BNF n.

As soon as the bomb fell, big name fan leaped to his feet…and made for the door. As he stepped out he slung over his shoulder Survival Kit BNF model 48, (his own design).

COMING NEXT ISH: A department devoted to the BNF of tomorrow. ’Twill be the neofan of today who is the Tucker or Laney of tomorrow.

You asked us to cut our letters short, so I'll cut, but before I leave, I'd like to ask why nobody ever writes to me any more. Not just me—all BNFs have that trouble. When I was new to fandom, for every letter printed in a magazine, I would receive twenty or thirty letters from other fans. Now that I've become one of the ‘Old Guard’™ by dint of six years of diligent fanning, nobody ever writes me—nobody except old friends, that is.

Also present were such BNFs as Joe Kennedy, Art Rapp, Lee Hoffman, Lee Riddle, [etc.].

Think of the fun, the glamour, the excitement! Think of rubbing elbows with the BNFs!

Monk Malone? He’s a BNF. I thought everybody had heard.

Another prominent female fan known for her fanzine work was Lee Hoffman, a Savannah, Georgia fan who wrote and published Quandary. She was known as a ‘BNF’ (Big Name Fan) for many years and was a major presence at the 1951 World Science Fiction Convention in New Orleans.

[at the fictional GeekiCon] Standing semi-concealed by a big group of Star-Troopers were Team Dangermaker, the four-person team who’d won the Quest the last three years running. Dahlia, Fox, Rey, and Malik were as close to internet royalty as a person could come without being an actual movie star. They were the very definition of BNFs—Big Name Fans.

I hate being a BNF and it makes me want to stop writing…. I am a fucking fan, too. I came into these spaces for community and camaraderie. But now I exist in this purgatory space where I’m ‘exalted’ in the fandom enough to isolate me, while simultaneously not actually existing in a ‘pro’ space with peers.