Extra! Extra! Fandom Terminology Part 1

So, I decided I wanted to write a really fun and interesting post as a little extra for this week. Unless people are really into fandoms, most people don’t know the basic terms that are used in everyday language for people who are actively involved in them. I personally have had to explain many of these words to my friends before, so now, if you ever hear these words thrown around again, you will know what they mean. 

Fandom: First of all, some of you probably don’t even know what a fandom is. Basically, a fandom is a large fan following for some popular book, movie, TV show, Youtuber, video game, or something along those lines. I’m not really sure where the word originated from, but I’m going to guess that it comes from “fan” in terms of a fan of something, and kingdom where the people in the fandom are the people, and the book or movie being the ruler. Yeah, if sounds kind of scary and cult like doesn’t it? Well in all actuality, people can become very obsessed with fandom and start to worship the book or thing that fandom is about. Yes, I am dead serious.

Different fandoms also go by different fandom names based on the work that the fandom is based on. Some don’t have a official name and can go by several different ones, but here are some of the more popular ones.

Dr. Who: Whovians

Harry Potter: Potterheads

Once Upon a Time: Oncers

Twilight: Twihards

Pirates of the Caribbean: Rum Runners

Naruto: Naritards

PewdiePie: Bro Army

One of my favorite fandoms, The Hunger Games, does not have a universal used term for the fandom as a whole. So far, I’ve heard the fandom being called Tributes and Panemanicas.

Fangirl/boy: One term I’ve been used before is fangirl, which is a term I realize most people don’t know, but it seems pretty self-explanatory. A fangirl is pretty much someone, in particularly a girl, who is part of a fandom. That’s as simple as it is. This word is also sometimes changed into a verb, which is called fangirling, which I am going to do my best to explain. This is basically when a fangirl gets overly excited about something, such as The Hunger Games movie premiere, or the first episode of The Walking Dead, or if you’re some of my friends, going to an anime convention. Fangirling is also usually associated with a lot of high pitched screaming, so if you have friends like this, you should probably cover your ears if you can predict this scenario happening.

Feels: This is a term I’m pretty sure originated on Tumblr, but I’m not 100% sure. Basically, if I were to use this word in a sentence if would be: That book was so sad all my feels are broken. Although more commonly this is shortened to OMG MY FEELS! Basically, this term is used a lot when people are describing something that is extremely sad or emotional.  This often occurs when a favorite character is killed in a book (which happens quite often), so there is some really sad scene. I'm going to assume that the word "feels" was shortened from the word feelings, and someone just felt too lazy to write out the whole word one day.

These are just some of the really basic fandom terms. I will continue the next part in a later post, where I will go deeper into the world of fandoms, which I will warn you, can be a scary place.

~K.M.D.