English

Noun

fringefan ‎(plural fringefans or fringefen)

1. (dated, fandom slang, sometimes pejorative) A science fiction fan primarily interested in a specific subset of fandom; a partial fan on the fringe of fandom.
   • 1969, Warner, Jr., Harry, All Our Yesterdays, page 263:

     It got next to no prozine publicity and Los Angeles newspapers ignored it, so the fringefans didn't know about it.

   • 1983 January 7, csin!cjh, “Re cursing ministers”, in net.sf-lovers, Usenet, message-ID <bnews.csin.246>:

     I repeat my contention that absence of critical sense is one of the marks of the fringefan, and introduce the corollary (observable from the earliest days of anything recognizable as fandom) that argumentativeness is one of the common denominators of the [trufan] (I hate that term but it carries a useful sense).

   • 1985, Budrys, Algis, Benchmarks, page 253:

     Some were undoubtedly fakefans and fringefans, and there was I'm sure a strong surviving increment of Trekkies, as well as a high proportion of what might be called Jedites.

   • 1994 June 3, Brad Templeton, “Re: What Are Cons For?”, in rec.arts.sf.fandom, Usenet, message-ID <CqssD6.755@clarinet.com>:

     Depends on what you want from a con, but I imagine that the name GoH attracts the fringefen who would not come otherwise, and those people pay enough money so the con can book all the function space it wants to.

   • 1995 June 11, Chris Croughton, “Re: LL Reconsidered?”, in rec.arts.sf.fandom, Usenet, message-ID <802799304snz@keris.demon.co.uk>:

     Oh, I do enjoy Ansible as well <grovel>. However, I wasn't sure that was a True Fanzine (tm) - after all, it's read by (shock, horror) media fans, filkers, and other such fringefen. It also uses Modern Technology, not Traditional Ways Of Producing Fanzines (not that the email version of DR is exactly traditional either!)...

Usage notes

When used as a pejorative, it implies that the person barely counts as a real fan, and their particular fandom is illegitimate.

Typically covers distinct, often new fandoms rather than general, traditional science fiction fandom. For example:

• 1977, Ash, Brian, The Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, ISBN 9780517531754, page 273:

  The largest and most recent body of fringe fandom rejoices in a membership of "Trekkies" or "Trekkers"—adherents of the Star Trek television series.

Meronyms

• Trekker
• Trekkie
• Whovian

References

• Jeff Prucher, editor (2007) Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, Oxford; New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-530567-8, page 69