I'm not a Big Name Fan.


Of course, I'm known in my circle of Fannish friends, and the filkers know me as the Kosher Con Suite Person, and I wrote this essay about keeping the Sabbath at conventions. But that was because someone else, with a *much* bigger name, had been asked originally, and she passed it on to me because I'm more observant at the moment. *She* runs conventions and departments, and is generally known through out fandom, and when she goes to cons, she's on panels because people will say, "Oh. She's on a panel. We need to go to that." And that's what makes a BNF to me.

This is not to say the that the people called such on LJ aren't - while the processes may be different, the result is the same : a BNF is someone whose name is generally known throughout their fandom, whether it be as a writer or an editor or an archivist. Or an artist. cereta is known because of her symposium, and a good thing, too. It's not an attitude and it's not a responsibility. It's simply that you do something well enough, or often enough, or both, that other people know who you are. It's *good* if they use the status to advance their fandom or to help others; it's bad if all they get wrapped up in the size of their name and stop worrying about the quality of their output, or whatever they did to achieve the status in the first place. Most of the time, though, it's neutral.