In the beginning....

What is fandom?

Wikipedia defines it as: interested in even minor details of the object(s) of their fandom and spend a significant portion of their time and energy involved with their interest, often as a part of a social network with particular practices (a fandom).

I’ve been a fangirl forever. This is my blog to try and document how I became such a dedicated serial obsessor and who/what my obsessions were. I believe it all began in my childhood but perhaps it’s also just something inherently ME.

It was like the Golden Age of Televison or something in the 70s when I was a kid. There was always something to watch every night and only one episode per week. Apart from Hollywood police/detective, drama, Western, variety shows and sitcoms, there were also loads of Cantonese drama serials, Chinese Variety Show and of course, Talentime! I was in primary and secondary school then and as the Internet was non-existent, TV was the only source of entertainment on a screen.

Favourite shows from then included:

Hawaii Five-O, Streets of San Francisco, Charlie’s Angels, S.W.A.T, Six Million Dollar Man, Bionic Woman, Emergency, Space 1999, All Creatures Great and Small, Mind Your Language, Donny and Marie Show, Carol Burnett Show, Cher, Happy Days, Petticoat Junction, I Love Lucy, Laverne and Shirley….omg, the list is endless!
Amongst the Cantonese serials, The Book and the Sword, Sorrows of the Forbidden City, Chameleon and Man In The Net were particularly memorable. That was also the time of black-and-white TV and I remember when colour TV came on the scene, how excited we all were! A popular TV brand then was Sierra.

My most enduring fandom from that era would have to be the Osmonds, especially Donny and Marie. I would watch their show religiously…including repeat telecasts on then-RTS (Radio and Televison Singapore) and also the actual/repeat telecasts on RTM (Malaysia)! At one stage, that meant I was watching Donny and Marie four times a week! Thankfully, my dear mother was quite understanding and actually did not object to such obsessive behaviour.
Of course, it helped that the Osmond siblings were really good and wholesome role models, not to mention how fun their show was! Captain Purple, anyone? I remember going to Lucky Plaza to see them when they came to Singapore and also attending their concert with my big brother at the National Stadium!
That was also when all my fangirl behaviour began.

Omg…I had crushes over SO many actors…I cannot count them. And there was only one entertainment mag, Fanfare to read for whatever info I could get. I could not afford the foreign mags but thankfully…I had a friend who could and she was always very kind to let me borrow them. We could spend hours discussing the stars over the phone.
Another friend, Honey, and I also exchanged notes frequently in class about our crushes and she actually kept those notes! Sadly, I did not. It would have been fun if I had. I still remember what the handwriting looked like.

Another outstanding thing about the TV shows from that era was how distinctive their respective theme songs were! Till now, they are remembered very fondly by all my contemporaries and just humming part of the theme or posting a youtube vid on Facebook is guaranteed to trigger a rush of nostalgia and further sharings of favourite ditties.

Well, all these happened more than thirty years ago and in fact, in my Secondary Four yearbook, I was labelled a fangirl on the class page! Things have not changed although for a spell during my twenties when I was in the Uni, fandom took a back seat due to lack of time and loads of other commitments, like career stuff and having a boyfriend, getting married, having babies…yadayadayada.
But fandom behaviour cannot be suppressed for long and when life was more settled in my early thirties, I discovered to my great joy that I had not lost that loving feeling for hunks of the star kind. )