What is fandom, and what did it look like pre-internet?

A fandom, generally speaking, is a community organised around shared enthusiasm for a particular text, franchise, or cultural figure. Liking a film is not, in and of itself, participation in a fandom; discussing it with other people who like it, producing creative work in response to it, and developing vocabulary around it, is. Fanfiction refers to amateur, non-commercial fiction written by fans using characters and/or settings from an existing source text, produced outside official channels.

- In 1893 Sherlock Holmes gets killed off, resulting in massive public backlash - letters, cancelled subscriptions, public mourning
- Arthur Conan Doyle resurrects Holmes in 1903, largely under commercial pressure, in what might be considered as one of the earliest instances of fan demand directly influencing an author's creative decisions
- The Baker Street Irregulars, the "Sherlockian Game" as examples of modern fandom behavior

- Establishes media fandom model, popularizing conventions, fanzines (Spockanalia vol.1) and early fanfiction
- Another example of organised fan activity having influence - after a large letter writing campaign (coordinated in part by the fan activist Bjo Trimble and her husband John Trimble), NBC ultimately renewed the show for a third season