WARNING: The Surgeon General has determined that fandom can be hazardous to your health.
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| Title: | WARNING: The Surgeon General has determined that fandom can be hazardous to your health. |
| Creator: | L.A. Carr, S.C. Hall, and D.C. Farnsworth, or a combination of them |
| Date(s): | 1984 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | focus on Star Wars, but also general fandom |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
WARNING: The Surgeon General has determined that fandom can be hazardous to your health. is a 1984 essay. While not specifically credited, it is part of the editorial section of the Star Wars zine, Circle of Light #1 and was therefore by L.A. Carr, S.C. Hall, and D.C. Farnsworth, or a combination of them.
The topic was over-zealous fans and mental health, and the essay focused on two recent deaths of specific fans.
A similar essay is 1979's Eddie: A Message from the Real World.
Some Topics Discussed
- fans and "fanatics"
- mental health of some fans
- violent and tragic actions by fans reflecting badly on fandom as a whole, being a "guardian of fandom"
- knowing the difference between being over-invested and staying in the "real world"
From the Essay
WARNING: The Surgeon General has determined that fandom can be hazardous to your health.
Well, maybe not to most of us. But, in the past five years, fandom has claimed the lives of two young men and brought life-long problems to many others.
In 1979, a fifteen year old Edward [last name redacted here on Fanlore] jumped to his death from the High Bridge over the Mississippi River after proclaiming his displeasure at ABC's cancellation of BATTLESTAR: GALACTICA.
And, more recently, in August of 1983, two teenaged brothers, Leigh and Jimmy [last name redacted here on Fanlore], attacked and killed twenty year old Ralph [last name redacted here on Fanlore], who had been Leigh's best friend for four years. After WorldCon '82, which Ralph attended, he told Leigh that a Lucasfilm executive had invited him to submit design works for RETURN OF THE JEDI. Ralph, in turn, invited Leigh to join him. Leigh placed all his efforts and time into his drawings and stories, and gave them to Ralph, who claimed to be sending them to Lucas. Eventually, Leigh began to receive notes of encouragement signed with the name "George Lucas". Shortly before the attack, one of Ralph's friends told Leigh that he had been the butt of a very elaborate hoax. Leigh, then sixteen, recruited his brother, Jimmy, 13, and told him that Ralph planned to kill their father. The two boys ambushed Ralph as he sat in his car and stabbed him more than 35 times, killing him. Today, Leigh is in a mental facility in southwestern Kansas, still writing stories,and will remain there until declared cured. A judge will then sentence him.
Jimmy is in a Youth Center in Kansas, where his case will be reviewed every four months. And Ralph lies dead, buried in a JEDI tee-shirt.
Most o£ us in fandom are admittedly a little strange. Who else would skip a meal just "to finish this story — if I quit now, I'll lose it" or miss a few hours sleep "to ink this just right — I want it to look perfect" or even stay up later than they should just to finish a story in a 'zine? But we realize where our fandom fits into the real world, and we have not allowed our fantasies to become our realities. Unfortunately, when incidents like this happen, we are all accused of being this "fanatic". This places us in a very precarious position.
We have to become the guardians of fandom. This does not stop, however, with the purchase of a fanzine or defending our hobby to our parents/husbands/friends/coworkers. We have to keep our eyes and ears open for people like Edward, Ralph and Leigh — people who have let fandom run amok with them. And we have to try and help them keep incidents like these from happening again. We are the guardians of fandom ~ and the lives that it contains.
Fandom won't die of lack of interest. But it just might die violently — if we're not careful.