 people, fanzines and events.
The Ideological Theory of Fandom won't settle all questions or shed light in every dark corner. It considers fanhistory in a new way that may yield fresh insights. Let's look at fanhistory again -- aided by this new analytical approach.
More Than Readers
Science fiction and fantasy were widely available for many years before fandom erupted. The philosophies that came to dominate the hobby, in embryonic form, may've played a key role in its creation.
Our tribe, like comics, electronic gaming and Star Trek fandoms, was born under a sercon star. Interest in the core subject is what pulls fan-types out of the anonymous audience and into an interactive circle.
Those who wanted to be more than readers couldn't do much while books remained the main delivery vehicle for science fiction. It's hard to interact with a book, other than to write a letter to the author in care of the publisher.
Magazines are different, because most contain reader departments. Periodicals with an occasional SF story didn't give SF zealots much scope to express themselves. A general magazine wouldn't consistently give its letter section to a fringe audience..
Hugo Gernsback changed that when he launched Amazing Stories. Suddenly, sercon fans had a forum. The large letter column, copied by most of Amazing's competitors, gave readers plenty of space to talk to the editor, and ultimately, to each other.
Without denigrating the importance of prozine letter sections, all such columns put together still don't add up to fandom. Lots of popular fiction magazines had letters, but nothing comparable to fandom sprung | from them.
The letter columns printed readers' addresses, which made direct correspondence possible The mechanism is not as important as the motivation. We know they could write to each other. The real question is: why did they write?
The Sercon desire to discuss science fiction with like-minded individuals deserves some of the credit. It was a prime, but not the sole, philosophy in play.
Communicationism made the difference. Gernsback called SF "the literature of ideas," and commentaries on those ideas filled 'Discussions" and other prozine letter columns. Weird Tales' readers discussed stories and authors in the letter columns. SF letterhacks rated the stories and clamored for their favorite authors, too, but there was an intellectual content to the stories that often took discussions far away from literary criticism.
Scientism was the third philosophy that fostered the subculture. It arose from the nature of Gernsbackian science fiction, as found in Science & Invention and the other magazines which paved the way for Amazing.
"Plausibility" was Gernsback's watchword. Authentic news items and scientific snippets often accompanied the stories, and it as the science, not the fiction, that got most of the wordage in "Discussions."
Science Versus Fiction
Scientism and Serconism collided in early fandom, The Science Correspondence Club (later the original International Scientific Association) grew out of correspondence among science fiction fans, but it emphasized science in club activities and its fanzine The Comet (later renamed Cosmology).
From its May 1930 inception, The Comet, under the editorship of Ray Palmer, concentrated on contemporary and extrapolative science. Its 17 issues show a drift toward science fiction, but even the spectacular final printed Cosmology was mostly about science.
The club lasted three years. Palmer and successors bitched a lot about the difficulty of lining up enough science stuff but it seemed that those who favored the laboratory over the library couldn't maintain an organization of this type. Apathy, not controversy, wore down the SFCC,
The Scienceers, started as a New York City club had a scientific pedigree, too. It was affiliated with the Yosian international nature study group and had a mission statement that invoked extrapolative science as its main .
Reports of meetings and the contents of The Planet, edited by Allen Glasser, suggests this was mostly window dressing. The Scienceers embraced the fiction more than the science of SF, though a
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