lazypadawan's Holocron

You make some interesting points here, but I did find myself pondering the "length of history" one. Sports does and no doubt can lay claim to "a long tradition," but it doesn't quite seem to me that there's a link that can be traced year-by-year from the classical world to now; I believe "spectator sports" in the sense of paying money to see people paid for playing only really came together in the latter part of the 19th century. Of course, I also found myself thinking that "waiting for the Dickens boat" shows a great interest in a story, but perhaps doesn't have to mean the kind of "fannish attachment" that treats it as "real on some level," so maybe it's all a wash. (Still, I think that the Sherlock Holmes stories were beginning to attract something recognisable as a "fandom" by the close of the 19th century.)