Some days, it feels like I’ve been involved in fandoms for forever. After all, I’ve been invested in TV, movies, and books my whole life. However, I never would have become the fandom-savvy person that I am today if I hadn’t stumbled across The Pirates of the Caribbean when I did.

Like loads of other kids, I grew up on Harry Potter and loved those books to pieces. But, for some reason, the series never really pushed me in the fandom direction. Sure, I browsed MuggleNet a bit but I had first started reading the series before I became an internet addict. So while I definitely include myself in the Harry Potter fandom now, it wasn’t the medium that pushed me into the world. That privilege came years later with the DVD release of The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and I’m so happy it did.

How it all started

I couldn’t tell you why I didn’t see The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearlwant to see the movie. I actually really did. I had heard such great things about it from my friends who had seen it, including a boy I had a giant crush on (so you best believe I had really wanted to see that movie.) But, like my experience with most other movies I’m always wanted to see in theaters, it just never came to be — possibly because I wasn’t a superfan of any of the actors in it. Yet.

So my first interaction with The Pirates of the Caribbean came on Christmas Day, 2003. My brother got a copy of the movie in his stocking that morning even though he had never seen it either. None of my family members had, in fact. So, because Christmas Day is traditionally a lazy day in our household, we decided to watch the movie that evening because we had all heard such good things about it.

While I don’t remember what I was thinking as I watched the movie, I do remember being in awe once it ended (and that was even before I knew about the post-credit sequence). The characters were all so wonderfully different from anything I had seen before and the plot was the perfect mix of action, adventure, romance, and supernatural elements. That and Orlando Bloom’s face was a definite plus.

Needless to say, I was plotting ways to steal it from my brother moments after it ended. In fact, the day that he got it, I nabbed the junior novelization that came along with his DVD. I don’t think he ever noticed because it’s still sitting on my bookshelf today.

It wasn’t all that hard to swipe the movie from my brother. At that time, he was obsessed with playing video games so he didn’t have much time to watch movies. Once I got my hands on the DVD, I played it nonstop for days. And that was just the beginning.

The extent of my obsession

My obsession was intense, let me tell you. But in the best way. In the early days, I’d have the movie playing as I got ready for school in the morning and then I’d finish it while I did homework in the early evening. Then, I’d watch it a second time through before I went to bed. The cycle would then repeat itself the next morning.

But after a while, that just wasn’t enough. While I loved living in the world of the movie, it was much too short for my liking. I wanted more. So, I turned to the family computer (on which I had previously only ever used the paint program and signed on to AOL to IM friends). This was (appropriately) uncharted territory for me, but I just needed more. But more on that later…

My obsession was all-consuming. I slept, breathed, and even ate (yes, ate; I found Pirates of the Caribbean cereal!) Pirates. There wasn’t an hour that passed that I didn’t think about the movie and how much I loved it. Pretty soon, everyone else was able to easily see how passionate I had become.

How I showed my love for the series without fandom influence

Believe me when I say that my room was covered in Orlando Bloom’s face. Covered. There was a bit of Johnny Depp here and there, but it was mostly Orlando. You see, the side effect of my passion for Pirates of the Caribbean was an intense obsession with Will Turner and then Orlando Bloom himself. My room was pretty much a shrine to his face and pirate ruggedness. I’m not even joking a little bit. I still have some of the posters that were on my wall in a box in my headboard.

My prized piece of art, though, was a print of Will Turner on the Black Pearl overlooking the ocean (circa Dead Man’s Chest) that I bought from a cart at the mall for $20. I hung it on the wall next to my bed where I could easily see it and would always show it to people.

All of my family and friends knew about my Will Turner/Orly obsession as well. They gave me heads up about Hot Topic merch, got a “I FaceinHole.com (although I did one of those on my own later; see next page). She photoshopped my face onto the photo below and made the photo into a banner for whatever site I wanted to put it on, complete with one of my favorite Will/Orlando flubs, “Swash swash buckle buckle.” I can’t even begin to describe how much I regret deleting that photo because I wish I still had it. So badly.

Anyway, other ways I showed my love for Pirates of the Caribbean (in no particular order):

 
I’m sure there were more things that I did to celebrate my newfound fandom by myself and in my own personal spaces, but I can’t remember them at the moment. But I definitely do remember my first taste of interactive fandom.

Next Page: Learn how I interacted with the fandom for the first time and read all the details of a ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ costume gone wrong!

How I participated in the fandom community

As I mentioned above, one of the reasons why Pirates of the Caribbean is so important to me is because it introduced me to the concept of fandoms. Before Pirates, I never knew that I could interact online with people who enjoyed and obsessed over the same things that I did. At first, it was baffling! And, since it was around the time when parents still thought that all online interactions would lead to abductions and murders, it felt dangerously good!

But, since none of my family members or friends felt nearly the same way about Pirates of the Caribbean, there was no better place to go to sort out all of my feelings and theories. For the first time, I had somewhere real to go to to share my interests. That’s not a feeling one soon forgets.

Fandom things I consumed


Fan-created banner via http://piratesofthecaribbeanandmore.webs.com

Like any great event, my introduction into fandom life happened slowly and then all at once. One of the first things I remember doing is searching for fun facts and Easter eggs about the movies. I just really wanted to learn everything I could. I also felt compelled to search for any chatter of a sequel. I mean, the movie was so well-received and well-loved that it couldn’t possibly be a stand-alone. To a 13-year-old girl like me, there just had to be more. After all, the monkey at the end of the credits seemed to imply as much!

I would also read maybe one or two fansites (namely “PotC Fandom,” which has since disappeared *tear*) for their theories on certain aspects of the movie and the universe, as well as go through and save a bunch of their fan art, collages, edits, and banners to my computer as my own sort of personal collection (at this point, I didn’t think of the legality of such actions). Then, I began bookmarking fansites like crazy and had a top five.

Pretty soon, I was reading fanfiction for the first time in my entire life, sharing those glittery and sometimes gif-like 100×100 icons, and changing the layouts of my social media profiles on Xanga and Horseland (yes, Horseland). My life had never been better thanks to the fandom community that had embraced Pirates of the Caribbean like I had.

Fandom things I produced

I’ve never been much of a fandom art or product creator. I’ve always been more of a consumer. One of those people who lurks in message boards for hours just to read people’s opinions without ever once responding, even if it means I had to rant to my computer screen. In fact, before Hypable, I never really left comments anywhere.

But I did try once to create something (besides the “Face in a Hole” photo pictured) that I could share pictures of with the fandom. That was a Halloween costume. That’s right. At the wise old age of 13 or so, I decided that I wanted to create a Pirates of the Caribbean-inspired Halloween costume. But I didn’t want to go as a pirate. Oh, no! Before I even knew what cosplay was or the hard work that went into it, I knew I wanted to be Miss Elizabeth Swann. In a giant fancy 1800s-era dress. I mean, by age 13, I had gone through two sessions of sewing class in Home Economics at school. If I could make a monkey pillow, I could certainly sew myself a beautiful floor length dress. Complete with lace.

What I was envisioning was Elizabeth’s gold dress from the beginning of the movie. The one that her father gave to her. The one that was so big and heavy that it made her sink to the bottom of the ocean. That dress.

Now, the idea that I would fail never entered my mind. Not even the fact that I was starting the costume less only two months before Halloween. Sure, I didn’t know how to properly measure myself for a sewing pattern and couldn’t understand half of the instructions on the pattern, but that was ok because I was making an Elizabeth Swann dress and I was SO excited. I had to make a few compromises of course because Joann Fabrics didn’t sell the actual pattern or material for the dress, so I chose a beautiful periwinkle blue fabric and some white lace. I would be Elizabeth-fancy and it was going to be great.

To help me out (because she didn’t know the first thing about making clothes and wanted me to be happy), my mom asked my neighbor to work with me on the dress. So she came over a couple times for a few hours and helped me pin everything and stitch it correctly.

After two sewing sessions, things were really starting to come together. We had put together the dress’ corset-looking front and those poofy ovular pieces of material that sit on the sides of the skirt (see? I still don’t know technical terms). But, I went to try on the front part of the dress and realized that I was making it a size or two too small. All my hard work and I had mismeasured or grown in the time it took to sew a few pieces. I was so sad. I couldn’t even finish the dress.

To this day, the finished pieces and some of the fabric (and all of the lace) is still sitting in one of my sewing boxes in the basement, a reminder of the dream I once had.

The only real fandom-like thing I produced was excitement for the sequels. I talked about them so much and knew a ton of information about both movies beforehand that I got quite a few people to go during both opening weekends. That counts, right? Maybe?

How I feel about ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ now

Looking back, I don’t regret a single moment (or year) of my fandom obsession. I would say that I was hardcore into Pirates of the Carribean for a solid three years, from the first time that I saw The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl to a bit after At World’s End came out.

I would say, though, that my most intense fandom immersion and inclusion occurred between the time when I first saw the first movie until right before the third movie came out. By then, I was in high school and didn’t have as much time as I used to to devote to my online searches and graphic hunts.

Pirates of the Caribbean showed me exactly how much I could care about something that entertains me and how fun it could be to share that love with other people.

Pirates of the Caribbean is still one of my favorite movies all time and not just because of my obsession. My obsession and my introduction to fandom in general just make it that much better.

What was your first fandom? How did you get involved?