From the ASM Archives: The Birth of Online Transformers Fandom

[On this, the 20th anniversary of the creation of alt.toys.transformers, I am reposting the long article I wrote when ASM wasn’t a daily blog site.  I’ve done some editting here and there, but when you read it, remember that the references to people or places are many years out of date; this was written about a decade or so ago, long before ASM had its daily blog.  I never wrote articles detailing what happened after the events of this article occurred, and that’s a shame — I really should do a follow up to this piece…. Anyway, enjoy this trip into the past! –Phil]

Introduction

With respect to the online portion of Transformers fandom, I’m in a unique position here. You see, I’ve been here a while. Many of you may not know me; I hardly think of myself as one the most well known TransFans online. Heck, when I heard someone refer to me some time ago as an “ATT Elder”, I was shocked. I certainly didn’t think of me being that big in the Usenet scene.

But, in a way, it’s true. As Steve Stonebreaker, the keeper of the alt.toys.transformers FAQ, once said, “Before ATT was, Phil was.” Several years ago, Steve asked me for a brief history of the beginnings of online Transfandom, something he could put in one of his FAQs. I happily agreed, and I wrote a small essay detailing my memories. After I sent it to him, he replied that it wasn’t quite what he needed, so I wrote something shorter and more to the point. But I asked him if he please not post the original version in any fashion, as I had an idea I might use an expanded version of it at some point in the future.

Now, finally, I’m going to share the results of that original essay with you. I’ve got a unique perspective on online Transfandom, because I’ve seen many different pieces of it come and go. While some of this article is written purely from a fact-based background, I will admit that a good portion of this first installment comes directly from my memories and is not a purely historical and factual account.

So come along for the ride. See the birth of online Transfandom — and its many branches — as I saw it.

One popular belief is that online Transfandom started with alt.toys.transformers. This is, actually, a fallacy. Other people believe that it began with the Mailing List, and from a certain point of view, they are correct.

But for me, there’s a different starting point, and really, only one way the online fandom began….

Where It All Began….

We begin in 1992, on the Bulletin-Board Service called “Prodigy”, what is now referred to as (the defunct) Prodigy Classic.

Prodigy and CompuServe were the two main national BBSes out there in this day; America Online would one day buy one of them and surpass the other. Prodigy was not the Internet at that time. It was its own culture, with its own bulletin boards, its own sections, its own environment.

Prodigy, which opened its electronic doors nationwide in 1990, was constantly growing, and there were several places that the science-fiction fans, such as comic-book readers, tended to hang out. The Arts BB was one of those places, and many comic clubs were formed there.

Now, these clubs weren’t all that sophisticated. All that a club tended to be was a group of postings on a BB that started with the same abbreviation, such as “CCC:” for the Comics Collector Club. People would vote for officers of the club. These officers didn’t have powers such as banning or moderating posts, but they would read every post that was made within the club (meaning it started with the abbreviation of the club), and they’d try to help out new members, start discussions, and alert Prodigy staff members if there was a true problem.

It was a different culture than the Internet today; most often than not, there were few fights, virtually no SPAM, and the content-to-noise ratio was extremely high. Perhaps the fact that it was a service you had to pay for and not everyone had a computer was the reason behind this, but that’s not my place to speculate.

Back in the fall 1992, I had been a member of CCC for a long time and had, in fact, been made a Vice-President of the club. One day, the subject of Transformers was brought up. Some people had heard rumors of a new Transformers comic, and the post in CCC started a thread of many people reminiscing fondly about the toy line. One CCC member posed a question: “Why don’t we start our own Transformers club?” I thought that was a great idea, and I felt I had enough officer experience to start it myself.

So I did. I posted a message with the abbreviation “TFTA”, for “TransFormers TransActions.” Hey, I thought it was catchy at the time.

I didn’t know, though, that someone else had also liked the idea of a TF club enough to create one. Josh Ali III decided to start posting under the subject heading “CMTF.” Rather than have two clubs and split the enthusiastic but admittedly small fan base, we joined forces. TFTA closed without anyone joining, and Josh and I became Co-Founders of CMTF in November of 1992.

For those of you who don’t know what the acronym CMTF meant, well, here’s some insight into a not-so-big-secret: CMTF stood for “CoMic TransFormers”. It wasn’t that TFs were inherently funny (although looking back at some of the G1 episodes may prove otherwise). Rather, Josh had an affinity for the comic book over the cartoon.