Good afternoon, Zoners! Today’s late brunch features Eggs Benedict, roasted potatoes and a $1 Mimosa special, from Monica’s Aca Y Alla in Deep Ellum (Dallas, TX). And man, is the Hollandaise sauce yummy!
I’ve been doing some fandom palate cleansing, as it were, venturing out as a lurker into some other fandoms to see how they operate things, and to recharge myself so that I can come back to the Colbert fandom in full force. When I was at SXSW a few weeks ago, I bumped into one of my favorite musical artists, a nerdcore rapper named MC Frontalot. I was introduced to him by a film festival movie, and saw him live in concert. But after talking to him, I realized I didn’t own even one of his CDs. So this week, as a late birthday present to myself, I went and purchased all 3 of his CDs on iTunes. Sometimes one has to make a commitment to go from just an admirer of an artist to a true fan. Still haven’t had the nerve to post on the Frontalot fan boards yet, but hey, baby steps, right?
Another place I ventured recently was ChuckTV.net, a fan site for the TV show ‘Chuck’. I’ve been watching ‘Chuck’ since its first episode, and I absolutely adore its mix of silliness, pop culture, and action. And I adore Adam Baldwin beyond words. I love the magazine style of ChuckTV.net – I’ve toyed with going with that style of format at this st ‘Chuck’ is one of the “bubble” shows this season (it may or not be renewed – it’s on the bubble) and ChuckTV.net is pushing a great campaign to get the show renewed. Go visit ChuckTV.net to learn more about the campaign and to find out what you can do to bring back ‘Chuck’ for a third season.
So my question to you, which I believe I’ve asked before but I’m going to revisit it for fun:
What are some of the other fandoms that you participate in, other than the Colbert fandom? What is is about those fandoms that made you take the leap from observer to participant?
Maybe we can learn a trick or two from other places that our readers visit, to help new fans who are just discovering the Colbert fandom to make that leap from observer to participating fan.
Because I am weird, I also am a big fan of the band Radiohead. I kind of took a break from them after college, but in the past year or so I sort returned to them again.
I think if there were two people I would love to meet in celebrity-o-sphere it would be Thom Yorke and Stephen Colbert. They couldn’t get more different, but I think they are both genuine and extremely talented.
On a different topic, I just wanted to say the the BKAD segments are bumming me out kinda. Not to speak to all of them, but the more SC interviews these folks, the more I think, and YOU’RE a congressman? I mean, some congressman, like Debbie Wasserman Schultz, or Eleanor Holmes Norton, strike me as really sharp, intelligent people. (Must be something about having 3 names;) But some of them just seem dense to the point of absurdity. If anything, I think these BkADs should show us how important it is to pay attention to whom you’re electing to represent your district.
End of homily.
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Yes, but the It-getters you mention (e.g., EHN), are such a LOL delight they help negate the effect of the dufuses (or would that be dufai? ;)).
Considering how goofy I think I look in photos, I shudder to think how I would appear on a BKAD segment!
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i like dufai.
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Thanks!
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I am a big fan of a satirical musician named Roy Zimmerman. He writes hilarious lyrics and is very skilled in guitar. I would recommend checking him out on youtube. He doesn’t have a huge fan base so I was able to email him a couple times and he responded. It was refreshing to hear back from a celebrity when most of them don’t have time to write back.
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Roy Zimmerman is awesome! It makes sense that Colbert fans would love him given his political humor. I had the luck to see him live a few times in NYC. He’s a really nice person too.
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I’m really excited to see him when he comes to Phoenix in June!
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You’ll love it!
I’d love to see Roy on as a guest at TCR, he belongs there!
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Great question, DB. Given the fun we have here it’s likely Zoners have other interesting fandoms.
In the past I participated in a Daniel Day-Lewis chatroom, followed Viggo Mortensen gossip on his imdb board and more recently have gotten interested in HBO’s True Blood both on Live Journal and a website called “lovingtruebloodindallas.blogspot.com.”
Love of the show is what pulls me and riding the “joy machine” that the fan’s enthusiasm engenders is what prompts me to post/participate, none more so than here.
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Another True Blood fan! I love that show. I don’t participate in that fandom much, but might get more involved once the new season starts.
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:) There’s vids of the TB cast chatting at the Paley Forum in LA currently at that website I cited in case your interested.
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I’ll check ‘em out. Thanks! :)
(reCAPTCHA: doodle jeeves)
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The origins of all my fandoms stem back to when I was in seventh and eighth grade – my first love was the boy band O-Town. I was pretty active within that community, but of course O-Town was never meant to be, and when they started to fade, so did my love.
Next, I latched onto the TV show Everybody Loves Raymond. That was probably a bigger investment of my life than TCR. I was also active there with a few fan sites. After Ray ended I started loving Broadway shows, and in particular, RENT. That carried me through my last 2 years in high school – but I never did much more than read message boards, except that I drove to Delaware with a friend to meet Anthony Rapp.
After I got to college that was the time that I was introduced to my next love, Kate Winslet. I think it was Eternal Sunshine that made me start to like her, and while I was still carrying around a love for her work, I became more involved in the TCR community. That leads me to today.
I think that I just always have to have something to keep my interest/waste time when I’m bored, so I think I’ll just keep moving onto the next thing. When TCR ends (gasp), there will be something else to fill the void, though I can’t imagine that one will be easy to fill.
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Huge Fan of Officetally! Have seen every single episode at least ten times, also wrote a spec script for the show as my school assignment!
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A fellow Tallyhead yay! That’s one of the few sites I must check everyday.
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Yeah, me too! It’s NFZ, followed by Officetally (literally in that order!)
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TCR is the only show that I’m such a fan of. I’ve cared a lot about other shows (True Blood, Six Feet Under, Sopranos, Deadwood, Mad Men), but never much followed any boards. Wait – I lied. I did follow the forums on TWOP for Six Feet Under.
Anyway, love this site. Love “Stephen” and Stephen. I like the way you have the site right now, DB. The ChuckTV site looks too corporate (just me). Plus I haven’t ever seen the show.
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“I like the way you have the site right now, DB.”
I second that:)
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ah, what an interesting question for us.
I am not a fan of very many things, and I’m not quick to fandom AT ALL. it takes a lot to convince me I should spend my time filling my head with information about something.
for example, I own every album Radiohead has released. I got my first one, The Bends, early on in high school. I love the music and listen to Radiohead songs every day. however, I would be hard pressed to tell you all the names of the people in the band, and I am sure I couldn’t tell you who plays which instruments. I have never visited any Radiohead fansites for more than a second. I feel awkward sometimes because I can go toe-to-toe with anyone discussing how awesome a Radiohead album or track is, but then when it comes to trivia or common fan knowledge I have nothing.
so, am I fan of Radiohead or not? I guess I’m not even observing or participating, but I love their main product and I’ve given them money for it!
my latest fandom plunge is just soooo 2009. I liked following Stephen Fry on Twitter and so I thought to myself “what else has he done?” let’s not discuss how many hours I have (happily) devoted to finding out! I guess one thing that made me a fan was that most of what he has produced really matches my existing preferences, so I enjoy watching/reading/listening to it.
last thought: I think finding patterns is a fun part of fandom, because if you only dabble you won’t notice them. one of my favorite things about reading Fry’s novels is when I recognize an idea I’ve heard in an interview before, or he uses a phrase that he still seems to like today, and its one that most people don’t use. that is why when I recognized “car battery in the kiln” in IAAASCY from watching an SWC clip on youtube I was thrilled way beyond what the situation warranted.
I guess that’s all for now– have a nice evening all!
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the radiohead fan sites don’t have much traffic-mostly because the fan base is mostly hipster guys who are too cool for commenting. i think no fact zone reflects the friendly, talkative nature of the colbert nation:)
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well that’s good to know. I perceive atease to be a pretty big forum? I don’t go there, but I feel like that’s what I’ve “heard” on the internet over the years.
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I think that my very very first fandom was the Animorphs books from about 5th grade to 7th. After that, I mostly was and am in a lot of Whedon fandoms (Buffy, Firefly, Dr. Horrible, Dollhouse). Oh! I was also involved in a lot of Linkin Park boards. I still love the band, but I’m not so involved in the fandom anymore. ::shrugs::
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I love Chuck! I didn’t know they were considering canceling it, it’s one of the best shows on network television right now. I guess I’ve got to go force more people into watching it now
I’m not much of a fandom person, it takes a whole lot to turn form lurker to observer, and most of the time I’m just a casual commenter. The only other thing that I can think of right now was LotR when I was twelve, haha. Very nerdy. I went on the boards and everything. My other little obsessions have been Pushing Daisies (tragically canceled), Avatar: The Last Airbender (don’t laugh, it’s a good show xD), and watching anything done by Lee Pace and Robert Downey Jr. And Craig Ferguson, anything done by him I love, comedy or book-wise (go read his book!)
It just seems that the crazy gets a little bit too much on fandom boards and fandoms in general, which is why I like NFZ. Much much less crazy than the boards, but I respect the level of dedication people have. I’m much too lazy for that.
(reCaptcha: Elton Dion? Oh god, don’t tell me those two have merged into some horrible out-dated-music monster!)
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PUSHING DAISIES! You win. I tragically didn’t get into PD until a few episodes into the second season so I only had a handful that I got brand new.
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Loved PD when I was able to watch it, for the actors as much as anything else.
I fell in love with Craig Ferguson when he did the movie Saving Grace.
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I loved Pushing Daisies too! Sooo sad that they canceled it.
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Saving Grace is an excellent movie! Have you seen The Big Tease? Equally good.
It’s weird, I love Craig Ferguson, and yet I almost never watch his show. I’m not into his fandom, either. I guess TCR takes up too much of my time and affection!
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No, I’ve never heard of The Big Tease – I’ll have to look for it on imdb.com & the library. Thanks.
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I’m not super participatory in many fandoms…I’m mostly a lurker as far as online communities go. My biggest by far is Broadway and associated theatre things, and that one is relatively new–I always liked musicals but never got into following current ones until I started taking trips from Boston to New York in the past few years, and tied into that was my trending towards less-mainstream works when I discovered Stephen Sondheim around the same time. My oldest fandom is probably X-Files (the original online fandom!), which I’ve been into since middle school but am not terribly active with these days.
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Probably the only thing I’m as obsessed with as I am with Colbert would be the band Opeth. They’re a Progressive Death Metal band from Sweden with both a soft and a heavy side. For those of you that aren’t into Metal, check out their album Damnation, its entirely clean (vocals and guitar) and it is fantastic. The rest of their songs shift from distorted to clean guitar, from “normal” to death metal vocals with a fluidity that is incredible, and manage to convey a range of emotions that astound me to this day. Yeah, I’m obsessed.
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A very interesting question! I’m involved in fandoms for “The Office” and “30 Rock” and, to a degree, “The Rachel Maddow Show.” I’m new to the Rachel Maddow world but it’s fantastic so far. I used to be really, really active in fandom. I don’t know if you can call politics a fandom, but that would probably be my most active fandom these days because of Jon, Stephen, and Rachel.
Oh, I’m also a big fan of “The Decemberists” and “Coldplay” when it comes to music. And I like “Doctor Who.” XP
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Supernatural
Chuck
The Killers
House (really, I’m a Wilson fangirl)
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long blog
The Office
Starsky and Hutch (the real version, not the stupid movie)
Oh and TCR, naturally
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Oh! I forgot Stargate Atlantis.
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I’ve stopped watching House with season five, but Wilson was always my favourite character. :)
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I remember when all the boy bands and the Spice Girls and Hanson started to dominate MTV and my classmates in elementary school would be toting around clearbooks and posters and early fanfic featuring the artist of their choice.
I think I’m more of a lurker as far as online fandoms go, and I believe NFZ is the first site where I’ve been more or less active. :)
My (short) list would include TDS, TCR, Dr. Horrible, Veronica Mars, Pushing Daisies (especially Kristin Chenoweth), Sex and the City, Avenue Q, Rent, and Six Feet Under.
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Another Pushing Daisies fan! Yay!
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Count me as another heartbroken Pushing Daisies fan!
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I don’t think I’ve ever been so knee-deep in fandom before! Stephen can pull in anyone!
I second Colleen’s comment that most fandom boards get too crazy and thus in the past I’ve never been inclined to participate in a fandom. I mean, I’ve been fans of actors, movies and TV shows, but I’ve never been part of an active fandom. I like this site since it remains friendly and thoughtful with a twist of humor. Don’t go a changin’!
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Did I say knee-deep? I meant over my head!
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I have never actively joined a fandom until Stephen and NFZ. The dual personalities of Stephen Colbert intrigued me and the safe and fun environment provided by NFZ finally pulled me in (although I was a lurker on this site for a long time). I haven’t regretted it since :)
There are a few fandoms in which I used to lurk but none had the staying power of NFZ: Idina Menzel (I do have all of her albums), Harry Potter/JK Rowling, and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (my all-time favorite TV show). If we’re counting sports teams, I’ve also been a life-long fan of the New Jersey Devils hockey team…
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*sigh* Re: Studio 60. Can I just say I’m *still* oh so brokenhearted that it was canceled, especially considering the kind programming that is still airing, as opposed to all of the top quality shows that have been cut down in their prime? Whenever I watch the Christmas episode, I still mourn. : ( I’m glad I found someone who’s just as bummed out as I am.
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I’m still sad at Studio 60′s cancellation, especially given the dreck that replaced it. I’m glad at least to be able to re-watch episodes on DVD. The Christmas episode still makes me tear up.
It’s great to find a fellow fan.
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I am a fan of Burn Notice, a show on USA. It’s quite good. I just started watching it but I’ve caught up and I’m ready to watch season 3 when it airs.
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oh, and a fan of Linux, but I don’t know if that counts.
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I never really got too involved in online fandoms until I found NFZ, but I’ve been an absolutely, monstrously, incredibly huge Friends fan for as long as I can remember. I have all the DVDs and most of the lines memorized, and my best friend and my husband and I quote the characters on an nearly constant basis (I even went so far as to name our TV “Stevie”. Hehe…). When it was announced the show was going off the air, a bar near my former place of employment actually held a party for the series finale — I won free tickets to it from a local radio station by answering a series of trivia questions, and at the party, also won multiple prizes by also correctly answering yet more trivia questions than I can count. The finale still makes me weepy (“I got off the plane.”) and as a loyal fan followed the post-Friends careers of the writers, producers, and actors, and as noted in an earlier comment here, was devastated when Studio 60 was canceled. And yes, I’ve heard the rumors about a potential Friends movie and yes, I think it’s an absolutely terrible idea — let’s not ruin a good thing, please?
I do occasionally follow others online including Lewis Black, Bryan Adams and Alanis Morissette, but by far, I’ve found the most joyful fan bliss here at NFZ and CU. : )
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With the exception of TCR/NFZ, my fandom participation is solely slash-related. And it won’t be much help as to how I got involved, because I dreamt about slash before I had heard the word ‘slash’ in that context or had any idea what it was. I got up in the morning and, still thrown by the content of the dream, went to look it up online to see if something like that existed, and… lo and behold.
So I go from fandom to fandom, show to show–it doesn’t matter what it is, so long as there’s a slashy pairing I can sink my teeth into: ST:TNG (Picard/Q), ST:DS9 (Garak/Bashir and Weyoun/Odo), Due South (Ray K/Fraser), Smallville (Clark/Lex [CLex] my most prevalent fandom to date), SWC (Chuck/Geoffrey, of course), and a host of others, one on the heels of the other on the heels of the other so fast that I couldn’t possibly remember them all. I think Stephen and TCR is the only show I’ve watched for so long and with such great interest that I had little to no slash-based interest in (no Stephen/Jon for me… maybe a little Stephen/Paul on occasion).
I’ve been into slash pairings since I was 12, but have only been putting my work out there on “the internets” for a few years. I guess the only thing that made me actually start contributing was just that I had a story that I finished, liked, and thought was okay enough to share. Then it kind of sucked me in and now I’ve got a my own domain/website and an LJ for my “work,” if you can call it that.
But I’ve never been so deeply involved in a non-slash interest as I am in TCR–I mean, to the point of actually going to see the show, which is very much not me-like. I’m not sure I’ve ever been this community-involved in any of my slashy loves, either. Usually when I comment, it’s directly to an author or vidder, not to a public forum like this one.
Go figure. NFZ must be doing something (everything?) right!
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Count me in as another “not much of a fandom person”. Too cynical to be a full-fledged fan until TCR. Closest I’ve come was to lurk at a chat room for the excellent, but now deceased, Arrested Development. Plus I enjoy reading hilarious recaps about Project Runway episodes(love the crazy creativity that show induces).
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