random thought of the day

[wildestranger]

I was wondering, as you do, about People Outside Fandom (whom I know exist, but try to avoid), and their perception of fannish devotion. Or actually, I noticed my old Gary Oldman poster of "Have you seen this wizard?", and started thinking about whether, for people outside fannish circles, that would be more embarrassing than the poster of Gerard Way which I currently have on my wall. Note that I personally have no shame about either of them.

But considering that Harry Potter is a children's book, and that My Chem is seen as an emo band for silly teenage girls, which would be more embarrassing to find on the wall of a 29-year-old woman? How would our culture read the fact that I've had such posters - what would it say about me to those who are outside the fannish subculture?

Yes, I'm trying to avoid doing my thesis, how did you guess? ;)

[Poll #1206019]

Comments

[shaggydogstail.livejournal.com]

I don't think a poster of either would be terribly embarrassing from a non-fannish point of view, because they're both socially acceptable enough that a poster isn't going to make you look like a weirdo. HP has the global phenomena thing and music posters are hardly unusual for twentysomethings and older. You'd get some people questioning the age-appropriateness of either although, given how many (non-fandom) grown women I've known who decorate their workspaces with Justin Timberlake or Take That posters, I'm not sure this is the issue it might once have been.

Music and film posters are the acceptable face of fandom - now, if you put up pieces of fan-art, that would be a different story.