I didn't realize the WTC had a performing arts center.
It was outdoors - kind of an open arena. There was the WTC Music Festival - it was scheduled for September 16-26 or thereabouts. It got cancelled obviously.
That day - they shut down the trains and everything - although they did let the ones that were already running make it to their stations. The trains were shut down for about five hours. And companies let everyone out early or told people not to come in. I was already at work. A lot of people walked home. There was over a million people walking over the Brooklyn Bridge, and down the streets.
Why Buffy? Was it the only thing you were fannish about at the time?
I wasn't really fannish about anything prior to 9/11. Oh I liked stuff, and I'd hunt for spoilers. But I'd never really been in a fandom. Never read fanfic. Didn't really know it existed. I think at that time I was watching quite a few things, and discussing them. I loved Buffy - but I didn't read fanfic, write meta, or discuss it online. The only Buffy fansites I knew about were ACIN News - which wasn't really one, but had spoilers here and there, and a few fan websites which were no longer around.
Then 9/11 happened, and a week or so later, Buffy premiered with "Bargaining" - and for the first time I saw something that expressed how I felt about 9/11. Buffy's reactions to her world - were mine, I completely identified with her. Nothing else seemed to resonate. I remember reading Janet Evanovich novels on the train, and becoming engrossed by Buffy.
It wasn't until Once More With Feeling - that I began to get obsessed. And Smashed - sent me hunting fanfiction and spoilers. I went to a friend's birthday party in NJ, shortly after Smashed aired - this was after I returned from visiting my parents for Thanksgiving break. We'd met during a Turkish sailing trip the year before, and had recently traveled to Oregon together to visit another friend and see the wineries. We'd planned on going to Thailand next, we'd even paid a portion of the trip up front (which you had to do) way back in July - but in September we both cancelled because of 9/11. The trip was supposed to take place during the week of my birthday. My plan had been to be sitting beneath a waterfall on my birthday in Thailand in 2002. But, with what was going down at work plus 9/11 - I had no choice but to cancel.
At any rate - at the birthday party - I ran into Buffy fans. I didn't know anyone who watched or loved the show prior to that. After driving them nuts with emails and questions (I was obsessed) - they sent me a link to Spoilerslayer website. Spoilerslayer got tired of my speculation emails, and sent me to Buffy Cross & Stake. Through Spoilerslayer and Buffy Cross & Stake I discovered other websites, fanfiction, and essays on the show. Read everything I could get my hands on. I had my own printer at work. So I could print stuff off. Work was a nightmare - my boss was a serial bully and wanted to get rid of me. I was mostly isolated in my office. And bored out of my mind.(My work didn't take much time to do - I went through it in a matter of two or three hours.) So, I escaped into the Buffy fanboards.
I remember one of my friends at work commenting at the time that the Buffy Boards were a kind of weird group therapy. They were. There was a woman who posted Buffy meta on the Buffy Cross and Stake Board - named Linda Delurker. And after reading some of her posts, I thought - hmm, I can write that. So I did. And I posted it on characters - that she didn't post on, and other people didn't post on. Through my essays - I was able to deal with my own pain, fear, anxiety, and struggles. I dealt with it by discussing the series and characters. Their journey through the darkness of S6 Buffy - was so similar to my own. And when I landed on a more scholarly fanboard, ATPOBTVS, I was able to dig deeper into the psychology of it. Much later - I realized I had fallen into a dark night of the soul - and the Buffy boards helped me realize I wasn't alone, that they were going through something similar - and this was their way of coping with it.
I fell into fandom as a way of coping with what happened in the fall of 2001. What happened was two things in quick succession:
1. I had found out from a co-worker that my boss was out to get me, and was actively gaslighting me. The boss in question later confirmed that this was true in October during a performance evaluation - where he gave me a low rating based solely on "my personality" nothing else. For an hour - he ripped me apart "personally", to the point that I was in tears. I also found out that outside of two indexers that I went to lunch with every day, the management was in on the gaslighting with my boss. (The story has interesting ending in that - the company was sold ten years later, and everyone who'd been gaslighting me was fired. The boss who'd been bullying others to do it - was fired in disgrace. He'd gotten drunk at a Library Convention and made a fool of himself and the company. I had resigned in the fall of 2002, at the prodding of friends and family. I resigned with dignity. Years later, my replacements were singing my praises, and a friend who'd been bullied into aiding the gaslighting - told me that she missed me and didn't realize how amazing my work had been. Also after the company was sold - she told me that the new owners praised my work - because the content I had licensed was the only content they could keep. I came out of the experience with my dignity intact, and shining like a star, while the boss who gaslit me, couldn't find a job.)
2. 9/11
I basically had a nervous breakdown, and the Buffy fandom became my safety net. It saved me. I saw a psychologist during it - she was horrible. But the Buffy fandom - that became my safety net, my group therapy, my sounding board. When I quite my job, a navy nurse in Japan sent me flowers. Her husband came and took me out to eat. We had a correspondence via email - and apparently we kept each other sane through Buffy. I'd write about work, and so did she, we connected through our love of Spike, science fiction, Buffy, and this sense of isolation and despair. We'd met on the APTOBTVS board.
But I don't think we'd have met if it weren't for those events - 9/11 and what happened at my workplace. I wasn't really involved in any fandom prior to that. It didn't even occur to me to get involved in one.
no subject
It was outdoors - kind of an open arena. There was the WTC Music Festival - it was scheduled for September 16-26 or thereabouts. It got cancelled obviously.
That day - they shut down the trains and everything - although they did let the ones that were already running make it to their stations. The trains were shut down for about five hours. And companies let everyone out early or told people not to come in. I was already at work. A lot of people walked home. There was over a million people walking over the Brooklyn Bridge, and down the streets.
Why Buffy? Was it the only thing you were fannish about at the time?
I wasn't really fannish about anything prior to 9/11. Oh I liked stuff, and I'd hunt for spoilers. But I'd never really been in a fandom. Never read fanfic. Didn't really know it existed. I think at that time I was watching quite a few things, and discussing them. I loved Buffy - but I didn't read fanfic, write meta, or discuss it online. The only Buffy fansites I knew about were ACIN News - which wasn't really one, but had spoilers here and there, and a few fan websites which were no longer around.
Then 9/11 happened, and a week or so later, Buffy premiered with "Bargaining" - and for the first time I saw something that expressed how I felt about 9/11. Buffy's reactions to her world - were mine, I completely identified with her. Nothing else seemed to resonate. I remember reading Janet Evanovich novels on the train, and becoming engrossed by Buffy.
It wasn't until Once More With Feeling - that I began to get obsessed. And Smashed - sent me hunting fanfiction and spoilers. I went to a friend's birthday party in NJ, shortly after Smashed aired - this was after I returned from visiting my parents for Thanksgiving break. We'd met during a Turkish sailing trip the year before, and had recently traveled to Oregon together to visit another friend and see the wineries. We'd planned on going to Thailand next, we'd even paid a portion of the trip up front (which you had to do) way back in July - but in September we both cancelled because of 9/11. The trip was supposed to take place during the week of my birthday. My plan had been to be sitting beneath a waterfall on my birthday in Thailand in 2002. But, with what was going down at work plus 9/11 - I had no choice but to cancel.
At any rate - at the birthday party - I ran into Buffy fans. I didn't know anyone who watched or loved the show prior to that. After driving them nuts with emails and questions (I was obsessed) - they sent me a link to Spoilerslayer website. Spoilerslayer got tired of my speculation emails, and sent me to Buffy Cross & Stake. Through Spoilerslayer and Buffy Cross & Stake I discovered other websites, fanfiction, and essays on the show. Read everything I could get my hands on. I had my own printer at work. So I could print stuff off. Work was a nightmare - my boss was a serial bully and wanted to get rid of me. I was mostly isolated in my office.
And bored out of my mind.(My work didn't take much time to do - I went through it in a matter of two or three hours.) So, I escaped into the Buffy fanboards.
I remember one of my friends at work commenting at the time that the Buffy Boards were a kind of weird group therapy. They were. There was a woman who posted Buffy meta on the Buffy Cross and Stake Board - named Linda Delurker. And after reading some of her posts, I thought - hmm, I can write that. So I did. And I posted it on characters - that she didn't post on, and other people didn't post on. Through my essays - I was able to deal with my own pain, fear, anxiety, and struggles. I dealt with it by discussing the series and characters. Their journey through the darkness of S6 Buffy - was so similar to my own. And when I landed on a more scholarly fanboard, ATPOBTVS, I was able to dig deeper into the psychology of it. Much later - I realized I had fallen into a dark night of the soul - and the Buffy boards helped me realize I wasn't alone, that they were going through something similar - and this was their way of coping with it.
I fell into fandom as a way of coping with what happened in the fall of 2001. What happened was two things in quick succession:
1. I had found out from a co-worker that my boss was out to get me, and was actively gaslighting me. The boss in question later confirmed that this was true in October during a performance evaluation - where he gave me a low rating based solely on "my personality" nothing else. For an hour - he ripped me apart "personally", to the point that I was in tears. I also found out that outside of two indexers that I went to lunch with every day, the management was in on the gaslighting with my boss. (The story has interesting ending in that - the company was sold ten years later, and everyone who'd been gaslighting me was fired. The boss who'd been bullying others to do it - was fired in disgrace. He'd gotten drunk at a Library Convention and made a fool of himself and the company. I had resigned in the fall of 2002, at the prodding of friends and family. I resigned with dignity. Years later, my replacements were singing my praises, and a friend who'd been bullied into aiding the gaslighting - told me that she missed me and didn't realize how amazing my work had been. Also after the company was sold - she told me that the new owners praised my work - because the content I had licensed was the only content they could keep. I came out of the experience with my dignity intact, and shining like a star, while the boss who gaslit me, couldn't find a job.)
2. 9/11
I basically had a nervous breakdown, and the Buffy fandom became my safety net. It saved me. I saw a psychologist during it - she was horrible. But the Buffy fandom - that became my safety net, my group therapy, my sounding board. When I quite my job, a navy nurse in Japan sent me flowers. Her husband came and took me out to eat. We had a correspondence via email - and apparently we kept each other sane through Buffy. I'd write about work, and so did she, we connected through our love of Spike, science fiction, Buffy, and this sense of isolation and despair. We'd met on the APTOBTVS board.
But I don't think we'd have met if it weren't for those events - 9/11 and what happened at my workplace. I wasn't really involved in any fandom prior to that. It didn't even occur to me to get involved in one.