By Kristin (@FraggleBerlin)
The first time I „met“ other Fringe fans was in a German Fringe forum. I was looking for other people to talk about the show and to learn about the latest news and… yes… also about the latest spoilers. No one of my real life friends was watching Fringe or better to say no one was watching the new episodes. In Germany you have to wait months for the new season after it aired in the US. I am not good at waiting. Not at all!
So one day a friend from our forum told me about the video some Irish fan was planning. She was looking for photographs from all over the world promoting the hashtag #WhereIsPeterBishop.
It took me some time to learn what a hashtag is about. At this time I did not have Twitter. Actually I hated Twitter! Now – more than 12.000 tweets later - I learned something about hashtags and the power of social media.
So the #WhereIsPeterBishop-Video by Zoey Moss was my entry into the world wide Fringe madness and it is still one of the most beautiful things Fringe fans ever made.
#WhereIsPeterBishop? from whereispb on Vimeo.
Fringe has never been mainstream, so the ratings were always something to be worried about. In January 2012 a small group of Fringe fans started a new kind of twitter revolution. They called themselves Fringenuity (@Fringenuity). Every week they tried to promote one special hashtag into the world wide twitter trending lists. It worked! Every Friday more people attended the twitter campaigns. Even FOX noticed that and started to show the weekly fan hashtags during the episodes.
For most fans the removal to Friday nights was the worst thing FOX did to the show. But for me actually it was the best! European fans were able to watch the show live when it aired. In Germany it was three o’clock in the morning. But who cared? It was weekend, no school, no work, just fun!
In early 2012 I co-founded the German fan movement @FringeGermany as a support group for Fringenuity. The plan was to translate all the campaigns and events Fringenuity planned into German so that we could reach more people who might attend to the world wide movement. Soon the German fans asked for their own campaigns and we started to create our own hashtags for the episodes on German TV. A lot of fans asked the German Broadcaster to show our hashtags just liked FOX did in the US. And they did! Something that NEVER had happened before. In the US it was usual to show the official hashtag, it was a big deal to show a fan hashtag, but over here they did not show ANY hashtag before! That was crazy!
Back then I often chatted with the Fringenuity girls, especially with Aimee Long. We talked about the show and the campaigns. Aimee was a very special person. On the one hand she was one of the most important leaders of the fandom, very strong and devoted. But she also was very thoughtful and pondering. She was often complaining about the ignorance of some people and the media. Sometimes she asked herself why she was doing all the work, why she was fighting so much, if it doesn’t pay off. One day some website was looking for the most devoted fandom and the Fringe fans were not even nominated. Aimee was so angry that day. I decided that somebody has to do something for Fringenuity. Some kind of a "thank you". I discussed that with some other German fans and we decided to start a new campaign for a “Thank you” video. But who should do this? Who would edit the video? I barely knew how to upload photographs to the internet. I made some of the weekly icons for the twitter campaigns. But a video? Me? Never!
It was about three months before the anniversary of the first trending campaign when I decided to try. I started a secret Twitter account @FringeFiles and asked other fans to submit. I did not want to copy Zoeys video because it was unique and actually her editing skills were amazing and mine were… just… not! I wanted to tell a story about the hashtag campaigns and I wanted to include the art and the thank you notes of as many fans as possible!
I had three months to learn how to make a video. It was a challenge! And it was so much fun!
Here is the result:
It was the first time a made a video and I was pretty sure it would be the last time. Sadly in November 2013 Aimee passed away and left a shocked fandom behind. We lost our leader and I lost the person who forced me to do something that I never thought I would be able to do. A few days before I was in hospital and I felt really miserable. It was Aimee who reacted to a Facebook post I wrote in German and I am pretty sure she did not spoke even one German word. She wished me luck and she hoped that I would get well soon. It was the last time I was chatting with her. Aimee was one of the persons who cared! I never met her in person but I felt so deeply sorry about her death and I still do. That was the day I made a second video, just for her, just to say goodbye. You will find it if you are looking for it, but I will not post a link.
Now – almost two years after the end of Fringe – real life keeps me very busy. Every now and then I come back to Twitter and find some of my old pals. Honestly I never really watched Fringe after it ended. Yes, I miss the show, but what I miss more is the fandom, the time we spent together.
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