FREAKS AND GEEKS: A STUDY INTO FANDOM

FREAKS AND GEEKS A STUDY INTO FANDOM

DEAD HORSE PRINT

How the fandom influences ones personal identity, and the collective identity of a group.

Identity and Community

What is fandom?

A fandom is a community made up of individuals who seek out a voluntary collective. These collectives are characterised by a feeling of empathy and camaraderie with others who share a common interest. Fans typically are interested in even minor details of the subject in question and spend a significant portion of their time and energy involved with their interest, often as a part of a larger network. Although some individuals find themselves outside of any distinct community, while still considering themselves fans.

A fandom can grow from almost anything. A particular celebrity, a sports team, a movie or television show, or an entire hobby or discipline.

While some wear the fandom badge of honour, others hide away, afraid of the social consequences.

“It can be a myriad of problems, it could be environmental, it could be the fact that maybe they’ve found solace in an object. For example, if there’s situational problems going on. I can think of clients I’ve worked with where it’s been related to things like bullying. My experience is that it can come from anywhere.

When I first started to study fandom, four clear areas stood out. Areas of daily life that can be positively or negatively effected by an obsessive fixation:

Time and Money

This is the beginning of a study into fandom.

the physical and mental effects of obsessive fandom, and how these effect the ability to connect with other people, both inside and outside of the community.

Chris’s insight raised a lot of questions for me. As someone who enjoys and collects things (books and records), it struck me as bizarre that this could consume someones entire life. I never spent all my money on one thing, or queued over night, or based my social life around any particular thing. As an outsider to the world of fandom, I was deeply curious to figure out what made these individuals unable to disconnect.

Health and Relationships

“I’ve worked with people who are heavily into Manga. They would isolate themselves away from the world and may not have many friends or a social network. And much of their social network would be lived through Manga and maybe through forums, and people who are into the same ideas. This causes problems for them, because when they step into the world, they may not have the social skills to function.”

The resources a person expends on pursuing their particular fandom

“If we think about the idea of investing in something hugely, spending not just money but time and energy it can take us away from our world problems. There’s been evidence to show that some people use fandom as, what we call, emotionally regulating.

The response of those outside of the community, and how attitudes towards nerd and fan culture have developed over time.

Clinical studies into fandom are rare, but some practitioners do have experience with treating individuals whose lives have been negatively affected by an intense fixation on a particular fandom. My first step into the world of fandom was to speak to Chris Roberts, a psychotherapist with experience treating individuals afflicted by obsessive fandom.

Stigma and Bullying

Some engagements with fandom are healthy, and help an individual to transcend personal issues with socialising, many people who have been bullied at school, or endured a difficult home life seek comfort and affirmation from these communities.

IDENTITY AND COMMUNITY We all have an identity. Some people place their identity in the hands of their nationality, religion, gender or sexual orientation. Others in their personal achievements, their job, overcoming a disability or learning difficulty. Others place it in the community they belong to, outside of their nationality or religion, such as a fandom. Traditional communities include the family unit, the church, and the neighbourhood an individual grows up in.

That was Charmaine Arnold, a counsellor at the Therapy Life Centre in Southend on Sea, Essex. The centre, also home to Chris Roberts. The centre treats individuals dealing with bizarre fixations, among other things. From OCD to obsessive fandom.

“Most of us live in either a rural or urban community. So, what do we mean when we use the word ‘community’? How would we define community? Quite simply a community is made up of people and the environment in which they live.

Migration and immigration has changed the face of many communities, especially over the last 30 years, bringing a diversity of people, often with complex needs, particularly into urban areas. Added to this an ever increasing older population with very particular needs.

“Within the wider community there are also sub-communities, for example within schools and hospitals, both of which have unique characteristics of identity, diversity, and need.

“Some communities are fortunate to grow up by the coast, or have good parks and woods, whereas other communities have limited facilities, especially within inner cities, where the need for green space is paramount.”

Obsessive fandom is a fairly recent phenomenon, the social and cultural revolution of the 1960s gave way to a new sense of freedom and liberation among western youth, a clear example of this is Beatlemania.

What is it about the society we currently live in that facilitates and enables these communities to pop up? Is it social media? The dwindling influence of more traditional communities?

I spoke to clinical therapist Hanna Ehlers about these very questions. Hanna claims accessibility to be the first major cause, the internet seems to have broken down the walls that would normally separate people from particular subcultures. For example, if one wanted to engage with the punk scene of the late 1970s, they’d have to physically go and be around it, whether at a gig, pub, or particular shop. Secondly, smartphone culture and social media, which enables us to access information in no more than a moment.

“For example, let’s say someone’s getting really into a particular movie, or band, or they’re starting to get obsessive or into something, they can just research it, find out something at the drop of a hat. Whereas obviously in the past you wouldn’t have that immediate access.

“so that probably really aids that journey, but also I think looking at the individual there are certain components. For example, growing up you’re really looking at forming an identity, forming a self, looking at who you are.

“So basically, you’re drawn to sort of seeking out a place of belonging.

Who am I, and what does that look like.

“Also, sometimes we’re just bored, we need an outlet for escapism. When we think about fandom, or people who get really obsessed with things, a lot of is is that actually there’s a whole in your life somewhere.”

Having spoken to the experts, I needed to meet some fans. One of the first communities I engaged with was Dungeons and Dragons. A popular tabletop game, a mixture of tactics, fortune, and storytelling. I was invited by CRAGS (Chester Roleplaying and Gaming Society) to attend a session.

Five players, one master. Not a phone in sight. This is a weekly four-hour session, people of all ages and walks of life come together to collectively enter an imaginary world beyond the lecture room they sit in. It’s a world of fire, snow, goblins, constant peril and the ever evasive end to the quest.

The lights are slightly dimmed and a playlist sets the mood. The dungeon master dictates the action, while the participants fail or succeed on the roll of a 20-sided dice. The mention of a defensive wall triggers a Donald Trump joke, before its teller is reminded of the ‘no politics’ rule. This meeting is a blend of imagination and socialising.

The characters are nuanced and written with care, each has their own strengths, aspirations and personalities. They talk to the dungeon master in character, occasionally breaking to crack a joke or sip a bottle of diet Pepsi.

Their stories, while involving peril, feel like an adventure, a brave and romantic quest.

The dungeon master is no simple task, the pacing of the stories, its twists and turns, it is a painstaking process, one that takes months to prepare. As to avoid juggling his university and roleplaying responsibilities, he writes his epic tales over the summer.

And at the end of a long and arduous summer of permutation, planning and careful narrative construction, six people who were strangers before can sit in a room and get to know each other via the game they all love.

“For me personally, for maybe four hours a week, I can forget about my deadlines, the world headlines, and just run my own world for a bit.

Maybe it’s about escapism, maybe it’s just for enjoyment, but I think the two go hand-in-hand.

“If you look at good video games, or a good film, or good music, it’s all about kind of forgetting where you are in the world for a bit, because the world can suck.”

Matt was eager to get across that the community set up around CRAGS was inclusive and open. A realm for all. This made me curious about individuals, who while engaging with the subject of fandom, find themselves outside of the community.

Harry Kelly is a student and avid collector of the Warhammer series. A game similar to Dungeons and Dragons in its mythological and adventurous source material. Where the two differ is how the game is played.

Warhammer operates on the intersection of hobby and craft. With participants painting and decorating their own figurines, which make up a larger army. The fanbase of the game is notoriously strict about maintaining the cannon of the series.

This is where Harry steps away from the community, choosing instead to splice figurines, creating new characters and divorcing himself from the cannon, and therefore the wider community. However, the hobby allowed him to grow closer to his siblings, as they introduced him to Warhammer.

“It’s one of the few things I’ve got a relationship with them about, pretty much.

“In all honesty I’ve become super cynical of it [the fanbase].”

“Whenever I tried to post my concepts into online forums, straight away I was met with negative feedback, people telling me that I wasn’t allowed to do what I was doing. It hurt because a big part of the community is sharing, playing together. But my characters weren’t allowed into games, because their abilities couldn’t be ratified by the games manual. It was so counter-productive, and it made me want to step away.”

Larger communities such as Warhammer are prone to division and disagreement. Smaller communities, based around a particular niche generally seem to be more cohesive. The search or a small and tightly-knit community led me to HEMA. HEMA is Historical European Martial Arts, a combat discipline based on ancient scrolls of a time gone by. A time of chivalrous knights and enchanting mythology, repurposed for the modern age. Like other fandoms, HEMA enjoys a well-followed online presence, yet relies on real-world interactions, as it takes two to tango.

I met with Tyler Schofield, a fan of HEMA, who set up a society for the sport upon coming to university.

“We use Medieval manuscripts of the techniques that Medieval knights would have used, and more or less turned it into a sport. It’s in a ring, like boxing. The two people have swords, and armour.

“I was watching random videos on YouTube, and that’s where I came across it. I thought it was cool, two people fighting with swords as a sport. It seemed like something I wanted to do, but there wasn’t the opportunity to do it.

Until I met my friend Tomaz. We formed the HEMA society, and then I got to actually do it, regularly.

“Most people don’t know what it is. If they do know then they tend to be a big fan, because if you know what it is then you tend to have a big interest in it.”

Though the following of HEMA forms a community, there is room for individuality among the collective. It’s common for HEMA members to personalise their gear. The combative nature of the sport requires the face to be covered by a metal mask, but Tyler designs his masks with patterns referencing his interests.

“I just think it adds a bit of personality. If you look at the Olympics, the last time they did the Olympics the fencers all had their country spray painted onto their mask so you could easily tell which country the fencer was from, it was on the mask. It looked really cool.”

Rob Williamson is a physiotherapist and martial artist. He provided me with the insight of general fandom. A collector and fan of anything from comic books and Japanese animation, to science fiction and music.

Unlike Harry, Matt and Tyler, he’s older. He remembers life before the internet and social media, a time before the normalisation of nerd culture and fandom.

His lifelong infatuation with these cultures stems from a date in entertainment history, possibly one of the most influential days in the history of popular culture; December 27th 1977, the release date of the first Star Wars movie.

“I trained martial arts because I wanted to be a Jedi. I raced mountain bikes because I wanted to ride speeder bikes, I became a therapist because I wanted to be a Jedi, I wanted to heal.

“I imagined growing up to be an Obi-Wan [Kenobi].

Obi-Wan was my hero, not Han Solo. Me and my dad got on much better as we got older, but my heroes were Obi-Wan Kenobi.

“Even now, there’s characters I identify with, who I think are great characters.”

Rob is also an avid gamer, a hobby and community which has taken on a new life, as gaming systems became increasingly common in the home.

The gaming community has come under increasing fire recently from outsiders. The ‘Gamergate’ scandal highlighted a

culture of toxicity within some gaming communities, while he acknowledges this, Rob also holds out hope that gaming can bring people from different cultures and backgrounds together.

“I’ve said this before, I think gamers will save the planet. When I played MOBA’s, I played with a Jordanian guy, an Iraqi guy, an Israeli guy, a French guy, a Swiss, a German, Portuguese.

“We played and we laughed. There’s times when I’m in a different room, because I don’t play next to my wife, I play in a different room, and she’ll get up in the middle of the night and close the door because we’re laughing so hard.

“I honestly think gamers will save the planet. We play for the love of gaming, for pulling something in particular off, and that works really well.”

By far the largest community of fans in this country, perhaps worldwide, is Football. The sport is followed by billions of people worldwide, on every continent. The 2018 FIFA World Cup final gathered 44.5 million viewers on the BBC alone, while the UEFA Champions League final was watched by an estimated 180 million people worldwide.

Edwin Davis is a lifelong supporter of Merseyside-based Everton FC, attending his first game in the late 1950s. He has since devoted his life to following the club through thick and thin, times of intense competition with local rivals Liverpool FC, and times of red dominance.

The following of football is an intense and passionate thing, as Eric Cantona once pointed out: “You can change your religion, nationality or gender, but you can never change your football team.”

Often ones support for a team is rooted in their upbringing, wether it be the team your parents support, or your local club, it forms an integral part of an individuals identity.

“It wasn’t until my late teens when I’d started work and found some Evertonians around me at work, here in North Wales. We very soon got season tickets and started regularly then.

“In my childhood, I can’t say that I was attending regularly, but I was seriously interested. I made sure that certain relatives always gave me their programs when they came home from the games, and so on.

“I was hooked.”

STIGMA A AND BULLY BULLYING It seems wherever you go and whatever you do, bullying is a part of the human experience. Negative interactions with others are as common as positive ones. It’s an issue faced by many members of fan communities, wether it be from within the community, from a different community, or from an outsider who doesn’t understand what they see.

Many members of fandoms feel the need to hide their true passions, wether it be behind a mask, behind a screen, or behind the appearance of normality. Some choose to be selective with who they tell about their communities, and others wear it on their sleeves regardless of the stigma.

“How happy we are within our communities will depend on our ability to interact with eachother and our own personal needs for an environment that offers us space and the opportunity to relax and enjoy ourselves. In schools, a safe, supporting and stimulating space will encourage learning. In hospitals, a clean, quiet space in which we can benefit from good medical expertise will encourage healing. Quite the opposite can happen in both of these environments if destructive elements exist, for example, bullying.

“Over the last 10 years, a different kind of community has kind of community has developed on the internet, where our interactions with other people is largely with people who we never see and can never fully know. Yet thousands of people share very personal information about themselves on the worldwide web.

“The internet offers anonymity, a place we can be whoever we want to be by using a pseudonym as a our disguise. A pseudonym gives us free range to be either destructive or compassionate toward others. Bullying can be very destructive, and if a pseudonym is used, the victim has no recourse. Whereas a donation to a charity would be a positive and compassionate source of help.”

Though nerd culture is becoming normalised, with some of the highest-grossing movies of the last decade being based on comic books, such as the massively successful Marvel Cinematic Universe, or the reboot of the Star Wars franchise, introducing a new generation to the galaxy far far away.

While the normalisation continues, some still haven’t gotten the memo. Matt from the D&D group shared an anecdote of his everyday experiences with the stigma attached to tabletop roleplaying.

“I think there’s certainly a misconception because people who don’t play it can often see it as something that’s kind of nerdy. And they’re right, it is nerdy, but that’s not an insult anymore. Maybe it was at one point, but because of how ‘nerd’ culture is evolving, it’s becoming more socially acceptable.

“You see people now, people like The Rock, Vin Diesel, Meryl Streep, Terry Crews, coming out and saying ‘yeah, we play D&D. It’s normalising it in a good way, so that people can’t turn around and give you shit for talking about it.

“Case in point, there was an American student who I interacted with last year who, whenever I mentioned anything connected with the hobby would quickly snear at it. Because she didn’t understand it, I don’t think she wanted to. It’s that kind of ignorance that some people have. I’d argue it’s getting less frequent nowadays, because most people have heard of a tabletop game in some form, regardless of if it’s D&D. “They’re becoming more acceptable, which is nice.”

A lot of people outside of these communities fail to the understand their appeal, this is the case for Tyler and the HEMA. Speaking to Tyler, and listening to his experiences with

passers by, I get the sense that the affiliation with fandom somewhat annoys him. The HEMA community want to be taken seriously as a sport, which requires dedication, skill and endurance.

“A lot of people, if they see us training or sparring, they just assume we’re a LARP [Live Action Role Playing] society.

“One’s more roleplaying, it’s not really physical, it’s closer to D&D. Whereas this is closer to a martial art, it’s a sport, it’s a combat sport.”

As more people become open to and receptive of nerd culture, it becomes a more acceptable thing to talk about. This hasn’t always been the case, as older fans can recall. Rob spoke of the hostile environment that nerds and fans found themselves in, even as recently as the turn of the century.

This atmosphere led to a defence mechanism of self-censorship and selective openness.

“It’s always been my guilty little secret. It’s something that I never used to share, I never used to talk about it. I had my crew, and we’d find each other out. But it wouldn’t be something I’d talk about to my ‘other friends’.

“I kept it under wraps. I was bullied at school enough as it is. I wouldn’t put that stuff above the parapet. I can nerd out about pretty much anything and I usually do. One thing I can nerd out about would be music, and that was more socially acceptable, because music was cool.

“It’s an interesting one, being a gamer as well, I’ve negotiated being bullied online, I’ve negotiated being a member of a gaming community, supporting people who are being bullied.

“There’s bullying within the community, as well as from the outside the community to within.”

Tribalism is an issue communities face from within, when there is a strong sense of collective, individuals who don’t tow the line can easily find themselves ostracised from the only communities they know.

Though the days of widespread football hooliganism seem to be behind us, with the introduction of banning orders complementing a general shift in culture, tribal mentalities still exist.

“It’s that sense of wanting to belong again, getting caught up in something like an infatuation with, and intoxication with the group. A core of what we’re talking about is this sense of belonging.

“We realise, wether we’re trying to belong in a relationship, in a group. Football is a classic way we can band together and have some common ground. Again, what does that mean if the individual doesn’t want to do something that the group is doing. It can turn quite easily, someone can get rejected easily. You’re either with us or against us, it’s the tribal mind. Which poses a problem, where is the individual in that.”

It sometimes takes the gravity of a serious event to make opposing tribes build bridges and forget the past.

One such event was the 1989 Hillsborough Stadium Disaster.

96 Liverpool FC supporters lost their lives after police negligence led to a ‘crush’ during an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.

The sheer loss of life, coupled with the demonisation of Liverpool supporters and Scousers as a whole bought two eternal rivals together in mourning.

The relationship between Liverpool and Everton is an interesting one, as many nuclear families are made up of both Liverpool and Everton supporters. Edwin’s wife is a Liverpool supporter.

“Everton and Liverpool harmonised together over Hillsborough.

“The record shows that. If you knew the truth of the matter, of Red [Liverpool] financial support towards Everton, and Blue [Everton] support toward Anfield and so on, don’t take too seriously the suggestions of animosity.

There’s a lot of mutual help and community work that goes on between them, which is the way it should be.”

TIME AND MONEY

The 21st century poses a unique set of issues and challenges for us all. On one hand we enjoy far more time for leisure and hobbies than previous generations, for whom, indulging in ones passions was a privilege reserved for the rich. On the other hand, money-related stress is high, many young people and university graduates face employment issues, and a housing ladder than many see as unreachable.

We have too much time, but not enough money.

Many individuals who find themselves engaging with obsessive fandoms run into serious issues with time and money. A lot of these hobbies are expensive and time-consuming. Maintaining a collection of figurines, comic books, and days in the crowd of a stadium can distract an individual from their work, responsibilities and real-world relationships. “The internet can also be a place to escape to when we are not feeling good about ourselves. When relationships with our family, friends, and colleagues at work are too challenging. For example, we can push our problems away by immersing ourselves in games or having a devotional obsession with a person or persons who attract us.

“Many hours can be spent this way. For some, the obsession can have a very detrimental effect, especially if they start to take time off work to pursue their following or indeed if they use company time to do so at work.

“The consequence of job loss can create severe financial problems, especially if the person has a family to support. However, this can be equally detrimental to a young person, who may become more isolated due to a lack of money, and be driven to further continue their passion on the internet.”

“I find it quite interesting. People that can do things for long periods of time with huge amounts of concentration, huge amounts of focus on this project, this passion. When it’s meaningful to your world, it’s really important. What does that mean for the rest of your life balance?

“Life balance is friends and family, your job, other hobbies, it’s a whole spectrum of things. What seems to happen in this sort of arena is that life balance seems to slip out and there’s a domination of an area.

That ends up being not very healthy, or it can effect relationships, or it can effect growth, or new opportunities coming up in your life.

“I like the idea that the psyche is trying to reach some sort of harmony, there’s a reason for it, the mind and emotions both going toward it. Maybe it’s just a time in someones life, it’s good to look at it like there’s just a time in your life and you’re involved in something heavily because it’s what you need right now.”

Though a lot of media related to fandoms is available for free online, many collectors shun this democratised version in favour of handheld versions. A record collection costs more than a Spotify account, the same goes for comic books, novels and DVD’s.

“I’m a lot better than I used to be. When I used to collect comics I’d spend £2-300 a month. Yeah.

“I didn’t have kids then, so that was a factor. That was when I was at my most fervent. Now I probably don’t spend more than £40 or £50 a month. £10 a month on a particular game, £10 on another game. £10 or £20 on a graphic novel or a trade paper back, or a Sci-Fi movie or superhero movie. But yeah, I still spend more than I think I do. Maybe £50 or £60 a month.”

Gaming is enormously time consuming, when fixated on the outcome of a game, one can easily lose track of time. Though I’m not a particularly big gamer, and have since sold my Xbox, I do remember losing many hours to FIFA Career Mode, taking Luton Town to the Champions League final, and neglecting important work in the process.

As people get older, and responsibilities shift from essays to raising children, those who keep hold of their gaming habits are at risk of letting the burden fall onto the shoulders of their partner. Moderation is key.

“I might not really spend money anymore, but I still spend time. I will game for at least two hours a day. That’s probably not true, I probably game for four hours a day.

“I used to play a MOBA [Multiplayer Online Battle Arena] called Vainglory. A 46/45 year old guy and I was one of the top 1k players in Europe. I used to regularly play against professionals.

“I was in a team, and we had synergy, we’d be on Discord and we’d be playing. And we’d practise, and practise, and practise.”

Though it takes some years to realise their addictions, others get out while they’re ahead. Though he still engages with Warhammer as a creative outlet, Harry has taken steps away from the obsessive nature of the hobby.

Though he hasn’t made a Warhammer-related purchase in over a year, a corner of his living room is still littered with unfinished models, waiting to be spliced and repurposed into whatever his imagine sees fit.

“A lot in the past. Hundreds. I realised two or so years ago.

“As I’ve grown older, and had more clarity about things. It’s clear that there’s things I should just stop doing, and this was one of them.

“I think I was just a kid. I’m not exactly a grown-up now, but I can definitely see how it can become problematic and does become problematic in man-children that still paint their little plastic toys all day.”

Football has always been perceived as the sport of the working man, while sports like rugby and cricket are more closely associated with the middle and upper classes. However, since the inception of the Premier League in 1992, ticket prices have skyrocketed.

Though long-term supporters are generally protected from inflating prices of season tickets, prices for new attendees are eye-watering, with some costing upwards of £2000 among the so-called “big six” (Tottenham, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United and Manchester City).

“If you are a supporter of any given club, let’s say you give your all to it. If you win, you’re up, your emotions are up, if you lose, you’re down. That’s a temporary stage of emotion, you can’t let it dominate your life, but yes it definitely does.

“I’m not a neutral. So many football supporters are not neutral, and they live by that Saturday evening result, Sunday evening result. It means a lot to them, they feel better, they’re in a better mood. In the same way, constant ongoing defeats are misery.

“Everton are reasonable. As somebody who is the ‘Golden Age’, I get the discount. I pay barely £300 for a full Premier League season ticket. Everton have held those prices for at least two into next season. I consider that reasonable.

“If you can multiply well over 50 years by 20 games a season. 6/7/800 games if my brain is working.

Home games, and a few away games thrown in as well. All special games, many many happy memories at Goodison, and at Wembley.

“If you are a supporter of any given club, let’s say you give your all to it. If you win, you’re up, your emotions are up, if you lose, you’re down. That’s a temporary stage of emotion, you can’t let it dominate your life, but yes it definitely does.

“I’m not a neutral. So many football supporters are not neutral, and they live by that Saturday evening result, Sunday evening result. It means a lot to them, they feel better, they’re in a better mood. In the same way, constant ongoing defeats are misery.

“Everton are reasonable. As somebody who is the ‘Golden Age’, I get the discount. I pay barely £300 for a full Premier League season ticket. Everton have held those prices for at least two into next season. I consider that reasonable.

“London prices, Manchester United prices, even Liverpool are a lot more expensive. I can live with that, what I want is more success on the field.

“How youngsters with their employment difficulties these days can afford those prices, goodness only knows. It must be prohibitive. They want to go, they want to support.

“Even at my age, I would think twice about that [ticket prices].

There can be other priorities in life. I’m afraid it’s the way of the world, supply and demand. If they can sell out, they’re going to carry on selling those prices. For the working man it’s difficult.

It’s not just attendance that costs fans an arm and a leg, it’s also the means to take part. Hobbies, such as HEMA, that require high quality equipment can deter many people from engaging with it.

“It’s really expensive. Technically you can do HEMA training for nothing, you can pick up a stick and practise the techniques that we do. And if you want to practise low-budget you need a helmet, gauntlet, gloves and a nylon sword. And that’s safe enough to do without risking a big injury, you’re going to get bruised and it’s going to hurt a bit, but that’s what we tend to do because it’s cheap. The university can afford to buy all that stuff for us.

“If you want to do actual HEMA, as in the same stuff they do at the world championships that happen in Sweden, where they use steel swords, you’re going to need at least £500, you need to protect every part of your body in stuff that’s going to stop steel from severely hurting you.

“I do fencing as well, and fencing kit is also very expensive. I use a lot of fencing gear in HEMA, it’s similar but different.

“So my gear, my sword cost me £110, which is a good price for a steel sword. For that, you’re looking at £180. It’s a good brand of sword makers.”

“We get quite a lot of funding. It’s because the gear costs so much.

“We’ve got six masks, six nylon long-swords, two one-handed nylon swords, and six pairs of HEMA gauntlets. They probably put at least £500 towards us, that’s a quick guess.

As HEMA takes itself seriously as a sport, it’s not enough to be able to afford the equipment, though it is a start. To succeed, one needs discipline and dedication. Training sessions require fitness training before the swordplay can begin. General fitness, swordsmanship and wrestling are all tightly regimented, with a high standard for performance.

“Our training is okay, we do a lot of fitness to keep everyone fit and healthy. We do a very intensive warm up every day that we do HEMA, so it’s kind of like a quick work out before we start doing anything.

Then we’ll do wrestling. It’s historical European martial arts, so any martial art that was done historically, in Europe, we do. So that includes wrestling, and dagger fighting.”

HEALTH AND RELATIONSHIPS The unique questions posed to us by the contexts of the 21st century provoke a need for greater provisions for our health, both physical and mental. Our technology-driven social lives can cause a negative effect on our health, and relationships.

I find myself in a bizarre transitional period, between a more traditional way of life, and the social media sphere than many kids today were born into. I was born in 1996, and as such belong to the last generation to remember life before the internet became the all-encompassing part of life that it is today. I still remember trying to call my friends and not being able to because they were using the internet, dial-up internet will not be missed.

The widespread attachment to social media has fundamentally altered the health and relationships found within western civilisation. “Many young people now find it increasingly difficult to have face to face to conversations because they are so used to speaking to a screen. This inability to communicate has serious consequences to personal relationships they make in the future. “How do they start to determine their needs beyond their obsession? How can they appreciate the environment beyond the internet, an environment that extends beyond the small physical space where they interact with a screen?

“These are serious questions for us all. We are all responsible for finding the solutions to making our society a less stressful one in which to live, where people should not have to find way to escape in order to cope with the difficulties that everyday living may bring.”

“What’s going on in that individuals home life for example, that will potentially allow them to seek out different things?

For example if they’re feeling insecure in their home life, or if they’ve had poverty growing up. If there’s unhappiness or a low sense of worth as they’re developing, particularly from 13 upwards into their early 20s then people are going to have a bigger need, a bigger whole inside that needs to be filled or to have a bigger need for belonging.

“If we look at the idea of projection, when we’re involved with or interested in something in particular, we’re identifying with something.

“Let’s say a young girl is really into Justin Bieber or something, she’s looking for qualities she sees that are idealistic.

She’s projecting onto somebody.

“It’s the same with somebody who likes movies from the 80s, and goes to comic-con, they’re looking for things that make them feel happy, or stable, or just interested. It’s when those things move to another level, when it becomes really obsessive, the attachment effects their emotional health. It means they’re looking for qualities which they don’t have in themselves.

“It can mean that the person, rather than seeing worth inside themselves, they’re looking for it outside. Long term that can be detrimental.”

Attachment to a particular fan community isn’t always detrimental however. As Edwin pointed out to me earlier, when you give your life to a football team, there are highs and lows.

“Being part of the crowd when Goodison truly warms up, the atmosphere is fantastic. The supporters want to be heard and create the atmosphere. Sadly in the last few years, they’ve not achieved too much, and the atmosphere has been a bit flat.

“For someone who remembers attendances of over 75,000, when standing was the main, the atmosphere in those days was incredible for a younger man. To be part of that, and to be part of the history, it’s a part of my life. I’ve given a lot of emotions shall we say, to Everton over the years.”

While the lows can temporarily effect ones mood, the highest of the highs stay with you forever.

You could talk to any Liverpool fan old enough and they’d be able to tell you about that night in Istanbul. Any Manchester United fan can tell you about that night in Catalonia.

For Edwin, it was one night in London, Wembley Stadium to be precise. As a young man in 1966, he witnessed with his own eyes one of the most famous days in the history of Everton Football Club.

There’s something special about a comeback.

How the grim can become the glorious in front of your eyes. To me it puts to bed the notion that things must always be enjoyed in the moment.

Ask yourself, what gives a fan more joy, seeing their team stroll to a 2-0 victory, or to come back from the dead, and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat?

When confronted with the issues of mental and physical wellbeing, the community at times has to step in and remind individuals of the very real relationships and camaraderie. In a society where individuals feel increasingly atomised and isolated, it’s important that the community aspect is reinforced.

Though CRAGS has existed for several years, the social aspect, outside of the D&D sessions is a recent development.

“We noticed, and we knew, a lot of people that suffer with social anxiety, depression, maybe they’ve got dyspraxia, dyslexia, autism. Our society is full of people who are on the spectrum somewhere, and because of that, and because of how close-knot we are and were. We wanted to create an event, even if it’s just casual, where we can get people out of the room.

“We are incredibly social people, it’s just that sometimes we forget to do that, because we stay in our rooms so often. A housemate of mine, his sleeping schedule was beyond incomprehensible, he’d stay up for two days, sleep for 12 hours, then do that constantly. Dragging him out was important because he was like a ghoul if you didn’t see him, you couldn’t match his sleeping pattern it was that erratic.

“The socials are important, even if it’s just to chill out and talk. It’s important to have somewhere to go beyond the sessions. Also it’s nice to see people, even if you don’t drink. Plenty of people here are teetotal.

“There’s that stereotype again, that we don’t talk and don’t come out. That’s what we wanted to engage in, we wanted to make people more social, by having socials.”

IN CONCLUSION...

So after meeting with fans and experts, gaining objective and subjective insights, we return to the four areas I wanted to investigate.

It’s clear that we all have an identity, the only thing that separates us is where that sense of identity comes from. Identity and community go hand in hand, and as traditional communities such as the church or nuclear family become less common, alternative communities will fill that void in peoples lives. As Hanna said, we have access to whatever we want to consume, whenever we want to consume it. Our phones make it easier than ever to engage with other people, and be introduced to new things. Many fandoms begin online.

The internet can be harmful though. As probing into the issue of stigma and bullying showed me. Some individuals receive it from both within their communities and from the outside. Many are misunderstood, wilfully in some cases.

Some groups, such as HEMA, want to be taken seriously, but instead their entire community is lumped in with a totally different hobby. Bullying and stigma can force an individual deeper into their chosen community, and away from a healthy participation in society.

A balance is key, the internet can be a great tool for communicating, sharing ideas and showing your creativity to the world, but there is a big world away from the screen, and no ones life should revolve around having a good Wi-FI connection. An over dependence on ones hobby or fandom for fulfilment can lead to financial issues. Which, depending on your age can effect education, child-raising and work.

Charmaine was right when she said that it’s up to us to make the world a less stressful place to be. People feel the need to escape from society because there is something they want to escape from. The modern world has many significant advantages but some serious shortcomings too.

When we think of fan or nerd culture, stereotypes of niche references and merchandise, extensive comic book collections and warring tribes. It should come as no surprise that this mostly isn’t the case. Most fans are normal, well-adjusted people with careers, families, and passions for their respective fandoms.

The individuals and communities I met with put up with a lot in order to pursue what makes them happy. And there’s still a long way to go until those who are different can feel truly comfortable wearing who they are on their sleeve.

Judgement is easy, it requires no effort. Listening, asking questions and trying to understand people who live differently, that takes something else. If there’s one thing I’ve learned on my journey into fandom, it’s to not judge people with different interests, even if I don’t understand it.

The world is a divided enough place, a place that needs more bridges and less walls. More conversations and less assumptions.

It takes all sorts to make a world.

Thank you for reading.

@DEADHORSEPRINT