Fandom Terms

It has occurred to me that most people in the world do not know what an OTP is or maybe even what a fandom is. I figured that google would sort of come into play at some point or someone would use the context to learn what some of the things I say mean during my never-ending monologues. I have finally thought that this is probably overdue and I should explain some of my nerd slang.

Courtesy of Pintrest

The word 'fandom' come from mushing the words fanatic and domain into one word, it basically means a group of people that like the same actor, band, TV show, anime, book, webcomic, etc. The populations that make up fandoms are called fangirls or fanboys, depending on gender. These people are sometimes really closely knit groups in real life or online. Now, you might be wondering, what do these strange subcultures do besides share a common like for something?

These people sometimes cosplay, ship, draw fanart, write fanfictions, role-play, go to conventions, and worship their actor, band, TV show, anime, book, webcomic, etc. Cosplay is when a person dresses up like a character from their fandom and at Anime Bonzi most of what I saw was from an anime or Homestuck. You may have heard of ComicCon or something similar, but it is basically a gathering of fandoms that nerd out together and there are panels where people talk about anything from headcanons to origami to actors talking about filming.

Fanart and fanfics are fan created drawings and stories that revolve around characters in the stories or original characters created by a fan. Shipping is when you like the idea of two characters being in a relationship, and it can be platonic or romantic as well as canon or not. The acceptance of shipping varies from fandom to fandom. A Headcanon is an event or fact that someone likes. An example being that a character is secretly ticklish or what their height is.

Going back to shipping, the ship that you consider your favorite is called an OTP, and although it stands for One True Pairing, most fangirls have a dozen or more. A common word used by all fans is 'feels' as in feelings, because typing out ing is too much to do when your feels have been hurt. Finally an AMV or MEP are some fanart with music playing in the background. They stand for Animated Music Video and Multi Editing Project respectively, the main difference being that more people work on a MEP.

After getting such an amazing crash course in fandom slang, you are ready to dive face first into the world of fandoms and read this blog with a basic understanding of what I am saying some of the time. Either of those, or you are just really very scared and want nothing to do with fandoms or anything like them ever again and have probably stopped reading. Whichever one you are, you can now better understand some of the nerds you will meet.