And this (in particular the use of the term ‘policing’) makes me think first of all of how anime conventions very explicitly set up permitted and prohibited conducts. A costume is (generally) OK; a ‘hug me’ sign or a vuvuzela is decidedly not.

As far as circling the wagons, etc., goes, though, why shouldn’t that exist. There is being a fan, but then there is being a member of a very specific group that defines itself by what it is, but also, by what it does not do. Like that old saying goes, “It’s not about what you’re like, it’s about what you like”, and being a member of a specific fan group allows you to buy into an identity, a group, and a social organization that is not built around your physical qualities or your place and role in the world outside the fan group.

Internalized indeed!

The social justice conversations are certainly both a different issue and follow different dynamics, you’re right!

This is something that interests (and frustrates) me as well — my working theory is that fans are often involved in an ongoing fight, both within their own minds and with the world, to prove that fannishness and fanworks are legitimate (adult) identities and activities. And also that legitimacy is, by necessity, employing the definitions that are reflected back to us most often in the workplace, the media, and in social settings outside of fannish enclaves — legitimacy as enacted within an adult professional-class white male cisgendered able-bodied heterosexual paradigm. As that definition relentlessly rejects the other as illegitimate (and regularly targets teenage girls and their interests in particular as frivolous, transitory, and in need of paternalistic guidance), we borrow that behavior in order to set ourselves on the side of the ‘legitimate’ — attempting validation of our own legitimacy via borrowed behaviors.

There’s also interplay with the rejection of stereotypes, certainly — but I think we tend to throw out the baby with the bathwater in many cases, there. The stereotypes of the basement-dwelling socially inept male fan, the cat-owning lonely spinster shut-in female fan, and the giddily screaming teen girl fan are all, in pieces, there in real life. But the stereotypes foreground the negative and mockable, and also, in my opinion, reductively propose that the root of all of those negatives is taking illegitimate subjects (unserious, ‘low’ culture, not artistically valued, and unsanctioned by the ‘legitimate’ definition I pose above) too seriously — being too earnest, failing to hold an ironic pose. A ‘cool’ affect is the ‘adult’ approach, and shoves away association with those stereotypes, but the rejection of those 2-dimensional stereotypes wholesale demands constant defense and disclaiming: “I’m a fan, and i own a cat, but I’m not one of those fans“; “I am in popslash fandom, but I’m not one of those annoying teen girls”; “I play D&D, but I go on dates”. This behavior is inherently a losing game, as we validate the stereotypes rather than transcending and redefining; we blame fans who we see as embodying the stereotypes for undercutting our legitimacy as a group, rather than accepting that we are all more than that. A real person who embodies a stereotype is not therefore reduced to two dimensions — they are more, and they are valuable and, I believe, still legitimate. We’re trapped in our defensive poses forever, and that defensiveness divides us, creates a perception of hierarchy within fandom communities that is ageist, misogynist, and ableist. It does us very little good, and a great deal of harm.

I do see the good fan/bad fan stuff being brought up in both arenas mentioned, but most of the social justice conversations I’ve seen veer quickly away from fandom and fannishness. In contrast, the conversations about furries being weird or fans being “OTT” or whatever stay centered in fannishness.