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The questions we all face, you love a new piece of media and you want to support it, but how do you do that? How DO you support the fandom community and help it grow? The answer is surprisingly simple: interact, like, share your love and find creators who make the fandoms you love!
The best way to keep the media going is to have your fandoms based around it to support the places they are made. This for the most part means you will be interacting with larger corporations such as Disney, studio A24, HBO Max, Netflix, Crunchyroll, Warner Brothers and Scholastic Press. One of the best examples I can think of, of fan support really paying a difference is with Anime. When it comes to Anime there are various studios in Japan and elsewhere that make the content in their local language. So in order for this contect to be made available to English speaking audiences, another studio has to buy the rights to the content to translate and produce it in english. There are SO many examples of anime that have blown up, but that their further seasons don't get picked up by these English-speaking to Produce and translate. This is because these studios don't receive the support for the contect. Meaning the fans go elsewhere to consume the content (pirating), and get merchandise, so the studio doesn't get the feedback or the support on the content they're creating. So they're going to stop creating it, causing outrage within the fandom. This is why when dealing with smaller fandoms or contracts created outside of the English speaking world it's really important to get your contact and support the official distributors. To further the anime example, you should get your contact in merch from places like Crunchyroll and Funimation
That's not to say official sites and stores are the only place to get your fandom merchandise in particular. Oftentimes the corporations that own the content will officially license smaller creators to create and produce merchandise for fandoms. Some really great places to explore fandom merchandise shopping that is officially licensed but the owners of the media are: LootCreat, Her Universe (a personal favorite of mine) and even Hot Topic
Small Businesses and creators play a huge part in fandom and making their communities the places that they are! I am personally a huge proponent of shopping small and supporting our small creators specifically in the fandom communities! It can be difficult to find smaller creators that produce content and merchandise for your Fandoms, but that's why I'm here! Here are just a few of my favorite places to find Merchandise in contact for my favorite fandoms!
Redbubble- With the mission of “Give(ing) independent artists a meaningful new way to sell their creations” Redbubble is a great place to find fandom shirts, stickers, toastabags, prints/wall art, phone cases and much more created by smaller artest! You can find almost anything on this site, from TV, Anime, book, movie and comic fandoms all are represented!
Qwertee- Tshirts, Shirts and more t-shirts! Using the unique design future of having consumers vote on designs they want to see turned into shirts, Qwertee has some incredibly unique designs related to fandom and others! Anyone can create a design to be voted on and once the shirt gets printed the artist gets a commission on all shirts sold! All of their shirts are only available for around 48 hours so if you see something you like, get it ASAP!
Fairy Loot- Who doesn't love a good book box? Fairy Loot is a small business that curates themed book boxes full of amazing books written by new authors and goodies from small creators that arrive at your door once a month! This book box is specifically fantasy-themed, a favorite genre for me, and is a favorite of booktok for their amazing choices of books to include in their boxes! There's currently a waitlist to get your hands on one of these amazing boxes!
OwlCreate- Similar to Fairy Loot, Owl Create provides brand new books and other bookish items in each of their monthly boxes. They offer boxes for middle grade, young adult and adult readers with different themes and genres included each month. I received a Subscription from them for Christmas one year and highly enjoyed all of the books and goodies I received!
Holy Clothing- Need something to wear to your local Renaissance Festival, or just wanna spice up your wardrobe? Holy Clothing is ethically produced clothing with sizes ranging from Small to 5X!
Etsy- The home of small creators from all over the world, Etsy is the place to look if you want a costume of niche fandom gear or merch! Look up any fandom and you will find something made by fans for fans! I have gotten some of my most favorite fandom items for this site, from sweatshirts and bookmarks, they have it all!
Folksy- I had this first discarded to me as “the UK version of Etsy” and I had never heard a more correct statement! If you are located anywhere in the UK or close to it, Folkey is an amazing place to look for all of your handmade fandom goods!
*with both Esty and Folksy you will be buying directly for the creators of your items where most other places a third party platform used to help creators. When shopping on these sites I suggest you keep your eye out to see if shops are officially licensed creators and distributors for whatever fandom you are looking for!
Patreon- Is a site where you can find many of your favorite creators creating premium or extra content for fans, that fans can purchase subscriptions to access. The money from these subscriptions go directly to the creators and often help them create more of the context for all fans to enjoy. You can find and support Podcoaster, Cosplayers, Youtubers, Tiktoker and many other creators on this site!
The best compilation of easy to find anime merchandise made by small creators was compiled by a local anime convention for me, Otakon, during the 2020 pandemic. They took all the creators that were supported to attend their convention in their Artist Alley and created an online version so fans could support their favorite artist during the pandemic. Even if the online Artest Ally is a few years outdated, it still has an incredible selection of anime related posters, and other items! You can find the online Artist Alley here!
These are just a few of my favorite places to find fandom related items and gear! Took a look on Instagram and Tumber to see my favorite online Content Creators in fandom! Join me next week to exploit all the different types of fandoms!
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