Your fandom's ok, my fandom's ok

Synonyms:	IDIC, Ship and Let Ship, Your Kink Is Not My Kink, Don't Like, Don't Read,
See also:
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Your fandom's ok, my fandom's ok is a phrase coined in the 1990s by the Media Cannibals. It expresses a wry, sometimes reluctant acknowledgment that fandoms span a wide range of fannish obsessions and that, tolerance of the perceived weirdness of 'others' was crucial for maintaining fannish harmony. Unlike the more loft-ier IDIC ("Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations"), 'Your fandom's ok, my fandom's ok' can be also used to say exactly the opposite.

My Fandom is OK buttons created by the Media Cannibals and worn at Escapade conventions in the 1990s

. Example of usage:

"Be nice to other fans. "Your fandom is OK, my fandom is OK." If you must have an angry debate over your favorite pairing, be considerate of the surrounding fans and do it somewhere outside the convention space. If guests are disruptive, con-ops will have to escort you to somewhere outside the convention space and not let you back.

In more recent years the phrase has been inverted so it now sometimes reads: "My Fandom Is OK, Your Fandom Is OK" (see the My Fandom Is OK, Your Fandom Is OK Facebook page)

The phrase may have spilled over from the BDSM community in the 1990s where YKIOK (your kink is OK) and YKINMKBYKIOK (your kink is not my kink but your kink is OK) were standard initialisms.

The Pragmatic Origins

In 1996 Sandy Herrold briefly touched on what might have been the origins of the phrase:

"I was never (really) a Trek gen fan, so I didn't have to bear the animosity of gen Trek friends when I got into slash.

I didn't get into S/H until after "The One Slash Fandom" concept had passed, so I never had to sneak into corners at Trek parties to talk about my heresy.

I got into Pros well after it had taken over slash fandom. I got into Multimedia long after the phrase "fannish slut" had been invented.

I got into Wiseguy well after the Church of Frank had set up sanctuary for those of us afraid to admit to liking balding guys.

I spent 10+ years in fandom without ever suffering majority ridicule for my fannish lusts. Then came...

Rock and Roll fandom

Overnight I became a figure of fun to many, and withstood sudden shunning from some. I was told my first vid in the fandom was... "wrong" was... "against everything fandom stood for." I listened to lectures from other fans about how rock slash is real person slash, and "that it opened all of slash fandom to legal exposure."

It was a rough couple of years in some small ways. And even within the small world of Rock and Roll fandom, there were people who thought slashing *their* band was ok (say, U2...), but slashing *my* band (Led Zep) was wrong. So, I feel for the skating fans, the wrestling fans and, yes, the doll fans. Every group needs a small subset of the group to stigmatize, as humorously as possible."