New Fangirl Mystery Box Launches; By Women, For Women

Salem, NH, June 11, 2015 (Newswire.com) - ​​​​Two 22-year-old college friends have launched a new service designed to give female pop culture fans a monthly gift box that celebrates their favorite TV shows, videogames, movies and books.  "There are so many subscription mystery boxes out there in the pop culture arena," Rose Del Vecchio, one of the co-founders of FanMail, said. "But they do tend to be very guy oriented and we just didn't see the fandoms we love represented." "Basically, ours is a box designed by women for women," she said. Del Vecchio, of Salem, NH, and Brooklyn native Jenny Cheng, have launched FanMail - a subscription box that will have a different pop culture theme every month - to reflect their interests in fandom and to highlight creative works by fans. "We will be featuring works by the many incredible fan creators and artists and hopefully introduce other fans to the wonderful work that is being done in fandom," said Cheng. FanMail (www.myfanmail.com) is priced at $21.99 per month and guarantees a box filled with at least $50 worth of pop culture goodies, including jewelry, stationery, T-shirts, vinyl figures, comic books, and more. Subscribers can also get discounts for signing up for 3-, 6-, or 12-months of FanMail. There's also a free surprise pop culture T-shirt for those who sign up for a 6-month or one-year subscription.The subscription box market has expanded hugely in the last year with buyers able to find mystery boxes filled with makeup, beer, vinyl records, dog treats, and more. In the pop culture world, the most popular boxes have targeted mainly male buyers, with only incidental inclusion of what could be considered female fandom goodies. Del Vecchio and Cheng, both graduates of Brandeis University, felt their fandoms weren't being served by existing subscription boxes and started chatting about what they'd like to see come in the mail every month. "We weren't seeing our shows and our heroes and heroines represented," said Del Vecchio, who runs a successful Tumblr for BBC's popular fantasy show Merlin. "And a lot of the boxes were just filled with items you could buy yourself versus handmade and fan-created stuff." Among the properties that will be featured in the first six months of FanMail are Orphan Black, Game of Thrones, Doctor Who, iZombie, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, Legend of Zelda, and many more. After months of research and reaching out to fellow fans, the duo finally felt like it was time to launch with a June box featuring the theme Fantasy. They also have partnered with long-time pop culture retailer CineQuest.com to offer a San Diego Comic-Con Exclusive mystery box entitled "Ladies of Pop Culture," which will be sold only to show attendees as part of a three-month subscription package.            

"We're hoping fans will like what we're doing and that we'll get flooded with ideas for fandoms they want to see featured and with links to products and creators they want to see in our box," Cheng said. The female side of the pop culture market has been generally under-served by manufacturers of licensed television and movie collectibles and by gaming companies, despite growing evidence that women are a burgeoning force in the geek market space. Most recently a lack of merchandise featuring Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow character from The Avengers: Age of Ultron has spawned criticism and pro-Black Widow flash mobs. In 2014, nearly 40% of San Diego Comic-Con's 135,000 attendees were women. And, according to a recent survey, nearly half of all video game players and buyers are women. ​

"There are so many subscription mystery boxes out there in the pop culture arena. But they do tend to be very guy oriented and we just didn't see the fandoms we love represented."

Rose Del Vecchio, Co-Founder

FanMail (myfanmail.com) is a monthly subscription mystery box featuring collectibles from movies, television, books, video games and more that are popular with female fans. It was co-founded by Rose Del Vecchio and Jenny Cheng. For more information, please email [email protected] or [email protected].