wwxwashere
I’m 27 years old from Brazil, but I live in the US. I have a History degree and worked at an archive for almost 6 years. In my time there, I created a tabletop roleplaying game to teach history to kids who had trouble learning (disabilities, social issues, financial issues, who faced violence, etc). I’m pro-Palestine. Lately, I have been getting into twitch streaming, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok for video games.
Anushka Bidani: How did you get into fandoms?
wwxwashere: I became a huge fan of a British band named McFly, and one thing led to another. I made a Twitter account to keep up with them, watched everything they released and eventually ended up learning English from that experience. As I grew older, I got interested in Sherlock Holmes and Mo Dao Zu Shi, which were the main fandoms I was a part of. And led by the interest to find others who liked the same things I did, I ended up being active on social media about all of them.
AB: You said you learned English by keeping up with McFly. How did that happen?
wwxwashere: I would listen to their songs while reading the lyrics, then eventually started watching live streams of the band even though there were no subtitles. At some point I started to pick up on words and everything developed from that.
AB: What inspired you to create this page?
wwxwashere: I initially made the account to talk about McFly, but the band went through a huge hiatus and I stopped posting or visiting the page. Once the COVID pandemic hit I was already in the peak of my interest for Mo Dao Zu Shi and The Untamed. Being locked inside completely alone made me seek social interaction, and I revived the account to share my thoughts about that fandom instead. I battled a lot of difficulty in my life, such as developing chronic pain, and what kept my mental health to sane levels was knowing there were a lot of people who identified with me, cared about me, knew I existed. That’s why I never left again.
AB: How do you think of your page: as a fan page for fandoms, a personal blog or -?
wwxwashere: It has always been both, in a way. I treated it more like a personal blog at the start because I was going through a lot and wanted a way to vent my thoughts to the world without being judged by people who knew me in real life. The thing is, that subject can only go so far. I just had a huge drive to talk more and more about my fandom related interests, so that’s what I posted for the majority of the time, and well. The page got so popular that everyone who knows me in real life ended up learning about it anyway, so it became my main source for everything. It’s a good mix in my opinion, and it makes me happy.
AB: You have a very good sense for what kind of memes and tweets will resonate with fans. Do you study fandoms?
wwxwashere: No, I don’t study at all. I never paid attention to trends and I never thought to actually apply marketing to my social media account. I think experience of dealing with Twitter for so long made me have a good idea of what people enjoyed, but at the same time I have always made my own enjoyment the priority for what I post, which is why there have been so many times where my posts have been copied or turned into a “format” for others. I follow what genuinely excites me and makes me laugh, and I’m grateful to have found a lot of people who enjoy the same things, is all.
AB: You have also successfully built a very vibrant community around your page. Is that something you had wanted to do from the outset or did it just happen?
wwxwashere: Community is a good word for what I seek. I don’t care about engagement numbers or how many people I reach as much as I care about finding those 10 or so people who actually care for who I am and what I have to say. I’m sometimes terrible at keeping up with replies because today a lot of strangers send me tweets all day every day, but my DM’s are mostly empty. I connect with every single person who has put time and effort into getting to know me in a genuine way, and I care about them – that’s community for me. I’m really easy to reach through those messages and I value the people who have been here with me for a long time.
AB: Which fandoms do you belong to? Do those biases ever influence your social media?
wwxwashere: I would say Mo Dao Zu Shi is probably the one I have been the most active in. I don’t think all of my interests are reflected in my page though. I enjoy BTS and TXT a lot in my own way, because those fandoms seem huge and intimidating to me, so it is more of a personal thing than something I post about often. I really enjoyed Harry Potter as a kid but have zero drive to post about it in 2024. Apart from MDZS, I still consider myself an active fan of Sherlock Holmes, Shakespeare, Valorant, Minecraft, Baldur’s Gate and Disco Elysium. Although my interests and enjoyment are my priority when posting online, I wouldn’t say all of them are necessarily reflected on my page.
AB: Has this page’s growth influenced your real life, in any way?
wwxwashere: Oh, incredibly. First of all I have a huge debt of gratitude to the Mo Dao Zu Shi fandom. It was the first time in my life I felt HEARD and SEEN for who I was. I made a lot of friends and personal relationships over the years, lived with people I met through the fandom, acquired basically all of my hobbies in it. I had just finished college when I joined it and I would say it’s where I developed as a fully functioning adult really, in every way possible. Those were the people who were there for me when I faced the hardest part of my life and with that I learned a lot of valuable lessons. I wouldn’t know a thing about social media without it, and I also wouldn’t have turned so much attention to my values and political stand as I do now, because of that experience.
This interview by Anushka Bidani is part of the series, The Fan Page Project.