Insurgents

Insurgents are any group of fen who buck some fan establishment, particularly rebels who take aim at elements of fandom who take themselves or their projects too seriously.

The original fannish Insurgents were Charles Burbee and Francis T. Laney, and the subject of their insurgency was the FIAWOL lifestyle then practiced by many members of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society (LASFS) after Burbee was removed as editor of the club‘s fanzine Shangri L'Affaires. Laney and Burbee both were advocates of FIJAGH, which see. The dichotomy was also described as the difference between sercon (FIAWOL) and fannish (FIJAGH). For more detail, see "Fifth Fandom" under Numbered Fandoms.

See also: Balcony Insurgents, Brooklyn Insurgents, Derelict Insurgents, Wolverine Insurgents.

From Fancyclopedia 2, ca. 1959

The funloving actifans; the rebels against Serious Constructiveness; in Fifth Fandom and thereafter, leaders of the opposition to commercialization and thus deriders of hucksterism and the Organization Mania. Applied by extension to any faction which devoted itself to needling the leadership of a club, since this was a notable feature of the eponymic group -- Laney, Burbee, Rotsler, and Art Widner, and to a degree G. G. Dewey and Cy Condra -- who laid waste the LASFS 1948-50, and who were known as the Insurgent Element in full. (At various times Redd Boggs, Al Ashley, Rog Phillips, John Van Couvering, Syd Stibbard, and Rick Sneary cooperated in Insurgent Element activities.) With the abovementioned extension in meaning the term "Insurgent" was applied to such people as Art Rapp, on account of the aftermath of the Blowup, and to the Elders in Washington, DC. Insurgents are known for their attitude of active enmity toward stuffiness, Authority, and fannish fuggheadedness in general, but the Insurgent Attitude is an inaccurate expression for the scorn of fantasy and organized fandom, and enjoyment of partying, women and the social pleasures with which the original Insurgents were identified by their opponents. (The Bohemian tradition was of long standing in the various groups of anti-LASFS Angelenoes.) Moderns may call themselves Insurgents when they are merely motivated by the sadistic joy of making life horrible for SerConFans; VolDesFen fit here. Or they may be only at feud with chosen targets. And sometimes, as in Walt Willis' Serious Constructive Insurgentism, the word is a tag to indicate that its bearers' enthusiasm is adult rather'n that associated with goshwowboyoboy.

From Fancyclopedia 2 Supplement, ca. 1960

Laney apparently never considered the Insurgent Element an entity; he referred to it as "a high-order abstraction for Ackerman to fret over."

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Fanspeak

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