There may also be a life-timing issue. Frankly, when I first got heavy into fandom, I was in grad school after having passed my quals, so I was in a "vacation" frame of mind and could be online for, like, ridiculous amounts of time. When you're running rn every ten minutes and replying to vast numbers of posts, you can establish a presence. Now, I can't do that anymore. I post from time to time, read a bit, but otherwise I'm a working stiff. I'm doubtful (although I imagine it's possible) that a working woman with a job that takes a lot of time, or maybe kids and that sort of thing, can enter fandom as a complete newbie and establish herself as a name to be recognized. (I'm not talking about moving from an old fandom to a new one, I'm talking about getting into fandom itself for the first time.)

I think what I'm saying is that there's a confluence of timing issues. It helps to hit a communications wave at the right moment, and also to be in a position in your own life where you can dedicate a lot of your time to taking full advantage of it.