lol.. yep.. there are always fewer guys in fandom communities such as this.. =).. maybe it's just the girls who go really crazy.. *grinz*

*gasp* This is a fandom community? I thought... wait... hm... I suppose it is.

No, guys go completely crazy as well... just on different things. There's something about Harry Potter (maybe because most of the students and teachers showcased are male?) that seems to make all the girls go gaga, though.

Other than Hermione 'growing up' in the last movie, I can't really think of anything that would make a guy sit up and go 'WOW.' *chuckles*

Well...if you look at video game fandoms...most of them are guys and there are very few girls (unless its slash fandom or something sappy).

Other then that though...even us females have various reasons for being in this particular fandom. I had gotten my first taste of Harry Potter from watching the first two movies...after which buying them. It wasn't until the Christmas of that year that I actually got the series of books. The main reason I got the books was because a friend of mine told me that since I was thinking about writing fanfiction based on the movies, that I should read the books to get a better understanding. Which I'm glad she did because after reading the books I realized how much the movies really did suck (though not at much as the third one.)

I do know a guy that's into the books but not the fandom. He's read the books and seen the movies because of his sister (I think) and he wanted to know what she was so obsessed about. He ended up liking the series though, and from my knowledge has actually read the books more then once. So I think its just the fandom aspect and not the actual liking of the series that turn guys away. It takes a rather brave guy to announce to the world that he's a book worm of the sort that would join a community such as this.

True, true. On the other hand, the video game fandoms tend to be more... about being l33t than discussion.

Huh. I thought the books were remarkably faithful to the series. Too much so, in some cases... I mean, it was just shorter. Completely different from the Lord of the Rings.

Thanks for the compliment. Backhanded as it may seem. *scratches head* =)

Well...if you look at video game fandoms...most of them are guys and there are very few girls (unless its slash fandom or something sappy).

Yes, Video Game and Anime it seems tends to run predominately male. I used to co-moderate an anime chat room on a p2p server.

I had this same screenname, and many of the people in the hub were familiar with the Final Fantasy series (for those of you unfamiliar, see my icon to see my username-sake), however, because I was in the predominately male fandom, and knew just about as much as many of them (and possibly because of the fact that I would talk computer talk, getting help for HTML code and such), those who didn't know me well assumed that I was a guy.

I will say that the niches of the video game fandom that I have been involved in haven't been about being 1337, and I've had interesting conversations with guys about some of the FF series.

As for men in the fandom, I'm dating a guy that I met through the fandom, when he joined an RPG that I was running. He doesn't RP and such much, and he's not very involved in the fandom, though. My brother is the same way, I got him into the books (and now he's read them more times than I have), but he doesn't participate in fandom. He actually applied to this community, but like I told him, his answers were too short and the application was rejected. He WOULD be part of fandom, except he has a real dislike of anything that requires typing. He's had some BRILLIANT thoughts, things that he's observed from the books, but he'd never take the time to write it all out.

Huh. I thought the books were remarkably faithful to the series.
I think that they did about as good a job as they could in a 2.5 hour timeframe. But, they weren't all that faithful. There are scenes with completely different characters (when they go out into the forest in PS, for example, it should be Neville with them, not Ron), they skip some really good scenes (The potions task in PS - we never actually get to see Hermione's true 'use of logic', and the valentine scene in CoS) PoA touches a bit closer to the darker side of the series, and I feel that it's a bit closer to the book, but they still leave out things that I feel should be mentioned. As I recall (I saw the movie ONCE in a theater, on opening night so it's been a while), I don't remember them acknowledging who the Marauders are (we know, of course, from reading the books, but non-readers wouldn't know this), plus, we have yet to meet Cedric or Cho. We were SUPPOSED to be introduced to them. I mean in GoF, we're going to get hastily introduced to him, and then he's going to kick it. And it's going to be a very hasty introduction, since they're putting it out onto one 2.5 hour movie, rather than the two seperate movies they'd been considering before.

Becca, Slytherin

I'm very picky about movies made from books. I don't like the subtle changes they make. The first two movies were much better then the third though. They added in a lot of scenes that didn't need to be there...and in its place took out a lot that would have explained more about the map and animagus and things. They never once state in the movie who the map makers were...then never got into why Harry's Patronus figure was a stag...thats the sort of stuff I'm picky about. It's probably because I'm a psych major though...I'm taught to analize things like that...

There are plenty of guys, they're just all dumb, and therefore not fit for Ravenclaw wit. :) I don't know how you squeezed in here...

Yeah, I don't know too many Harry Potter nerds that are guys.

Plenty of guys who like the Harry Potter series? Huh. Really? The ratio that -I- know is... I don't know, maybe less than five guys who like it compared to the, quite literally, hundred plus girls that do?

As for how I squeezed in Ravenclaw, my dear, I was overwhelmingly voted in there. I don't think I could've gotten into another house even if I wanted to =P

Yeah, I've noticed this too. I wish there were more guys around because then I think I'll feel less "butch" (I'm quite a bit of a tomboy and don't always fit in well with other chicks...so I don't rather like being surrounded by them)
Someone mentioned gamers...that's one time I'm glad there aren't as many other girls around. Because when they are, either they don't know what they're doing, or they refuse to play and ask a million questions about while you're trying to play (in other words, I think a lot of chicks try to get super into gaming b/c a guy they like is a gamer...which is retarded)
Okay, I think I'll go back to playing Legacy of Kain: Defiance now. =)

Don't like being surrounded by women? Hm. I used to know girls like that... on the contrary, though, they were fairly attractive women (well, not tomboys is what I mean) who were always viewed as boyfriend-stealers by their peers. It's interesting the sort of ... information you pick up when you hang around a lot of girls. Ungh. Sometimes I think I know too much...

The girls who actually 'hang out' in gaming communities, I've found, tend to really kick a lot of tail. Hard core gamers, even more so than I am (I'm just a bit of a dabbler with an obsessive personality). I think it's their desire to prove themselves to be more than their gender, so they really... push themselves.

On the other hand, these girls tend to be unbelievably popular. In fact, I know this one girl (the one who introduced me to the Harry Potter series, actually) who... not only did she game, but she liked reading comics and fantasy AND she was incredibly attractive. We used to hang out a lot but... man, she had a princess complex which meant that she was -horribly- spoilt. It's much easier for an attractive 'geek' girl to be adored than a cheerleader, in some ways...

... if that made any sort of sense at all. =)

As a Sci-Fi-geek I used to be in lots of communities that had a lot more guys than girls and I thoroughly enjoy being around lots of girls for once. In those Sci-Fi-communities it was so rare finding interesting topics. You really had to look out for them because the most important things for the guys seemed to be to talk about the blueprints of space-craft and the like, which I find immensely boring. I am more into people: what makes them tick, why do they (re)act as they do and into the relationships between them. That is why I love Harry Potter because the books really focus on that. I guess it's really what girls are more interested in.

Julia // Slytherin

Huh. I guess that's true. Guys are more interested in how things work... in the physics (and physical) side of things. I supposed I'm different because my father's a psychologist, and while I hated -studying- the field, I picked up a lot... naturally, through my upbringing.

I'm starting to get the feeling that the Harry Potter books focus very much on how GUYS think/act (not just one guy, though it does revolve around Harry)... or on guys that girls would want to be around/attract. It's a bit like "Why aren't there more guys like these around where -I- am" type feeling. Am I close?

Funny, I was just thinking about that some time ago. I think I've only seen maybe one or two other guys besides you, but I could be wrong. o.O It's not just this community, but LJ itself has a greater female to male ratio. (http://www.livejournal.com/stats.bml) I think females in general tend to be a bit more social and want to talk about and share their interests, and the internet is an easy place to find like minds.

-Kristi, Ravenclaw

Zounds. More than 2/3s of the LJ community is female? -That- I didn't know. I guess it does explain things, then...

It would be interesting to do a demographic survey of this community.

I've noticed how there are more active girls in this community than there are guys too. But I stay as active as possible because I like to voice my opinion (somewhat).

But as for me, I also started reading the books because of one of my old girlfriends. After the first movie came out I started making fun of Harry Potter fans and she told me to read the first book. Two days later I was back borrowing the second and third.

Welcome, comrade! *high5*

An opinionated person... not in Ravenclaw? How did you get missed? o.O

The thing about the first ... three books is that they're so thin. It's pretty easy to devour 'em. They really were children's books up 'til ... oh, book 4, I should think.

Robert - Ravenclaw Prefect
(http://www.livejournal.com/community/ravenclaw_house/)

There are a lot, I must admit. I do my part to try and keep things all equal with the Slyths, y'dig?

- Mat, Slytherin as heck.

So the Slytherin girls are your harem and I need to keep my hands off... gotcha, dude ;)

Jim Lee/Batman fan?

Robert - Ravenclaw Prefect
(http://www.livejournal.com/community/ravenclaw_house/)

feminists don't have hatred for men. I'd appreciate if you knew what the word meant because I'm a feminist (as I hope you are).

I didn't say -all- feminists have a hatred for men. What I -said- was... the women who end up running the show tend to be feminists who hate men.

BIG difference.

Unfortunately, that's been my experience. I've met some (very few) really great feminists who have proven to be the exception. On the whole, however, loud and outspoken feminists tend to be man-haters (or pull it off really well).

-I'd- really appreciate it if you didn't jump down my throat for bringing up the word 'feminist' in a negative context. You should, perhaps, instead look at educating your peers to be... a little less militant about their fews. At least, the vocal ones. Do I need to bring up Susan Faludi?

The problem with the word "feminist" is that its general meaning has been misunderstood and reinterpreted so many times that the coloquial definition seems to have changed. Awfully big problem when you're trying to distinguish between the type of feminist who wants to live a life equal to men in every possible way and a feminist who wants to whip all men into subservience to women. Isn't it annoying?

Actually there ARE feminists that hate men. There are feminists and there are far left-wing feminists. Women who support EQUALITY, and then women who support SUPERIORITY.

It's the latter group that's given feminism such a bad rap.

I was going to say what was stated somewhere way up there in this string of comments.

I've been in my fair share of communities...for all sorts of things...and on average, there is one male per community. I haven't seen a strong male presence anywhere on LJ really. Well, there was this one time that I stumbled across this 'feeder' community where guys like to watch their girlfriends get fat. Apart from being incredibly weirded out...I was shocked that there was a community that was mostly male based.

I just don't picture a whole lot of males messing around on LJ. In general, females are more sentimental than males. Females like to keep journals and whatnot whereas most males like privacy and wouldn't keep an online journal. There are, of course, exceptions to that rule, like you, but on the whole, LJ is pretty much female dominated.

I didn't like the Harry Potter movies either. Well, I liked the first one but the last two were pretty eh. I know it's hard to cram all of the information in the books into the movie but it seemed that POA left out a lot of pertinent information. It bugged me how Curan left out who Padfooot, Prongs, etc. were. I thought that information was a key part of the book. Hmph.

Laura//Hufflepuff

Well, there was this one time that I stumbled across this 'feeder' community where guys like to watch their girlfriends get fat.

Okay. EW.
That's as unhealthy and disgusting as the pro-ana groups that I stumbled across while looking for communities on exercising and eating healthy.

Becca, Slytherin.

Catch ya next weekend.