A Short Story About #Fringe Love

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.

Soon I realized that this was more than just a random TV-show, it was something that brought people together, people from so many different countries.

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: 

Tribute to Fringenuity from Fraggle on Vimeo.

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.

Fringe, My Alternate Universe

By Sarah Proost (@SarahProost)

Hi Fringies!

I am honored to be writing a guest blog post for you guys. First of all… I miss the Fringe days. I miss our Friday nights. This is my Fringe story.

I started watching Fringe as soon as it came out. Mainly because I saw that Joshua Jackson was starring, but after watching the pilot episode, that quickly changed. And I became hooked.

As I am writing this, I am browsing through morethanoneofeverything, this website I came across, I think it was mid-season 4, and I saw they were doing Fringe campaigns. By a team called Fringenuity. Founded by Aimee (@aimeeinchains) and Annie (@birdandbear). 

And when I saw what they were doing, I knew I had to be a part of it. I just had to. At first I just joined a few campaigns, using the icons that were available at the time (Shout-out to Cheri (@cheribot), to Ian (@Zort70) and Lynsey (@Frozenaura) who also created awesome icons and banners!). 

But then I started wondering, what if I make icons too. I was studying graphic design after all. So I immediately made my first icon for #LoveIsTheAnswer, in a bunch of different colours (that soon became a standard).  I remember I made it very last minute and spent like 15 minutes on it. A spur of the moment kind of thing. Then basically spammed it to Fringenuity. I tweeted it to them, I posted it on their website. 

And so I got in contact with Aimee. And with Nik (@Nikolai3D), who invented the Art Matrix(!).

Turned out that people loved it. So I joined the campaign and it all started for me. I had become part of something so special. Little did I know at the time. I underestimated the impact of it all. 

But I loved doing it. Knowing that I was using my skills to do something good. Waiting week after week, curious about what the hashtag was going to be. Soon I was on a roll. Sometimes designing one icon wasn’t enough. I had to get all of my ideas out there. Sometimes it was really challenging, some days I had no clue what to create, but it always came together. Everyone was always so supportive. When people tweeted me saying that they love what I had created, saying they were looking forward to see what I’d make for the next week… I knew I was doing something right. And that it was all worth it. Here are some of my favourite season 4 icons: 

Getting to know Fringies, breaking Twitter, trending, in my case: staying up ‘till the crack of dawn to participate and have so much fun… It had really become something I looked forward to every week. 

Then there was this hashtag #DarkestBeforeDawn. And this girl named Natalia (@NataliaQuique) contacted me on Twitter, asking if I could turn the icon into a poster. I’m pretty sure we used to tweet before that, but I think it’s safe to say that this particular tweet has changed my life. To this day, we are still close friends, living worlds apart. We have each other’s backs. She helped me through some difficult season 5 design dilemmas. Because for some reason, season 5 was a lot harder for me. She previewed a lot of my designs and I am really thankful to her.

I have made some close Fringe friends. People I still talk to on a daily basis. Like Jane (@JaneAWilson2), Nik and Lynsey and off course Nat. This year I was lucky enough to meet Nik in person in Amsterdam! That was so much fun!

After season 4 ended, I remember us waiting, day after day, for news of renewal. And when we got it… We trended, we broke Twitter, we were all so genuinely happy. We couldn’t have done this without Fringenuity. But not just Fringenuity. Every single person that helped our campaigns week after week, in any way. It’s because of all of us. 

But we didn’t just do episode campaigns. We campaigned during Comic-Con. #InWymanWeTrust. 

We all know what happened at Comic-Con. That’s the stuff of legends. How one symbol, one flower, can have so much impact. I went to twitter jail for the first time. I remember that very well. But that’s what alt-accounts are for. For when you tweet too much ;-). I also want to re-share a poster that I did. I don’t remember where in the timeline this fits into exactly, but we also did a #WatchItLive campaign. And this is one of my absolute favourite posters of all time.

And when season 5 started, we were back in action. Because if you think Fringenuity would stop after accomplishing season 5 renewal, you were wrong. We did it all over again. With new hashtags and new icons, but with less pressure and even more fun. 

And then Fringe ended. But Fringenuity did not. We started focusing on Wyman’s new project “Almost Human”. We were doing so great. Icons, banners, posters. But then the most unthinkable tragedy happened. We had lost our founder Aimee Long. I have no words for this. We all still miss her very much. And we tried to move on the best we could. And we really tried with Almost Human, but sadly we weren’t successful due to a number of reasons I won’t get into.

Last but not least: an unreleased, never before seen (except for Nat) poster I made of Olivia Dunham.

The truth of the matter is that the Fringe void is still there. But I’m happy it happened.

All in all, Fringe gave us something to look forward to, Fringe gave us a loving community, Fringe gave us friendship, Fringe changed our lives.

Walter: “The only thing better than a cow is a human. Unless you need milk, then you really need a cow.”  

So, here is to us.

Here is to Fringe.

To Fringenuity.

Love,

Sarah (@SarahProost)