Truly, Madly, Deadly_ The Unofficial True Blood Companion - Becca Wilcott [79]
True Blood fans flew from all over the United States to party it up at Alex’s Bar (a.k.a. Fangtasia) in Long Beach, California. (B. Henderson www.alexander-skarsgardfans.com)
While the internet appears to have all its bases covered with content and engagement, what do you do if you’re a complete newbie to online communities? FanBase offers an option for those who want it all, want it now, and want it in one place. With the launch of “I <3 Bon Temps” (www.ilovebontemps.com), FanBase believes they’ve created the first social site for fans of True Blood. It includes forums, groups, personal profiles, and user blogs alongside filming news, games, contests, and giveaways. “We saw a real opportunity to connect Truebies from all of the True Blood online communities,” a FanBase representative says, “from the official HBO site, the True Blood wiki, Facebook, and Twitter.” Indeed, visitors can do almost anything from the site. But it’s most attractive feature by far has to be the ability for users to change the theme of the page. “This feature allows visitors to switch the design of site to their favorite character: Bill, Sookie, Eric, Pam, or Lafayette, with room to grow to incorporate a completely different homepage with content geared towards that character.”
By now it should be apparent that the two things each of these hosts and admins have in common is a desire to start a conversation and the wherewithal to know that while never before has it been so easy to produce, prepare, and promote online content, it takes far more work to keep it running. And with so many destinations to choose from, rather than look at one another as competition, they showcase what they enjoy most, in some cases drawing a hard line between what they will or won’t include on their sites. “I don’t post gossipy stuff on the blog, or Hollywood stalker-type photos of the actors,” Dallas says. “[My visitors] read and discuss about vampires, vampire books, and other vampire TV shows and movies . . . [And] I just don’t take sides of ‘Team Eric’ or ‘Team Bill’ . . . I really think you miss a lot when you let something like that color your viewing/reading experience.”
One fan who takes the whole show in is Jenny Robinson. Robinson doesn’t have a Stephen Moyer or Alexander Skarsgård blog, nor does she write about her love of PNR or the Sookie Stackhouse novels. However, she’s an expert fan, a mega fan. I came to know Robinson from Twitter when my feed suddenly filled with the live tweets of a woman in attendance at the “Inside the Writers’ Room: True Blood” panel at the Paley Center for Media. I contacted her at first because I wanted to thank her for sharing with followers across the world what she was able to experience firsthand. But when I asked her why she loved the show, she sent back an email bursting with so much personality and a particular love of music that I asked her for an interview, proving that even tiny 140 character tweets can reach from one stranger to the next. Out of these serendipitous encounters, the most amazing stories unfurl.
A frequent visitor to Alex’s Bar (Fangtasia) before True Blood started using it as a location, Robinson loves live music, and comes from a lineage that groomed her to appreciate the flavor of True Blood’s soundtrack. “With my parents being from Kentucky, the music on True Blood hits the bones,” she begins. “My ‘folks’ are actually my grandparents who adopted me when I was super young. My pops was born in 1927, and Ma was born in 1938. They definitely come from different times.”
Robinson recalls car trips, children crammed