polydigm wrote:
I - and many others obviously - knew about the Roxy movie long before the internet became public. Back before the internet I - and again, many others obviously - just used to keep in touch with local stores about new releases and kept an eye out for FZ articles in magazines.
Indeed. And one could get in contact with other fans through the magazines and fanzines, and then one could write to each other. For that purpose we used so-called letters, which were pieces of papers whereupon you put text. You then put those into an envelope, and through various mail services (involving people carrying the letter physically across the globe) it reached the recipient. He/she could respond by similar means. This communication model was not new at the time - it had already been used for centuries. It is slower than today's various forms of instant messaging using internet, but had a very nice benefit in the sense that people typically thought about what they wrote before they sent something off. So while information definitely spread slower, the higher quality compensated for that to some extent.