Strangely, the idea of writing fanfiction attracts me more than reading it. Are there any well-known fic authors who notoriously don't read any fanfiction other than their own? (I know that idea kind of goes against the grain of fanfiction, being a "community" thing and all.)
Well, there's arguably two poles or paradigms within the fanfic community - those whose interest is primarily in community and those whose interest is primarily in writing. Most people fall somewhere in the middle. I do read, but not all that much these days. I'm way more engaged in the writing - I mean, I read things haphazardly, but I'm flittering about from fandom to fandom quite cheerfully and reading things on the basis of recs or of them being by people I rate. For example, my Big F*ckoff Epic is a piece of Harry Potter futurefic - and I've really read very little HP fanfic, and have limited interest in the fandom. I'm not all that emotionally engaged with canon - not the way I am with Firefly or BtVS or AtS. But it provided a good jumping-off point for a story, and now I'm 50,000 words into it, with another 20,000 or so still to be written. But I don't much follow the fandom, outwith the inimitable AJ Hall and my darling Fearless Diva.
Kassto, I understand your qualms, but it's worth keeping in mind that an awful lot of the dissing that fans (particularly genre fans) get is purely to do with snobbery. It's socially acceptable to be able to quote Shakespeare's plays and to know them inside out. It's socially acceptable to be able to reel off statistics pertaining to any variety of ballgame. It's not so sociably acceptable to be equally passionate about speculative fiction or pop culture. But this is just nonsense, it really is; people get passionate about all kinds of stuff, and if you love it, if it moves you, if it speaks to you - then that's cool. I couldn't give a damn about any flavour of ballgame, but narrative is my crack cocaine and I love juxtapositions of sublime and ridiculous. I love language, and action, and bravado. I love storytelling, and I love swashbuckling - give me The Iliad or Eastenders over Wimbledon any day of the week. Buffy has depths and shallows and both are lovely. It's not flawless, certainly, but it's fresh and witty and wonderfully endearing, and it's a show that is conscious of its own cliches and stereotypes and continues to play games with them. There's nothing embarassing about falling in love with this show - it may feel embarassing, but that's about other people's misconceptions and their prejudices, rather than about the show's worth. A lot of people are, regrettably, pretty dumb. This means they miss out on lots of good stuff because they're worrying about what is or isn't cool. Bugger that for a game of soldiers. So long as you aren't hurting anyone else, then damn well follow your bliss, however far from the mainstream it may take you.
But, hey - I've embraced my inner anorak. In fact, I'm wearing it on my head right now, and it's fucking great. ;o)