The Fandom Dictionary

Are you fresh on the fandom scene and a little confused by all the lingo? Well, I don’t blame you, young padawn. Even if you’re overwhelmingly informed about all your favorite fictional worlds—and know how to say “Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist” in Elvish, Entish and High Valyrian—the world of fandoms has a vocabulary all it’s own, one you’ll need to know to navigate the waters safely.

Fandom 411

No matter the level of geekdom that you’re currently on, you’ve most likely heard the word “fandom” before. Probably dropped into a casual conversation about TV or movies, or maybe even on your favorite pop culture website. But what exactly does it mean and what does it mean to be in a fandom? And most of all, why should you care?

A “fandom” refers to a collective community of active fans. And what it means to be a fan is unique to each member. For some it involves writing their own media to accompany a particular fandom, or attending conventions and wearing a costume to a midnight showing of their favorite franchise. And for others it means arguing over Twilight versus Harry Potter or whether DC will ever be able to compare to the MCU. Simply put, being a part of a fandom means being a part of a community.

In an era of instant electronic communication and social media, people are dying to form communities around shared interests. Geeks seem to have the most visible fan communities, but make no mistake, literally everything has a sort of fandom. It's just up to you to find yours.

More and more, fandoms are becoming a part of mainstream culture, and that makes understanding the ins and outs of being a part of said fandom, that much more important.

The Basic Lingo

FAN FICTION/FANFIC

Unless you are on the cusp of a fandom, newly integrating yourself into all it means to love something not quite physical, there is almost no chance that you don’t know what fanfic is. But if that happens to be the case, never fear, I’ll fill you in anyway.

A particularly large part of some of the most popular fandoms like Harry Potter and Star Wars revolve around fanfic. It's so popular, in fact, a little gem called Fifty Shades of Gray actually started out as Twilight fanfiction.

Every time someone takes a character or a fictional world from an existing book, movie, or TV show, and uses them to write their own scene or story, that is fan fiction.

While fanfic is either seriously beloved or embarrassingly criticized, it’s a favorite for many fandoms. It’s also a safe way for those who aren’t ready to let go of characters, allow them to live on indefinitely.

CANON

This is a simple one, but very important. With the existence of so much fan created content, it’s important to know when you’re dealing with something that’s official or something fan made.

Canon itself stands for anything established by the original creator, otherwise known as anything in the initial source material. For many fans, this material is ironclad. It helps establish the difference between fanfic that goes too far against plot lines and recognize where the real story began.

FANON

With canon being the solid foundation upon which all fans agree with, fanon are fan-created theories based on the canon. While not farfetched enough to stand out as pure fanfic, fanon is still not technically canon or present in the original material. There have been several incidences where the fanon has been so strong, that people forget that it’s actually fan-created. If that’s not the true power of a fandom, I don’t know what is.

HEADCANON

Ok, so I've cleared up canon (official) and fanon (fan made) so what the heck is headcanon? Headcanon exists somewhere between the two in a world where within every story there are millions of other untold stories: things implied but unspoken, things assumed but never explained, or things simply never addressed because they'd only bloat and distract from the story. Headcanon is the answer to all these untold stories.

In short, this is all the stuff you imagine happening behind the scenes and outside the timeline that fuels your personal interpretation of a story. Headcanon usually operates within the existing canon framework—i.e., you're not likely to headcanon something that runs contrary to the official truth as written in the initial material. The biggest difference between headcanon and fanon is that headcanon is usually only accepted by a small number of fans, whereas fanon can often be mistaken for canon.

AU (or Alternate Universe)

Alternative universe/Alternative reality is for those who want to completely go against canon. AU fanfic changes something significant about the original story, and it can literally be anything. Imagine Harry Potter in space or Fifty Shades of Gray as a steampunk romance. You could even reinvent Pride and Prejudice in a zombie apocalyptic setting. Wait, that sounds familiar…

HATEDOM

The opposite of a fandom. If a fandom is people expressing their love for the media, a hatedom is, well, as the name implies. While I consider fandoms a positive and uplifting community of geeks who gather to relish in their love of one thing or another, hatedoms are a place for fans to gather and gripe about their disaffection of some other fandom. One of the most infamous examples in recent years would be the one surrounding the Twilight series of books.

So You Want to be a Part of a Fandom

SLASH

It's not uncommon for fanfiction or fanart to take a turn for the erotic; it's also not uncommon for the sexual orientations of certain characters to, ahem, swing around to serve someone's lusty imagination. When two (canonically straight) same-sex characters are paired up sexually and/or romantically in a fanfic, it's called slash. Fun fact: If you lined up all the existing Sherlock Holmes/John Watson slashfic end to end, it would reach beyond the known limits of the universe.

Many sites suggest warning for slash. My advice? “Warn” for any type of romantic interaction, because discrimination is so not cool.

SHIP

Have you fantasized about seeing two particular characters come together in a haze of pink and heart emojis? Congratulations: that's your ship. Taken from “relationship”, ship – or shipping – refers to pairing two or more characters together.

There’s essentially no limit to how many ships you can hop aboard; you can even be torn between multiple competing ships for one character. (Rey and Finn look so cute holding hands, but Finn and Poe Dameron looked adorbs while hugging.)

While the advent of the Internet has been incredibly helpful for shippers of obscure and peculiar couplings (I’m looking at you, Dumblesnapers), this phenomenon has been around since essentially the dawn of storytelling. As such, shipping is very serious business and before entering any fandom, heed this advice: NEVER BASH SOMEONE’S SHIP. Seriously. Just, do not do it. If you have to express dislike, make sure you don’t make it public to said shippers.

OTP (or One True Pairing)  

This is where your true feelings come in to play. This is the pairing you ship above all others. The bounds of canon, genre, time, place, and even logic need not apply to your OTP. If you feel it, it's not wrong. However, you can only have one (true pairing) so choose wisely.

BroTP  

Not every pairing need be romantic; this is where your BroTP comes in. From Sam and Frodo to Sherlock and Watson, there's no shortage of friends to ship.

NoTP

No, just no. You’ve said it. You’ve thought it. NoTP’s are pairings that you simply refuse to support. Harrmione, Kale, REYLO!? No, just no.

CROSSOVER

A crossover is pretty self-explanatory: a ship or fanfic that combines characters from two different universes. Do you dream of a world in which Gollum from The Hobbit finds love and understanding with Kreacher the House Elf? Do you just die every time you think of what a kickass boyfriend Thomas from Maze Runner would make for Katniss Everdeen? There's a crossover for that.

CON  

Otherwise known as conventions. Cons come in many shapes and forms but they differ from things like fan festivals in that they’re usually gigantic meet ups filled to the brim with celebrities, fans, and a lot of crazy costumes. Many are focused around particular types of fandom, like anime, sci-fi, comic books and movies.

COSPLAY  

If you show up at a con dressed like the average human that you are, this will probably be the only time in your life where blue jeans make you stand out. Cosplay is essentially costume play. Costumes range in everything from a concept to full on character getup.

RACEBENDING  

If you've ever written, drawn, or otherwise imagined a canon white character as a POC (or vice versa, on rare occasions), you've participated in the popular practice of racebending. And if you haven't, you might want to try it! Amazing things can happen when you reimagine some diversity into your favorite series, including, occasionally, the thing where your longtime racebent headcanon becomes real. (Here’s look at you Noma Dumezweni as Hermione Granger. You rock!)

GENDERSWAPPING  

Once you've familiarized yourself with the basics of fanfic and slashfic, you can move to the next level in creative fangirling (or fanbroing; no judgment here): swapping the genders of your fave fictionals to create weird, wonderful new dynamics. You could reimagine all the Disney princesses as burly dudes with beards! Or rewrite an old-school fantasy series to make all the heroes female! Even professional storytellers occasionally delve into genderswapping, particularly if their source material is a total sausage party—which is how a lady elf warrior, Tauriel, found her way into Peter Jackson's adaption of The Hobbit.

Go Forth and Fanspeak

Hurray, you're a fandom graduate! Now that you have the lingo down, all that’s left is to find the fandom that's right for you. With the unbelievable amount of fan communities that exist today, it shouldn’t be too hard. And no one ever said you had to pick just one.