Betty wrote:

... ordinary people wanting to define their own passive consumption of television (something like five hours a day for the average American, I think!) as "normal," even though most people have the feeling, deep down, that there may well be something vaguely wrong with staring passively at the tube like that for large chunks of time. But if you can point to someone whose TV-watching behavior is really unsual, it can make your own habits seem "normal" by comparison, and therefore,somehow, OK. "Yeah, sure, I watch a lot of TV, but at least I'm not like *those* people! They're obsessive!"

This is precisely the attitude I'd like to avoid by emphasising the *positive* aspects of fandom (eg sociability, creativity, active vs passive) rather than comparing it with other pursuits which are supposedly worse.

As with most things it's the *degree* that's important. There's nothing wrong, for example, with liking watching or playing football, but someone who follows say Manchester United round the country, can name their teams and record over the past 20 years, and feels that physical aggression is a warranted response towards the followers of other teams is unlikely to win my approval.

The same could be said for many things.

Tavia http://www.viragene.com/%00%00