Issue #2: Internet fandoms from "The X-Files" Usenet newsgroups to #Loki
Hello, slightly larger group of subscribers! Thank you for reading. In this episode of Old Internet People I have gone Way Overboard. Last time I promised a piece on Usenet, newgroups and The X-Files, and it turned out like, well, this:
SOMETHING OLD
Note: where I link through to examples of fan response, especially on hashtags, I am not responsible for NSFW content or spoilers! Click at your own risk (athough, also, don't get your hopes up, there is unlikely to be anything that exciting…)
I thought this would be an easy one. My intention (as previously mentioned) was to write a little reminiscence on life in the X-Files newsgroups on Usenet in the 90s, something short and sweet. But then (appropriately, given the subject matter), I went down an internet rabbit hole, through academic theories of fandom, the origin of "shippers" and contemporary examples in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. To me, this was digital anthropology treasure and I couldn't resist having a really good dig around for it. And so, several weeks later, I seem to have written an essay on the changing nature of internet fandom instead of a snappy newsletter post. Later and longer than expected, but hopefully richer for it...
Let's start with some recent history. Even if you haven't yet watched the magnificent Marvel TV show Loki, I bet you caught some of the hype. Maybe you saw the bus posters, social media ads, press interviews or heavy Disney+ promotion. Perhaps some of the fan responses spilled over into your social media feeds; some baffling "no context" #loki twitter posts or mysterious adoration of an alligator with horns.
Did you go any further though? Did you uncover the enormous scale of the fandom? Did you allow yourself to absorb the intensity, the creativity of the fan art, the passion and excitement and amazing attention to minor details. Did you also boggle at the viciousness of disappointed "shippers", upset that the storyline didn't play out the way they wanted, or the speed at which uncredited fan art was turned into unofficial Etsy merch?
Probably not. But I couldn't help myself. I loved the show, but I also became fascinated by the drama and immensity of the Loki Fandom. The different factions (#Lokius vs #Sylki), the unashamed unabashed adoration of particular characters and actors, the memes and the fan theories and "edits" (short re-edited clips from the show, like trailers) and comic book backstories. It played out over twitter and instagram and tiktok hashtags and comments on the director's and actors' own social media posts and on tumblr and in probably a bunch of other spaces I wasn't even aware of (I only briefly delved into the relevant subreddits, for fear of never coming back out again).
It made me a little nostalgic for a much earlier fandom from my teenage years. In 1994 The X-Files arrived on the BBC and, like many others, I was hooked. It felt fresh and new and exciting. There was something about the combination of wild "monster of the week" stories with a longer running conspiracy arc that was particularly compelling, tapping into existing alien abduction paranoia and a cultural interest in the supernatural. A sense of humour and two charismatic and attractive leads also helped propel it into the big leagues of cultural awareness. It was to prove hugely influential.
The paranormal mythos of the show, despite (or even because of) its inconsistencies, was fandom catnip. Or to put it more academically, as Christine A. Wooley writes, in "Visible Fandom: Reading the X-Files through X-Philes" (2002):
"Watching The X-Files can offer the pleasure not just of an illusion of meaning, but of participating in the sometimes difficult process of creating meaning from the show's representation of the unknown".
Those mysteries and ambiguities created a space for debate, for discussion and for construction of shared meanings. Another ambiguity in the central "will they/won't they" relationship between Mulder and Scully also "becomes a site through which viewers can become aware of their own participation in the construction of meanings and the assignment of significance". Wooley goes on to say:
No less a theorist than Slavoj Zizek, using The X-Files to explicate the ambiguity of symbolic authority, writes of the myth arc, "the situation has to remain open, undecidable: if the gaps were to be filled in here, if we were to learn the true state of things, the entire symbolic universe of X-Files [sic] would disintegrate".
The X-Files arrived at the same time as a growing base of internet users, and this heady combination of desire for discussion and a platform to host it was responsible for launching a huge internet fandom, which included me. As fairly early internet adopters, our family used an email client that came with newsgroups included. For anyone who wasn't there, newsgroups were part of the Usenet system, and were like message boards or forums, but you had to subscribe to them and they downloaded along with your emails. X Files fans congregated on alt.tv.x-files but others followed (such. alt.tv.x-files.creative for fan fiction). Alt.tv.x-files in its heyday has been claimed as one of the busiest places on the whole internet (such as it was back then). Wooley says:
"A fall 2000 search on Yahoo! turned up nearly 500 "X-Files"-related web pages; alt.tv.x-files continues to receive hundreds of posts a day, and well over a thousand in forty-eight hours after major events such as season premieres and finales."
The posts ranged from general fan excitement to detailed analysis. Fans created art, fiction and pored over potential messages or Easter Eggs, just like today. Indeed, some have claimed that the obsessive behaviours of online fandom I've described around Loki were forged in the X-Files fandom (although, I think there was a precedent, more on that later). It is easy to see parallels. But an obvious and significant difference would surely be the closed nature of the newsgroups, unlike the relatively open platform that social media provides.
On social media, fan responses can swirl about, proliferate, ferment and cross-fertilise, and break out of the bounds of hashtags into the wider public consciousness. They can interact with official responses directly, sharing their passions directly with the creators. The opportunities for this were clearly limited in newsgroups, and perhaps this limited the potential for creativity and impact. But it also limited the effects of toxic fan behaviours, dark and unpleasant passions that creators are probably less thrilled to be getting direct access to (and also, for commercialisation of the fandom, many instagram #loki posts are also basically flogging merch). The modern genre star or director is forced to deal with the twin poles of intense adoration and intense hatred from fans. The latter can include horrifyingly disproportionately violent responses (there was a rumour that one fan was sharing the home address of Loki cast members online so that upset fans who didn't like a storyline could go share their hurt in person, which is just, yikes).
There were certainly angry X-Files fans on Usenet though. Mostly their ire would be directed at each other. Policing the limits and rules of newsgroup content was always contentious. One fellow X-Files fan who was active there remembers the ruckus when some on alt.tv.x-files got fed up with those posting X-Ville fan fiction - stories set in an emergent fan-generated town set in a group imagining of the X-Files universe. Someone would create a spooky butcher's shop and tell stories about it, someone else would start a library, and so on. Eventually X-Ville split off into its own newsgroup at alt.tv.x-files.x-ville which was, the fan recalled, "quite the incident".
Other group beefs arose amongst opposing camps of "shippers". The term comes from "relationship" and refers to those who want to see certain characters get involved romantically. Great swathes of fan fiction is inspired by character ships. The X-Files fandom wasn't the originator of the concept, but it was the origin of the term, in about 1995 according to Wikipedia. Mulder and Scully's relationship was an obvious ship in the X-Files but it wasn't the only one (Mulder/Skinner was another popular choice). For more on this try https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/how-the-x-files-helped-shape-modern-fandom-including-shipping (I swear I read this after writing most of this article above, but it's eerie how the first couple of paragraphs align with my experience).
Just like in Loki, where a central romance has proved controversial amongst fans, emotions amongst shippers ran high. There were endless debates about the meaning of character interactions, (were they a sign of romance or not?) and arguments as to whether or not the show should allow them to get together. Sometimes these feelings were also directed at the show runner, Chris Carter, and posters would exhort others to write to his production company to vent their frustration at these storylines or other aspects of the show they disliked (especially in later seasons). But unlike today, they couldn't just tweet abuse directly at CC (as he was known) or bombard his instagram account with vitriolic comments. Carter was navigating an entirely different fan world than Loki director Kate Herron has had to do.
I was amazed to find out recently (in Because Internet, a thus far frequent reference point for this newsletter), that the X-Files Usenet groups have been archived as Google Groups. It isn't easy to navigate them, and later posts tend to be spam but there do seem to be some active posters still. As you can search for posts between certain dates, I went back to root around in the early archives. These appear to be the first posts on alt.tv.x-files:
And I love this post in a thread discussing David Duchovny's filmography. It refers to an early version of Robert Hartill's Internet Movie Database (IMDB), before it became the behemoth it is today).
What is particularly adorable about much of the X fan fiction, I note now, is that many users appear to be posting under their own names. When I asked on twitter for memories of these newsgroups, one schoolteacher recalled his embarrassment when students googled him and found his X-Files fanfic. Such innocent times. I'll leave others to debate whether the increased trend for online anonymity has been for the best or not.
So, was X-Files the first Internet fandom? Perhaps not. It certainly wasn't the first fandom, as anyone who has looked into Star Trek culture will attest (which also included fan fiction and shipping, especially of Kirk and Spock, even if it wasn't called that). And according to Henry Jenkins in "Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture", there was actually an earlier Internet fandom, based on a show that was so generally groundbreaking that we shouldn't be surprised it was pioneering in this aspect too, Twin Peaks.
Twin Peaks had many of the elements that had such huge fandom appeal for the X-Files: mysteries and conspiracies and supernatural themes and romance. Jenkins says that usenet group alt.tv.twinpeaks "emerged within just a few weeks of the series' first episode and quickly became one of the most active and prolific on the Usenet system, averaging one hundred or more entries per day during the peak months of the series' initial American Broadcast" (Jenkins 1992, p.79). Now, I'm not prepared to throw myself down the TwinPeaks Usenet rabbit hole as well (but this article might be a good start). I think I've gone far enough, and also that I've written more than enough (and I didn't even get into the intervening years of fandom, Livejournal, fanmixes, slash fiction or fan wikis or so many other things, thank you to Claire Hansford for these points and general feedback on this post!). But allow me to share one last memento before I sign off on this ramble through internet fan culture, please enjoy this post from Dec 28, 1990. GIFs!
(And thank goodness for this Word to Markdown converter for getting the above from Google docs into this email with links intact).
Next newsletter: Oh no, I'm not making that mistake again (probably, embracing uncertainty in digital projects, maybe).
SOMETHING NEW
I think it's best I keep this bit short, eh?
Obviously the latest IPCC report on the climate crisis is horrifying. I am very much in the market for answers to the question: how do I personally help fix this mess? How do I do that in my life, but also in my work? If you look at Project Drawdown's list of solutions it doesn't say anything explicit about the internet, but it does say a lot about energy. Of which, the internet uses increasingly large amounts. I like the idea of this Digital Declutter toolkit from Wholegrain Digital, but I'm still educating myself on the carbon footprint of the web. If you have any other good reading on the subject, please do share it.
SOMETHING BORROWED
Things that I have been reading and thinking about. Inclusion doesn’t necessarily mean full endorsement.
- I am not a fan of office working, so The Upcoming Remote Work Company Culture War nicely fit my personal biases
- Wrestling with some of this very stuff right now. Agile’s success at the expense of UX is just one manifestation of a deeper truth: Businesses want scaling
- What a time to be alive etc: 'its just very funny to me that the answer to "why are there all these gross food videos everywhere" is, drectly, "a sinister magician"'
- Neurodiversity and work tips that I and we all could probably do better at
- Soothing pixel art
- I feel attacked
- What a time to be alive etc pt 2: The Chinese content farms behind Factory TikTok
- Bonus art: "Women's Art" is consistently one of my favourite twitter accounts www.twitter.com/womensart1
Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed it, please do share it with others. And if you didn’t, I welcome constructive feedback!