May 19, 2009: Glee Premieres on FOX
This Week In Fandom History
Don't stop believin'! This week, V and Emily go back to a very different world. A pre-Glee world. And it kind of isn't pretty. While V loved Glee at first, its legacy is... not super chill and great? Outside of a few key ships that will get their own episodes later on this year and/or early next year? So this episode is about Glee as a whole, which... listen. The songs slapped. They did. However. There are so many "howevers." Also, V had a life-paradigm-shifting experience on YouTube vis-a-vis show choir while researching this episode, so there's that. Also, you may be looking at this episode...
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May 3, 2021: Dracula Daily Delivers the First Message From Our Friend Jonathan
This Week In Fandom History
Paprika! This week, Emily and V head back to 2021 -- but mostly 2022, carte blanche -- to look at the phenomenon of Dracula Daily and its explosion of popularity on Tumblr. We also head to 1992 to look at the worst movie of all time, Bram Stoker's Dracula, starring extremely beautiful people who were all in extremely different movies all at once. And then we traipse to 1897 to look at the original novel of Dracula and its extremely weird creation by a very strange l'il guy, Bram Stoker. Plus, bats! Bats everywhere! Also, Jack the Ripper! Also, you may note that this is actually a date from...
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May 3, 1991: Dallas Closes Out Its Final Season
This Week In Fandom History
Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer! This week, Emily and V head West to Texas and back in time to the 1980s to visit with the most melodramatic family in television history: the Ewings. As a cultural phenomenon that helped define the decade, Dallas... has surprisingly few (surviving?) fanworks. But thanks to one teenage fan nigh twenty years after the Ewings bid South Fork adieu, Emily and V get to learn about the JR/Sue Ellen ship (and reminisce about Web 1.0 fansites). Plus... who shot JR? Sources
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April 15, 1912: The RMS Titanic Sinks (And 85 Years Later There's a Huge Fandom About It)
This Week In Fandom History
Iceberg right ahead! This week, V and Emily plumb the depths of the entire world's massive Titanic fandom and its accompanying "Leomania." James Cameron's Titanic was impossible to ignore in 1998 -- from the cinema to some weird video store in Utah, from middle school dances to the Oval Office, from the pages of Vanity Fair to the wilderness of GeoCities, Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt-Bukater were inescapable. So grab your Jewel of the Sea knockoff necklace, polish off your Céline Dion CD, and rewind VHS1 of your two-tape box set. Are you ready to go back to Titanic?
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April 3, 1999: What Would They Think?
This Week In Fandom History
What would they think? This week, Emily and V -- okay. This episode was supposed to be about the April 2000 Slate Magazine article, "Luke Skywalker Is Gay?" And it does start out that way. But thanks to Emily's personal fannish history and a tiny footnote in the article, this episode goes... somewhere else. And oh my god. Links Follow This Week in Fandom History on Tumblr at ! You can support the show via our Patreon at . If you have a fannish company, event, or service and would like to sponsor or partner with TWIFH, please contact us via the Tumblr link above. Please remember...
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April 2, 1956: As the World Turns Premieres on CBS
This Week In Fandom History
It wasn't me... it was... my evil twin brother! This week, V and Emily look at a somewhat different kind of fandom by delving into the long, long history of As The World Turns, a daytime soap opera that ran for over 50 years. ATWT made television history in 2007 when they featured the first M/M kiss, and first positively-portrayed M/M relationship, on American daytime television, but of course, Luke/Noah were not without drama. Melodrama. This star-studded episode features green-card marriages, murder attempts, doctor-blackmailing, Meg Ryan, and Spanish prisons. What more could you want from...
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March 26, 2005: Doctor Who Returns to the BBC
This Week In Fandom History
Fantastic! This week, Emily and V finally get to talk about one of their shared favorite fandoms: Doctor Who (New Who). With a focus on the emotional, oft-overlooked Ninth Doctor as played by Christopher Eccleston, they discuss the best and worst aspects of the show, how it makes them cry, and some timely (pun intended) elements brought specifically to the reboot by Eccleston, Billie Piper, and writer Russell T. Davies. Come along with us on the TARDIS, won't you? Additional Sources Links Follow This Week in Fandom History on Tumblr at ! You can support the show via our Patreon at...
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March 22-25, 2012: Holy Musical B@man!
This Week In Fandom History
He's darkness! He's vengeance! This week, V and Emily look at the uniquely nerdy StarKid fandom and their superhero parody musical, HOLY MUSICAL B@MAN! (That's "B@man," not "Batman," in case Warner Brothers asks.) They look at the way StarKid musicals feel like your Tumblr dashboard, how Sean Astin will do basically anything you ask him to do apparently, and how absolutely insufferable your hosts were as high school theatre kids. (Yes, theatre, not theater. That's how insufferable.) Musical references abound! And, amazingly, we understand a joke in the show BECAUSE OF A PREVIOUS EPISODE...
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March 1988: The Killing Joke Is Released
This Week In Fandom History
Do you want to know how he got these scars? This week, Emily and V take a trip to Gotham City to look back at Alan Moore's Batman magnum opus, The Killing Joke. While it garnered tons of accolades for its darkness, grittiness, violence, and portrayal of The Joker's semi-definitive backstory, The Killing Joke has also received a lot of (totally warranted) criticism for its darkness... grittiness... violence... and misogyny. The history and continued legacy of what happened to Barbara Gordon in The Killing Joke is complex, dark, and hard to reconcile. Oracle was a badass character who...
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March 7, 2002: The Snapefic Liberation Front Forms (PLUS: The Snapewife Saga)
This Week In Fandom History
There's no need to call him 'sir,' professor! This week, V and Emily really, really try very, very hard to be generous and understanding about people loving Severus Snape even though it is extremely difficult for them because he is the worst. In their personal opinions. Which are not facts, just opinions, and do not mean that you cannot love Severus Snape if you love him!!! Go ahead and love him!!! And listen to this tale of a group of women who really, REALLY loved him!!! Ahem. Do you have thoughts or feelings about Severus Snape? Were you, perhaps, astrally married to him?
info_outlineDo you want to know how he got these scars? This week, Emily and V take a trip to Gotham City to look back at Alan Moore's Batman magnum opus, The Killing Joke. While it garnered tons of accolades for its darkness, grittiness, violence, and portrayal of The Joker's semi-definitive backstory, The Killing Joke has also received a lot of (totally warranted) criticism for its darkness... grittiness... violence... and misogyny. The history and continued legacy of what happened to Barbara Gordon in The Killing Joke is complex, dark, and hard to reconcile. Oracle was a badass character who represented a deeply underserved portion of the DC Comics audience; however, Gail Simone kind of had a point that it was metatextually misogyny keeping Babs in her chair. DC's choice(s) surrounding Barbara have no easy answers.
However, your intrepid hosts do find a light in the dark-grim-grittiness of Gotham as they discover (create) its worst strip mall and the heroic citizens who brave its potholes...