I just learned that Heidi Meeley wrote a three-part response to my "Understanding Fanboys: The Deadlier of the Species" post from a few weeks ago. It takes an interesting look (and probably a more accurate one) at the root causes of fangirlism.
I guess I ought to say, for the official record, that I'm not one of the "No Girls Allowed" crew, and that I enjoy hearing about comics from the female perspective. It's just that I couldn't help but notice that when a woman throws out all rationality in pursuit of her devotion, the reaction is different from when a man does so, in an interesting way. And I'm a sociological rubbernecker, so I always tend to pick at the most disturbing aspects of any group. They make the juiciest scabs.
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Care to Elaborate?
On what, the different reaction? Well, like I said in the post, a female Gambit fan's more likely to dead-leg me for saying Gambit sucks. And the preponderance of slash sex fic is written by female fans; a male fanfic writer is no more likely to come up with a bad crossover idea than a female one, but the female one is more likely to add gay sex to that idea. I dunno what that's about.
The linchpin is, fangirlism has a far higher creeps-me-out quotient than fanboyism. Perhaps it's a gender thing, and I can understand the stupid things men do better than I can understand the stupid things women do, but there it is. Ask me to choose between spending 8 hours with a rabid male Spawn fan or a rabid female Anne Rice fan, and I'll take the Spawn fan every time. I know his warning signs.
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