Fandom
The community of Transformers fans is referred to as a fandom. While the term technically encompasses any group of kids coming together to talk about Transformers in a sandbox, it is commonly used to refer to the 30 year olds of the onlien fandom who use their computers to gripe about 1) how Hasblow is ruining Transformers forever and 2) each other. The fandom has long played a role in the history of the franchise. Most notably, BotCon is their Mardi Gras, an official convention geared almost totally to adult fans.
One Community / Many Communities
Modern (online) transformer fandom has its roots in alt.toys.transformers, a text-only Usenet message board. Because Usenet is one of the oldest parts of the internet (dating from 1979, a.t.t from 1993) it functioned as a central hub where all all members of the fandom interacted together. This situation continued largely unchanged through the 2000's until AOL (which accounted for half a.t.t's traffic) dropped Usenet service. The fandom scattered across several dozen web-based message boards where it is no longer possible to 'know everyone.'
One of the resulte of a.t.t's implosion was a "brain drain"; with its most knowledgeable members now scattered, the fandom's collective IQ seemed to have dropped 40 points. This eventually corrected itself, mostly, kinda.
Sell-Outs
Several fans have made the jump from Transformers fans to Transformers professionals, this process is known as selling out.
- Bennett Amundsen Yee — Webmaster of bwtf.com, served as a consultant for Beast Wars, later wrote several collectors-club stories.
- Don Figueroa — Once the writer/artist a wonderful story called Macromasters that was in no way fanwanky and much better than any of the profesional work he's done as an illustrator for Dreamwave, IDW and Hasbro. Plz sign my petition 2 Hasbro release Mascromasters!
Threat or Menace
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