Let's Discuss! What does it mean to be part of a fandom?

I've recently been thinking on this; what does it mean to be part of a fandom exactly? Of course I know what a 'fan' means and I know that many fan make up a fandom. However, I was pretty positive there was more to it, especially when I heard sentences from other people like "...I'm not part of the fandom anymore...". Surely, they didn't cease to love the book (show, movie, etc.), but they are not part of the fandom anymore. Thus eventually I decided to do some research.

And I got my answer. Well, partially. Nevertheless, it indeed helped me figure it out. Being simpler than I would think, fans make up a fandom. And that is that. Basically every book has a fandom, though you might need to look for them more carefully in some cases. An active fandom, however, is another thing. The members of it may create fan arts such as drawings/paintings/etc., write fan fictions, make fan videos, organize conventions and so on. And this is what I probably misunderstood. A fandom can do these, but if not, or not so much so that it's all over the Internet, it's still a fandom.

And then what does it mean to be  a part of it and why people say they are not one anymore? As for the first half of the sentence, I figure it's not necessarily that you contribute to it. I would guess you are a member even if you only follow the events and look at pics,read fanfics on a regular basis, if not attend, then read about the meet ups, etc. When they say they are not a part of it, to my mind they mean that they aren't interested in or just for some reason aren't doing the above mentioned things in the future.



Let's discuss!


What do you think to be part of a fandom means?

Do you contribute to the fandom? If so how?

Cheers