... Being exiled from Spanish fandom, my experience really mirrors yours! The non-LJ based thing, for example. And media fandom in Spanish is new, fandom started with Saint Seiya, not with Star Trek.
Currently, my flist is mostly hispa-fans who are only the anglofandom because... well, Spanish fandom sucks. Many of them actually started in anglofandom, unlike me.
However, ther might be difference because Spanish fandom is probably much more multi-national than German fandom. [ie., Spanish fandom = Spanish speaking fandom]
And I really , really want the Archive of Our Own to take off in non-English fandoms too. I mean, FF.net did, so...