Some back story here - for those of you who didn't know, fandom_wank's infamous troll phoenix sponsered a goat as part of an OXfam program. He named it after me.

My fandom_wank fairy tale, found here -


Take the goat for example - thanks to Phoenix some family in Malawi will have little Oulangi bleating in their hut, birthing kids and generally adding to their quality of life.

In time, they may have a whole herd of goats, maybe enough to move beyond their immediate family’s subsistence but enough to sell and pay for their daughter's education. Now little Bupe is attending the local Oxfam school instead of healing from her infibulation - and the volunteer running the place notices Bupe's wit and intelligence. She tutors little Bupe, and when Bupe is older she calls in favors to get her a scholarship to a university in a western country.

Poor Bupe. The west is nothing like her home. She's lonely and misplaced. Computers are ridiculously cheap now, and she eschews the computer lab for the comfort of her studying in her dorm room. It's not that she doesn't like her fellow students, but their field of reference is so different she has trouble relating to them. One night, while researching an essay on Tolkien she finds a strange link to a place called "Fandom Wank".

So after lurking for a month or two Bupe takes the plunge and makes a journal. Her first comments are innocuous: a “WORD!” here, a “TL:DR” there. But as her confidence grows, so does her comments, and hey – who’d a thought a goat herder’s daughter from Malawi was so fucking funny?

She’s online more, she’s making friends and she realizes that wankers aren’t all that different from her classmates. With wank as a common ground, she begins spending more time with them; study groups, going to the pub – that sort of thing. College is fun! She’s still anxious to return home, but it doesn’t feel so urgent anymore so she decides to pursue a PhD. There’s an institute in The Netherlands she’s heard of that she’s heard of that has several respected programs – including Third World development and women in development.

It rains a lot in Holland. Bupe’s homesick now, but fortunately, thanks to Fandom_wank she’s never alone. Half of the professors at the institute are real assholes, it’s clear that actually *teaching* was not what they wanted to do. They spend their time banging out proposals for UNESCO projects or actually on UNESCO projects. However, in the midst of this Bupe meets a professor who is something of a kindred spirit – and strangely enough – on Fandom_wank. A light bulb goes on for Bupe.

Bupe’s last year at the institute is hectic. Graduation requires both a dissertation and a proposal for a development project. The project’s no problem, though Bupe hasn’t figured out how to sell it. Most students propose building an irrigation project or an airport. Bupe has something very different in mind.

Amazingly, the board accepts Bupe’s proposal. It’s unconventional, but it reminds one of the judges of a project he approved years ago: something about giving goats to impoverished families in Malawi. Bupe gets her funding and heads home.

Malawi’s changed a lot – and yet not at all. Her family’s cinderblock home looks the same – only now they have electricity and even a computer. Their houses look identical to most in her village, and by extension most in her country. The bones are there – they just need someone to put them in place.

Using maps Bupe had painstakingly drawn during her last year at the Institute Bupe oversees the placement of the hubs UNESCO paid for. It’s not perfect – there are still people who fall outside of coverage, but thanks to wireless technology and solar power, her project has given free internet service to 78% of the population. Bupe’s first lesson is netiquette. Her second is the rules of Fandom_wank.

As other countries see the quality of life numbers rising, Bupe’s project is duplicated around the world: get them internet, get them fandom wank. Journalfen membership surpasses 1 billion, but they’ve long qualified for subsidies so ZR and Robin aren’t bearing the brunt of this.

Suddenly the entire world has a common ground other than the new David Hasselhoff series “Baywatch Revenge”. People from different walks of life understand each other. Invading Iran doesn’t seem like a great idea because everyone knows Fatima (screen name: pwnd) and gosh, she’s pretty nice. Faced with the worldwide population’s refusal to bomb teh funney, peace breaks out, a glorious era based on knowledge, snark, wank, and teh funney is born.

What was my point?