Watch Annalee Newitz's TED Talk about the power of fantasy
Harnessing the power of fandom for good
Way back when I was getting my start as a writer and journalist, I ended up as a research fellow for io9, where I worked under one of the site's founders and editors, Annalee Newitz, writing a bunch of articles and a research project. I've since become a huge fan of both Annalee's books: they've written a handful of excellent novels (here's my review of their latest, The Terraformers) and nonfiction books (their next is Stories Are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind, which I'm very excited to read.)
Annalee recently (November 2023, but it just went online this week) gave a TED Talk called "How fantasy worlds can spark real change," in which they talk about how fantasy or escapist literature can be a powerful force for inspiring real-world changes or initiatives. They open with an example near and dear to my heart: the 501st Legion and how our members not only make costumes of fictional characters, but go out into the real world with them to make some tangible differences in our communities.
I'm pretty tickled by this: they reached out to me ahead of time with some questions and asked for some pictures, and name-checked my book, Cosplay: A History during the talk's opening minutes.
The main focus of Annalee's talk is how someone can use fantasy literature for enacting some positive changes in the world, and that's something that's readily apparent in their books, especially The Terraformers, and cite a couple of other examples of where people have used speculative fiction to inspire them in their lines of work.
When it comes to the history of cosplay and the 501st Legion, this is obviously close to home. I often like to say that our charitable work with the 501st "makes our self-indulgent hobby a little less self-indulgent."
I don't think that we're only doing charitable work to make what we do socially acceptable, but I do see it as a way to channel our interests and fandom into some really positive directions. Wearing our armor out in public is a pretty dramatic thing: we certainly turn heads. And if we're turning those heads, we can take advantage of that and also have them look towards groups like Make-A-Wish and others. We might start off building armor because we love the franchise or characters, but this? This is why we stay.