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alt title(s): BNF Or " BNF" for short. A Big Name Fan is someone who, while not officially associated with the company that produces a given series (say, for the purposes of this article, Star Wars), is still widely known in the Star Wars fan community, and possibly by the producers of Star Wars themselves.
Maybe the BNF created a fan website that has become the source for information on Star Wars. Maybe they created a Star Wars Fanfic or other amateur Derivative Work that is so well-done everyone in the fandom has seen it. Maybe they just got posted on YouTube waving a lightsaber around like a spastic monkey. (Most BNFs are known for more positive things.) Regardless, everyone in the fandom now knows their name... or at least their Internet handle.
This can get a little weird for some BNFs, who often still think of themselves as "just another fan." Some will let it go to their heads ( even before they've truly hit the big time), some will freak out, some will just take it in stride.
It's arguable where the line is between Big Name Fan and just plain fan is, of course. However, when they're invited to speak at a Star Wars convention, or hired by Lucasfilm to continue what they were already doing for free, any doubt that they've become a Big Name Fan goes out the window.
The recognition is great, but remember that Celebrity Is Overrated: BNFs are easy targets, and are often singled out for torment by jealous fans. This may extend to their friends. Thankfully, the anonymity factor helps their life from getting too crazy: the vast majority of BNFs today did whatever they became famous for on the Internet while older ones did so through fanzines and mail, so their faces (and/or real names) are often unknown to most, making them indeed just another fan in the real world (even if they're gods on the Net).
Not to be confused with BMF. Compare/contrast with Promoted Fanboy.
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Examples
General
Anime & Manga
- Brad DeMoss, one of the pioneers of the Fan Vid concept. His biggest claim to fame is his "Evangelion Episode One" video (Evangelion clips to the Star Wars Episode One trailer sound), which got notice and approval from both Lucasfilm and Gainax. He regularly co-hosts the Masquerade event at AnimeExpo.
- Mark Simmons, maintainer of the now-defunct Gundam Project website, ended up getting hired to assist with the English-language adaptation of Mobile Suit Gundam.
- He even got a minor character in Gundam SEED named after him.
- Of similar note is his ocassional work partner, Keith Rhee. Rhee originally started the Gundam Project site and later maintained Bandai's own Gundam Official site for a number of years.
- The crew of Dattebayo, though technically operating illegally, have been in good relations with Viz Media for quite some time — so much so, that, when Viz began releasing their own subs shortly after Japanese broadcast, rather than ruin that relationship, they chose to stop subbing Naruto rather than force Viz to send them a C&D letter.
- Giovanna and Yasha of Empty Movement
 have kept alive Revolutionary Girl Utena fandom for years and This Troper points to that site for a revival of that fandom over the last three years when they opened a forum. A member of said forum is also doing a fansub of the Utena rerelease, which will most likely never be seen in America.
- Alan Harnum is considered the writer of Utena fanfiction. His unfinished opus is almost considered required reading in Utena fandom.
- While I don't know his status within the fandom, Little Kuriboh is one of the few Big Name Fans who has made a big name for himself outside the fandom in question.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion really only has one major group of fans: the denizens of the defunct EvaMonkey.com, who are regulars on pretty much every Evangelion forum. The main BN Fs are queen bee Reichu, her deputy Dr. Nick, and resident asshole pessimist Mr. Tines. They're known for their extensive research into the series mythos and their many contributions to Word Of Dante, the most famous being their official proclamation that Eldritch Abomination Adam is in fact female, which is actually official policy on the Evangelion Wiki, which this bunch founded.
- Cristina Valenzuela a.k.a. CristinaVee is a newcomer in the dubbing industry, but even before that, she caught the eyes of Bang! Zoom Entertainment with her dubbing talents at a convention.
Comics
- DC Comics historian John "Mikishawm" Wells is a Big Name Fan, having written the text pieces for collections such as Crisis On Infinite Earths Absolute Edition, and even getting mentioned in Kurt Busiek's Power Company, where Wells & Schaum is a research organization providing information on metahumans.
- In Spider-Girl, a temporary love interest for the main character, Chris Jarkoer, was named after a fan, Jarkover.
- Dave Campbell, who writes the blog Dave's Long Box, ("I'm going to review my comic book collection and you're going to like it!") got to write handbook bios for the Official Handbook of the Invincible Universe.
- Jess Nevins, who's various comic annotations not only lead him to literally writing the manual for each volume of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen but also backup work in Ed Brubraker's Incognito.
Films — Live Action
- "Ryan vs. Dorkman" is a well-known fan video that uses skillful choreography and special effects to create a live-action lightsaber duel. After overwhelming fan response, Ryan and "Dorkman" proceeded to film a rematch, this time with a score composed (for free!) by film composers Gordy Haab and Kyle Newmaster.
- The fact that the lightsaber fights is better than the ones in the movies. So Yeah... they deserve it.
- Albin Johnson, founder of the 501st Legion, eventually had his organization worked into Star Wars canon: Darth Vader's personal platoon is named the 501st.
- Ernie Fosselus acted and directed one of the best parody films of Star Wars ever made, the 22-minute long Hardware Wars. I believe George Lucas liked it so much he had 20th Century Fox pay Fosselus to allow them to include the short on the DVD of Star Wars.
- Sal Piro became a BNF for The Rocky Horror Picture Show, using audience participation to make the movie a cult classic.
Close Films — Live Action
Literature
- Several examples in the Harry Potter fandom:
- Cassandra (Cassie) Claire, an infamous BNF of the Harry Potter fandom. Parlayed her pre-existing fan-base into a publishing deal for her original fiction.
- She also has the privelege of being a BNF of two fandoms- while she is mostly known for her Harry Potter fiction, she is infamous in the Lord Of The Rings fandom for her "Very Secret Diaries".
- Melissa Anelli, webmistress of The Leaky Cauldron. Like Emerson, she was invited to interview JKR, managed to get an interview with JKR on Potter Cast, got a foreward written by JKR in her Harry: A History book and is often called on by the media to talk about the series. BNF? I think so.
- How about Steve Vander Ark of The Harry Potter Lexicon? The Lexicon was one of the websites J. K. Rowling favored in the Harry Potter fandom, until they decided to publish a book based on the website that was almost entirely her own words...
- Getting into a lawsuit with the Powers That Be may have stripped him of his Big Name Fan status.
- It didn't help that before the lawsuit, the lexicon hadn't really been updated to include info from the newer books.
- John Noe of Potter Cast/The Leaky Cauldron is also a bit of a BNF, since he had the character of John Dawlish named after him.
- Makani is one of the most famous Harry Potter fanartists. Her art is used in The Leaky Cauldron as a kind of "official" image for HP characters, and her take on the Malfoy family is source of much fanon.
- Neil Cicierega is especially well known for his "Potter Puppet Pals" series.
- Emerson Spartz, creator of Mugglenet, deffinitely qualifies for this, as he has interviewed J.K.Rowling and he was one of the writers involved in two HP-based books, both of which were best-sellers.
- Stephen Briggs has worked with Terry Pratchett on Discworld maps and other supplemental materials, narrates several audiobooks, and has written all of the stage adaptations of the books and played the role of Lord Vetinari in all of them. And he's part of the conventions.
- Colette Reap, one of the convention organizers, got a cameo in Maskerade.
- Blizzardclaw (or "Blizz"), owner of the largest Warrior Cats fansite. She has been personally invited to two events by the author/editor of the series by name, once via the series' official e-mail newsletter.
- In the words of Nuttymadam3575: UHHMAAAAAZING BOOOOOOOOOOOOK!
Live Action TV
- Bjo Trimble and her husband John are BNF for the Star Trek franchise, having driven the letter-writing campaign that spared the original series from cancellation before its third season.
- She also authored the original Star Trek Concordance that was the definitive reference work for many years.
- Paula Smith, author of the parody fanfic A Trekkie's Tale and inventor of the term Mary Sue.
- The Kirk/Spock fandom itself has a couple:
- Killashandra (aka Killa or Killabeez) - wrote some of the most beautiful fic ever written on the pairing, as well as the ship manifesto for the same. Her story "Surrender" is considered the finest exploration of D/s and dubcon in the fandom, and "Turning Point" was the first K/S fanfic ever posted online.
- Diane Marchant - wrote the very first K/S fanfic, "A Fragment Out of Time."
- Ian Marter, who played the character of Harry Sullivan on Doctor Who, also wrote several novels based on the series.
- Ian Levine is also well known amongst fandom, albeit mostly for the wrong reasons. As well as his efforts to locate missing stories, he also briefly worked on the show as an unofficial fan continuity advisor.
- A few Power Rangers BNFs have had shout-outs as well:
- Derik Smith: Monster Of The Week named Kired
- Joe Rovang: Monster Of The Week named Rofang
- Jason Takach: Monster Of The Week named Takach
- Jesse Lee Herndon (better known as Sir STACK) - Herndon Laboratories
- Chris Funaro: Funaro Maximum Security Prison
- And don't forget Amit Bhaumik. He was the webmaster of an extensive, detailed and now defunct Power Rangers information database called the "Online Archives". He was one mind behind the (in)famous Scorpion Rain hoax. And he became story editor of Wild Force and worked on that season's two crossover eps.
- In a bit of a reversal, Wil Wheaton is now arguably in this category: he's most popular for his blogging and being "just a geek" as he puts it, and he regularly associates with Gabe and Tycho, his fellow Big Name Fans from Penny Arcade. Whether you consider this a promotion, demotion, or something in between probably depends on how harshly you dislike his previous claim to "fame".
Music
- meathead is the most prominent "Nine Inch Nails" humour guy, and he makes rather poorly-animated (though really funny) Flash cartoons... one of which found its way onto the official NIN website.
- Wayne Studer, Ph.D. has pretty much the most detailed Pet Shop Boys fansite in existence. He's appeared in one of the documentaries about them, and his "On This Date..." feature has been incorporated into the front page of their official site.
Pro Wrestling
- ECW had a core group of superfans, known as "Club ECW", who seemed to appear in choice seats in the audience of their shows week after week. Some of them became known by Fan Nicknames due to their distinctive appearances ("Sign Guy" always had a witty sign, "Hat Guy" always wore a straw hat and Hawaiian shirt, "Faith No More Guy" bore a stunning resemblance to the guitarist from Faith No More, etc.). Eventually, ECW staffers started reserving the best seats in the house for these fans. Five years after ECW shut down, their special status was still honored for the official ECW reunion show, ECW One Night Stand, as well as the unofficial one, Hardcore Homecoming.
- Perhaps the biggest Big Name Fan in Professional Wrestling, however, is Dave Meltzer, author and publisher of the Wrestling Observer, the original Smart Mark newsletter. Others include Wade Keller (of the Pro Wrestling Torch, another popular newsletter), Bob Ryder (who made the transition from BNF to wrestling insider when he took a job with WCW), Scott Keith, Christopher Robin Zimmerman, and Chris Hyatte. Unlike most other entertainment companies, wrestling promotions (with the exceptions of the aforementioned ECW and Ring of Honor) tend to hate those BNFs who write on the subject with a passion, since they have a distinct tendency to pull back the curtain on Kayfabe (the late promoter Herb Abrams went so far as to feature a wrestler named Davey "The Observer" Meltzer on his UWF tv program; needless to say, "Meltzer" suffered defeat and humiliation). RD Reynolds and Blade Braxton of Wrestle Crap also have a fairly large online following, although both have been involved in independent pro wrestling, and they also tend to take a comically self-deprecating view of their importance as BNFs (Blade's insistence that he had a brief affair with Amy "Lita" Dumas after meeting her once at a car show, for example).
- Jae, the guy who ran what was the only English language Dragon Gate website, was enlisted by the promotion to help set up their first tour of the United States. In an interview, he told a short story about how CIMA, the promotion's top draw, called him at 2 a.m. one night.
Video Games
- Rooster Teeth Productions, the creators of the Red Vs Blue Machinima. Rooster Teeth has been since commissioned by Microsoft to do advertisements, and high-definition copies of Red Vs. Blue are sold in the X-Box Live Marketplace and in many game stores. The voice cast also had cameos as chattering soldiers in Halo 3.
- To a lesser extent in the Halo fandom: Randall Glass, whose "Halo Physics Experiment", better known as the Warthog Jump, became immensely popular for a time. He even got into the credits of Halo 2 under the "Special Thanks" section.
- In the early to mid-nineties, a fair number of famous and semi-famous Doom mapmakers wound up being engaged as official level designers for actual developers. The first example to come to this troper's mind is Tim Willits, Doom enthusiast and mapmaker assimilated by id in the mid-nineties, his most notable work being The Ultimate Doom, Doom 3 and the entire Quake series. He later ascended even further to become the lead designer and current co-owner of the company.
- reid Young (who prefers that his first name remain un-capitalized) is the head of what is pretty much the only big Earthbound fansite. He has organized many large scale attempts to get Nintendo to release Mother 3 (that's Earthbound 2) in America and to just give the American fan base more love in general. Some of the more notable attempts included:
- Having hundreds of people call Nintendo of America to tell them how much they love Earthbound.
- Sending hundreds of letters to Nintendo of America filled with Earthbound love.
- Posting over 200 Earthbound-related videos on youtube and competing to see which one could get the most hits.
- Sending Nintendo a 31,338 signature petition for Mother 3 to be released. This is especially remarkable since many of these were physical signatures rather than the usual digital ones that get ignored by big companies.
- After this petition was sent, Mother 3 was released... in Japan only again.
- More in the Earthbound fandom itself than outside of it is Benjamin Carignan (Katon), one of the masterminds between three well-renowned fan radio plays and the most consistently popular radio DJ for starmen.net's internet station, Radio PSI. He is one of the few BN Fs that is incredibly humble about his popular and is often surprised at the reactions he gets after contacting people.
- Xaran Alamas, the owner of a large Warcraft III fansite back in the day and later the runner of a semi-official World Of Warcraft "lore question and answers" thread at the fora. He is also reputedly a cyber-friend with Chris Metzen, the leader of the series' creative division. In WoW's second expansion pack, he got an NPC named after him.
- "Serebii" (his real name is rarely if ever used online) hosts one of the most well-known Pokemon sites, and has been known to appear on other Pokemon-related forums. He's implied in the past that he has at least some insider information, but his attitude regarding other Pokemon websites and a few allegations of plagiarism have given him his own personal Broken Base amongst Pokemon fans.
- Water Pokemon Master of Pokebeach and TTE who is the head honcho of Bulbapedia also are fairly big names. For the record, Bulbapedia and Serebii do NOT get along either.
- In Fall from Heaven, Magister Cultuum fills this role, to the point of having a Great Sage named after him, an being quickly know to everyone on the Forums.
- Kirby M too, owner of Walfas, a Touhou Project-related site. Worked on Maikaze's Touhou anime, although that too was fanmade...
- Pikmin Link is possibly the biggest BNF in the Legend Of Zelda fandom. Being a cosplayer, even a particularly good one, is not usually enough to earn such a title. However, Pikmin Link's cosplay reached the attention of Nintendo executives, who recruited her to portray Link at the official release of Twilight Princess, and the costume she wore has been retired and is kept under glass. That's because it was signed by Shigeru Miyamoto himself.
- Clyde Mandelin, aka Tomato, is a big name in the Fan Translation "scene". Having worked on high-profile projects like Bahamut Lagoon, Star Ocean, and Mother3, he's parlayed his skills into a full-time translation position, and has been mentioned by famed translator Ted Woolsey in an interview.
- Gideon Zhi, of Aeon Genesis, has released far more Fan Translations than any other group, and his work is almost inevitably featured in any articles about the subject.
Web Comics
- The writer of Irregular Webcomic attracted the attention of Jane Goodall (a character in the comic and one of his heroes) to the point that he eventually had an interview with her that was posted in the comic. It wasn't fully apparent if she was a fan of the comic, however.
Western Animation
- Avatar: The Last Airbender retains two such major players:
- The "megafan" Kimberly Miranda aka Isaia, one of the very first Avatar fan artists on Deviant Art. Her account now has over a million views and her artwork has been displayed repeatedly within magazines for the show. Particularly, her "It's Avatarded" satire comics may very well be credited to the Fan Community Nickname.
- The comedic artwork of Johane Matte a.k.a. Rufftoon has helped further establish the show's base on Deviant Art and earned her one million pageviews in almost half the time. She has since been hired as a storyboard artist for the show and has lent illustrations for the upcoming Avatar-dedicated Nick Mag.
- They're also both really nice people, though that's a little off-topic.
- Several Transformers fans had Shout Outs made to them in Beast Wars, but the most famous must be Ben Yee, a Transformers site owner who actually was given credits props as a consultant on the show.
- Mark Moore was/is an infamous Captain N fan, notable for his "Season 4" (Through 8) fanfic continuation of the original cartoon series.
- Thunderbird3, or TB3, is apparently on speaking terms with the creators of Code Lyoko and even made a documentary with interviews of the cast and crew. For the fairly small English-speaking fanbase, this was a big thing.
- This troper is a member of a ReBoot forum with a few members who are in on the entire plot of the revival webcomic and/or regularly correspond with higher-ups among the revival. The comic's writer himself is also a member, and regularly interacts with the members to get their input.
- Most Danny Phantom fans are aware of Neo Yi. What most people know her for is her excellent fan comic Chess Piece but really, it's nearly impossible to explore the fandom (specifically on Deviant Art) without learning about her eventually. Others include Firefury Amahira, Tavalya Ra, The Alchemist's Muse and Esme Phantom, all of which are very well known around the community.
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