AGE

from Fancyclopedia 2

Fans range in age from the early teens to the seventies, but most of us were born between 1930 and 1940. Various polls -- IPO, Poll Cat, and later ones by Campbell, MacKenzie, and assorted fans -- put the median age in the early twenties; the arithmetical average isn't reliable because calculations are distorted by the very aged such as Bloch, Tucker, Doc Smith, Ackerman and others who have existed ever since Gernsback created the world. The question whether mental and chronometric age among fans are related is hotly argued, some maintaining that those under a certain youngness are not competent to dispute or judge their elders. And sometimes the expression "young fans" refers to the time the people concerned have been in fandom, rather'n their calendar ages.