Are Buffy fans crazier than hardcore Trekkies or any other fandom you care to mention?

Yeah, and the people who study fandom are practically as bad: I've seen essays about people who literally worship Elvis as a saint interspersed among essays about people who wouldn't be considered quite so strange.

I mean, I know, the salient people are the people who yell the loudest, but I'd like to think that a book including "The Cultural Economy of Fandom" and essays about the hysterical aspects of Beatlemania would try to avoid mashing that together with uncritical chronicles of extremely atypical behavior.

Are Buffy fans crazier than hardcore Trekkies or any other fandom you care to mention?

Well, first off, what's wrong with being crazy? Sanity is overrated.

The issue, if issue there be, is that there are socially approved ways to be crazy. The overly-zealous Oakland Raider fans and fashionistas, in particular, are just taking socially approved craziness a step further than most people.

We (Buffista, Trekkie, or other SFy fandom), on the other hand, are crazy in ways that mainstream society doesn't want to acknowledge.

There are segments of society scared shitless of smart people.(Say that three times fast.) But some fans really are nuts, too.

The issue, if issue there be, is that there are socially approved ways to be crazy. The overly-zealous Oakland Raider fans and fashionistas, in particular, are just taking socially approved craziness a step further than most people.

Well, fandom -- of football or Trek -- isn't regarded as crazy, usually, so much as incredibly dorky or personality-deficient. I don't especially mind fandom being strange and unreasonable and big with the yelling and turf wars (well, I do mind it, but that's reality), but I do mind fandom of any kind being portrayed as failing to have a grasp on reality. Because there is a difference between clinical mental illness and substantial but reality-grasping weirdness.

In sum:
Thinks Joss is incredibly cool, and deserves the honorary title of god: OK
Thinks Joss is really a god, and can control the fates of people in Cleveland: Not OK.

Because there is a difference between clinical mental illness and substantial but reality-grasping weirdness.

Agreed, Nutty, and I apologize for not being clear in my post. I intended "crazy" and "sane" more in the sense of letting off steam or dealing with the stresses of daily living in modern society, and not in any mental illness sense.

cancels big move to Cleveland and order of t-shirts with "Worship the Joss" on them

I recently read through all the continuity stuff for S7 on the tvtome.com BtVS ep guide. Whoever writes that stuff deserves the fandom medal of honor. There was so many more juicy bits of continuity than I ever would have noticed on my own.

I do see instances of what can only be decribed as mental illness, and breaks from reality in fandom, as well one would see these things in any cross section of community. There are millions of fans, many with access to the internet, and it follows that some have minds clouded with sickness.

There are millions of fans, many with access to the internet, and it follows that some have minds clouded with sickness.

I'm getting better.

That's what they all think, Wolfram.

There are millions of fans, many with access to the internet, and it follows that some have minds clouded with sickness.

Whoa nelly, is this ever the truth. I do sort of like the idea that insane fans writing porn and yammering at Allyson are fans who are not calling actors' home numbers and following them around town.

Allyson, by keeping Fury's email account, you are taking a hit for the lives and safety of actors everywhere. Okay, yes, I'm being optimistic.