is here, let's all form around this.
You need people to inspire others to want to join in. You need that emotional connection, to help you keep going when the shit hits the fan, or drama happens. You need a community to help you to recognise and stop abusive situations. You need a community to pull together when some of you are not sociable, but others are. You need that so people stay in the community.
People often dismiss abuse in communities as just drama. I know I did in Fandom. But when a situation blew up right in front of me and I had to defuse a situation, I realised it's not just drama. We keep seeing people leave FOSS communities and it's because some folks like focusing on the overall goals. When they should be thinking about who do they leave behind? Who's perspective and experience have you alienated because your community has dismissed the valid complaints of community members as entitlement or drama?
I think if you scratch deeply enough in the background of folks who really get community, you'll probably find someone who grew up in the trenches of Fandom. All the way back to the zines of the 1960s. Some of our great community organisers grew up in various protest movements.
However, human dynamics are the same, no matter your background or experience. But we internet denizens could do with reading the history of protest movements. There's always something new to learn. But If you came up in the same way I did, there's no need to be ashamed.
You started to participate in your community for something you loved. You loved communicating with others in your community. When fires started you tried to put them out, to welcome others into your community. Fandom in particular is a queer space.
There's a reason why in Librecast I chose the title of Community Manager. I want to foster a community for my project. I want people to be involved and to help to steer our course. I want to ensure our software helps our communities communicate.
But to help us to build that, we need to understand the communities we want to build it for. So part of that for me, which isn't a chore, it's the best part of what I do, is to interact with the wider community that I'm a part of. I love meeting new people.
Some folks see community as a hand-wavy word and prefer the idea of fostering movements. But all that a movement is a conglomerate of small community groups. Movements to most people are remote. But folks are used to the idea of a community. It's small, and local, it consists of close relationships.
Movements are a large mass. Fandom taught me that community is the glue that holds movements together.