Acronym Fandom
The other day, I read that someone had “GAFIAted”, and it reminded me of the old fandom lifestyle acronyms, including FIAWOL and FIJANH. For those not steeped in the lingo, a quick review:
FIAWOL represented the “Fandom Is A Way Of Life” faction, those who eat, drink, and breathe fannish activities (fanac). Not necessarily ‘the basement geek’ of easy comedy – many in this category lead fulfilling lives.
FIJANH acronymed “Fandom Is Just A Nice Hobby”, the folks who spend plenty of their leisure time doing things unrelated to the fan world. Some folks use coarser language than “Nice”, with different initials.
GAFIA is “Getting Away From It All” – leaving behind the drama, expenses, sleepless nights and other trials of the subculture for a quieter, more mundane life.
So where do you fall in this list? It’s a spectrum, not separate groups, but if you had to pick one banner or another, which one would it be?
Tags: fandom, philosophy
Really more like halfway between FIJANH and FIAWOL. More like FINJANH.
There really should be a mid-point between AWOL and JANH, shouldn’t there? But there traditionally hasn’t been, and I think part of the fun is trying to decide between the two if you’re going to.
Really, though, I think the lion’s share of my flist would be at that midpoint if I’d offered it. I still want to see which they pick. 🙂
Fandom encompasses several hobbies and much of my social circle, for me, but I have a lot of other hobbies, so it’s not quite a way of life.
I’ve been largely done with it for years. If I do go to cons (when was the last time I did that?) it’s to socialize, but only gently.
Unless you count my Genesis activities; fan clubs and meetups and so on. But I think that’s not what you’re talking about.
I was of course talking about SF/F fandom, but a case could be made that you’ve just traded brands 🙂 We might have to move you up at least one category!
Hey, any fandom counts in my book, fantasy or sci-fi. fan is another word for ‘enthusiast’ that happens to have geeky/dorky connotation.
I don’t personally follow BSG anymore, but that English show with the doctor and its spinoff…
I always thought it was “FIJAGDH”…
Oh yea. “Coarser language”, missed that part. Dur.
Music geeks, let me tell you, are a whole other cannoli. The interpersonal interactions are way more dispassionate, I think.
Oh sorry – by Genesis I meant the band, not Neon Genesis Freaking Messes Up My Ebay Searches Evangelion.
Definitely between the first two, with perhaps a tip toward AWOL. On the other hand, I definitely don’t qualify with many of the hard core fans I’ve known. For one thing, I’m at least waiting for Star Trek to be released before I call for JJ Abrams head (and I still haven’t tried to kill Roland and Emmerich… yet…).
And speaking of FIAWOL, Larry Niven is scheduled to be the Guest of Honor at SheVaCon 2009.
Humph! Fascinating. Given the travel involved, though, TCon will retain higher-priority for me…
I would have thought you’d consider yourself deeply involved in furry fandom at least… which I would definitely consider in the same breath as SF/F genre. And you -have- chaired a con or two 🙂
FIJALife-ConsumingH
Yea, as Nate points out, just because it consumes a lot of time doesn’t make it a way of life. I could just as easily spend the money on my other hobbies, but at least for the time being, I feel a tiny bit more rewarded by participating in fan events.
I suppose I’m in the FIJANH camp…but a little more extreme. I don’t think I ever was big into the the FIAWOL but I’m bumping against that ceiling. I’m close to GAFIAting but probably more along the lines of FAFIAting…still, they can take my phaser from me when those damnned dirty apes pry it from my cold, dead…wait…where was I again??
I’m definately FIJANH but I’ve never been to a con and I refuse to see any of the new BSG’s. I just can’t accept Lorne Greene being replaced with Edward James Olmos…
I voted FIJANH, but I’m probably soundly between that and FIAWOL. I’d be more engaged in fandom if I could be, but it’s not the central part of my life these days.