Full disclosure upfront: I stole the title Random Fandom from a mailing list. If you came up with that title, thank you!
The theory is that we celebrate a different fandom each month, but have activities that non-fans can participate in. This particular program was planned based on an anonymous request I had to host a Pokemon program. Besides my end of summer party this was the most successful program I’ve held since beginning this job in February; 11 teens (mostly new) showed up.
The program started with a hunt for the 15 pokeballs I’d hidden around the teen space and reference (these are right next to each other). The teen who found the most won a $1 box of candy. I was afraid this would seem too juvenile (a general worry for the whole program), but was a great gathering activity and most of them really got into.
The rest of the program was mostly the teens talking Pokemon, bragging about their cards, talking about their games . . . Seriously, I know next to nothing about Pokemon, but I loved seeing the teens geek out about it. They also cleaned me out of my snacks.
I had planned two games and had cubeecrafts available. They sat around the cubeecraft table and a couple of them started, but no one finished. All were too engrossed in conversation. The games I had planned were most definitely too juvenile, though there was some minor interest no one actually played.
I am definitely looking into turning this into a Pokemon club, and I will most likely make the hunt for objects a feature of future Random Fandoms.