Girls who like Boys who like Boys – Ethnography of ... - Yuuyami.com

advanced the point that a fan lurking in some fandoms, may be quite active in
others, or that an online lurker can be very active and opinionated offline.
Without arguing that there is no such concept as a fan living in a vacuum, I
am merely trying to explain that I have neither worked with nor met such a
fan.
I have, however, been blessed to work with Red, a lurker who does not
identify as fan yet, and with other lurkers, who have been part of fandom for
several years. 16
One issue I began to explore after my dialogue with Kira was
that of offline friendships and connections: If I laid out these patterns for
every fan that helped me with this project, much as I have done for myself,
one could note two things: firstly, that there exists an infinite network between
these fans, but secondly, that due to this, this text would expand into the
never-ending. One notable example however, due to its remarkable intensity
and extremity, is Barb’s at first seemingly dichotomous distinction between
online lurking and offline friendship, referred to in previous sections.
Though Barb does not interact online, she had also been incapacitated
in terms of interactions offline for a long period of time. She explained that
she had met the first fan she started interacting with offline only during the
second semester of her first year at college. As she was writing “some
godawful Highlander slash fic while waiting for German [class] to start,” and
16 The irony of equating “defining as fan” with “being part of fandom” should not be lost on
the reader. This is the place to note that both seem to come naturally as meaning the same
thing. Additionally, I have observed that most fans will equate both, unless asked specifically
to define the concept of “fan” in and of itself, without using the term “fandom.”
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