Way back when the television show Buffy was known as Buffy The Vampire Slayer, I was working an entry-level job at a large corporation, where I was allotted dial-up Internet access to do work-related research.
In my small cube, I would furtively “sneak” onto the Internet to check the Buffy message board, The Bronze, reading post after post, but never venturing to post myself for fear of being caught playing on the Internet while on the job.
Apparently, I was not the only one trolling the message boards during work hours. Allyson Beatrice was online, too, but she had the courage to go where I did not — to post her thoughts on Buffy — and it changed her life completely.
Beatrice, a resident of Los Angeles, has since parlayed her love of Buffy, fandom, and event planning into a business. She is the cofounder of EMA, an event planning and consulting company that specializes in Internet fan community events and entertainment industry gatherings.
She’s also the author of Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby?: True Adventures in Cult Fandom, a hybrid of how-to for Internet communities and fandoms, as well as one-part stories about her online “family,” and one-part tales of her interactions with the creators of the shows she loves, including Buffy, Angel and Firefly.
Beatrice has tried valiantly to save doomed shows, found a home for a wayward feline, helped raise funds to bring an Israeli Buffy fan to the U.S., both housed and stayed with various fans she met online, sussed out message board “fakers,” and forged friendships with some of the most unlikely people, all with a sense of humor and honesty that’s both refreshing and hilarious.
The only bad thing about this book is that I found myself laughing out loud a lot, and in public. There should definitely be a warning label on Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby?: True Adventures in Cult Fandom that reads: "Beware: reading this book in public could cause people to stare at you - and not in a good way."
Article comments
1 - Kat
I LOVE BUFFY!