Fan (person)

A fan or fanatic, sometimes also termed an aficionado or enthusiast, is a person who exhibits strong interest or admiration for something or somebody, such as a celebrity, a sport, a sports team, a genre, a politician, a book, a movie, a video game or an entertainer. Collectively, the fans of a particular object or person constitute its fanbase or fandom. They may show their enthusiasm in a variety of ways, such as by promoting the object of their interest, being members of a related fan club, holding or participating in fan conventions or writing fan mail. They may also engage in creative activities ("fan labor") such as creating fanzines, writing fan fiction, making memes or drawing fan art. Merriam-Webster, the Oxford dictionary and other sources define "fan" as a shortened version of the word fanatic. Fanatic itself, introduced into English around 1550, means "marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion". It comes from the Modern Latin fanaticus, meaning "insanely but divinely inspired". The word originally pertained to a temple or sacred place [Latin fanum, poetic English fane]. The modern sense of "extremely zealous" dates from around 1647; the use of fanatic as a noun dates from 1650. However, the term "fancy" for an intense liking of something (a usage attested by 1545), while being of a different etymology, coincidentally carries a less intense but somewhat similar connotation to "fanatic". Use of "the fancy" to mean avid sports enthusiasts emerged as an Americanism in the mid-19th century. The Dickson Baseball Dictionary cites William Henry Nugent's work asserting that it was derived from the fancy, a term referring to the fans of a specific hobby or sport from the early 18th century to the 19th, especially to the followers of boxing. According to that theory, it was originally shortened to fance then just to the homonym fans. The Great American Baseball Scrapbook attributes the term to Chris Von der Ahe, owner of the Saint Louis Brown Stockings in 1882.

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Related concepts (15)

Fan (person)

Sport

Sport pertains to any form of physical activity or game, often competitive and organized, that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, through casual or organized participation, improve participants' physical health. Hundreds of sports exist, from those between single contestants, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals.

Fan fiction

Fan fiction or fanfiction (also abbreviated to fan fic, fanfic, fic or FF) is fictional writing written in an amateur capacity by fans, unauthorized by, but based on an existing work of fiction. The author uses copyrighted characters, settings, or other intellectual properties from the original creator(s) as a basis for their writing. Fan fiction ranges from a couple of sentences to an entire novel, and fans can retain the creator's characters and settings and/or add their own. It is a form of fan labor.