fandom
”オタコン”がアメリカで開催されているようです。
Otakon celebrates 20 years of anime fandom in the U.S.
The American anime convention, Otakon (“Otaku Convention”), begins with a costume parade before it officially opens. Last week I had a bird’s-eye view of the spectacle from my 14th-floor hotel room in Baltimore, Maryland. An endless army of imaginary characters trudged across the elevated concourse and down adjacent sidewalks to the Baltimore Convention Center to register and obtain entry badges. Most were instantly recognizable from anime series old and new, brandishing swords or other weaponry fashioned out of homemade materials, or wearing massive multicolored wigs, capes or sewn-on tails — or very little at all.
fandomとは「ファンたち、ファンの世界、マニア界、おたく世界」「特定の作品・作者・分野を取り巻く熱心なファンの人々（の活動）の総称。SF、ファンタジー、アニメなどについて。」（英辞郎 on the WEB)という意味になります。Merriam-Webster Dictionaryには"1: all the fans (as of a sport)""2: the state or attitude of being a fan"とあり、サブカルチャーだけでなく、スポーツなどのファンや、またそのファンの状態や態度も指すそうです。(Hatahata)
