Hercules and Xena |
So I Became A Hercules and Xena Fan... | Hercules and Xena essays |
|
|
Hercules and Xena |
So I Became A Hercules and Xena Fan... | Hercules and Xena essays |
|
|
|
| Xenite.Org News | Hercules and Xena | So I Became A Hercules and Xena Fan... |
|
Site Map 2 SciFi Links
Special thanks to: 
for designing Xenite.org's graphics Contact Us! |
So I Became A Hercules and Xena Fan...
1995 brought on a lot of changes in my life. I moved to a new city and started a new job. Cut off from my friends and family I found a little comfort in the new television series HERCULES: THE LEGENDARY JOURNEYS. I've always liked fantasy and had for many years deplored the dearth of good fantasy television. HERCULES looked like it would launch a new era in television programming, and it did. By the end of 1995 I was hooked on the show and its spinoff, XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS, and I was looking for other fans to discuss the shows with on the Internet. I found a Hercules newsgroup that was pretty active for a while. But it began to die down after the Xena newsgroup appeared. The death of the Hercules group mystified me until I learned it had been poorly named and was being removed from systems around the world. So in late 1996 I helped to create a new Hercules newsgroup that conformed to Usenet naming conventions. During 1996 the Xenites (as fans of X:WP call themselves) went through the first phase of what we sadly call "The Subtext Wars". These were intense debates over the sometimes candid and sometimes subtle hints that Xena and Gabrielle might be more than just friends. The fans eventually developed some common ground, but not before a lot of news groups, mailing lists, and Web-based discussion boards were formed. Keeping track of the exploding resources for discussing the two shows became a major task. In June 1996 I began collecting links for Web sites in a Usenet article called "Xena Online Resources". Although I started out with only 20 URLs within a matter of weeks I had dozens and people kept contrbuting more and more each time I posted the article. By December I had nearly 100 Web sites, more than a dozen mailing lists, and several news groups and chat rooms documented. So I created Xena Online Resources. At first it was just another Web site, but somehow word got out that I was collecting everything I could find about Xena and Hercules fandom. I had mailing addresses, discussion forums for Compuserve and America Online, message boards, email addresses, and Web site after Web site. A companion site, The History of Xena: Warrior Princess, started out as an attempt to bring new fans up-to-date on how the characters of Xena and Gabrielle had met, gotten together, and begun maturing into a real team. As each week passed by I would get more links, more mailing lists, more information from other fans. Word spread quickly (well, I hoped with regular promotion on the mailing lists and news groups). By May of 1997 I had several hundred links to manage and found I couldn't do it alone. So I recruited a dozen people who became charter members of the XOR Team, a group of Webmasters who are dedicated to ensuring that Xena Online Resources is updated twice a month. I'd also created a new domain which was becoming an archive for many of my Science Fiction and Fantasy projects. But Hercules and Xena fandom are not entirely the same groups of people. Keeping up with both groups became more and more difficult. So I willingly conceded the task of following the Hercules online fandom to a team of dedicated Herkuleans (the "k" stands for "Kevin Sorbo") who created Hercules Ultimate Guide. HUG and XOR are sister sites, promoting each other and helping fans find the right places to get their resources listed. But it didn't stop there. Eventually we were approached by the owner of Electric Ferret Studios, a semi-professional domain, to form an alliance which has thus far produced The Xena Online Resources Search Engine and The Hercules and Xena Banner Exchange. Finally, late in 1997 I helped to form The Xenite and Herkulean Webmasters Association, a fannish organization which is dedicated to helping Webmasters learn the ropes and locate the resources they need to create great Web sites. We don't provide legal advice but we do maintain an archive of links to legal resources on the Web of interest to Webmasters. It's been a long and interesting journey. More than 1000 Web sites, 30 mailing lists, and 15 news groups later I am convinced that Hercules and Xena fandom have not yet peaked. I don't know when, or if, the online fandom will decline in numbers, but I have resolved to stay here until the bitter end. Maybe one day when I'm an old man I'll finally close down Xena Online Resources. I hope not. Not in a million years would I have dreamed I'd one day own the largest collection of Hercules and Xena resources on the Web. We beat all the search engines and directories hands down. Nowhere else can you find more than 1100 resources relating to these two shows (and when you consider XOR and HUG together, you're looking at almost 2,000 resources). It would be a nice legacy to leave to future generations, a sign of hope that even in this day and age we can learn to live together and accept one another despite our innate differences. Xenites and Herkuleans may not always speak the same language, but we share a wonderful and unique online world. I wouldn't trade it for any other kind of fandom, if I had to limit my interests to just one area. Hope to see you there. Michael |
This page is copyright © 1997-2007 by Michael L. Martinez. All rights reserved. |