I tend to get very obsessive interests in a wide variety of things, not only fandoms, and my sense of it is that there's always a certain amount of derision to be faced when you get too interested in anything. Even the most respectible pursuit in our society, the pursuit of money and pure mammalian dominance, will be mocked if it becomes too important to a person - let alone a compelling interest in biophysics or blues 45s or the precise chronology of the Song of Ice and Fire series.
Partly I think it's because when you get too deep into anything, you're going where the majority of people around you can't follow in everyday conversation - and this, in some sense, is a minor breach in the etiquette of being a good social animal. When you're looking at bugs or trying to figure out the stars you're not helping the troop find food or keeping an eye out for sabre-toothed cats. I could be wrong though. Part of it is obviously also a pervasive social valuation of 'staying cool' and not caring about anything 'too much' - a value judgement best exemplified, for good and ill, by fandom_wank and the like.
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Date: 2005-05-29 01:05 pm (UTC)Partly I think it's because when you get too deep into anything, you're going where the majority of people around you can't follow in everyday conversation - and this, in some sense, is a minor breach in the etiquette of being a good social animal. When you're looking at bugs or trying to figure out the stars you're not helping the troop find food or keeping an eye out for sabre-toothed cats. I could be wrong though. Part of it is obviously also a pervasive social valuation of 'staying cool' and not caring about anything 'too much' - a value judgement best exemplified, for good and ill, by fandom_wank and the like.