You may know I run a little facebook group called Fantasy & Sci-Fi Salon (join today!). As the administrator I get to see backstage and– though the Salon provides a small data set– it may tell us something about the state of current SFF fanship.

1: Gender disparity is fading off with the generations. That said, the SFF group I was a moderator for prior to the Salon had a heavy male slant throughout (It was a rather toxic environment however and- I’m just trying a hypothesis out here, I could well be wrong- there’s something about middle aged men shouting at each other about space wizards for forty comments upwards that puts women off joining FB groups). But the numbers sort of match up with the rising diversity and inclusiveness in publishing and fandom. Which brings me to:

2: ‘Customised gender’ a small minority but constant through to age sixty-four. So just under 1 in 20 Salon members identify as what we might call non-traditional gender (FB results give this as ‘customised’). I wonder how that compares to say UK or US censuses generally.

3: People under 25 think Facebook sucks. They may be on to something.