Like a few kids growing up in the late 70s, I had my first experiences with music from AM radio at the time, or my dad's Elvis and The Beatles records, which was odd because he was in his mid 30s when I was born, so him listening to The Beatles was an anomaly since he liked early country music, but he liked the early songs from them so they were my first exposure to British invasion rock.
   Now my mom used to take us to Disney films and "The Sound Of Music" so we were exposed to the less controversial side of musicals and safe subject matter in film, but in 1979 my mother and father divorced for the second time, and I was in my room listening to music, and my older brother called me into the den to see this film on T.V. on a program called "Night Flight" and the film was "The Kids Are Alright." 
   There was something about seeing Keith's drum exploding for the first time on "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" episode, the rawness from the music they were playing from old clips, and the humor of Keith Moon, who up until that time had never heard of or knew yet of his tragic end a few months earlier in 1978, but there was something about him that I needed at the time with the depression I was going through, and feeling of rebellion of quitting school at 14 the first time, and wanting nothing to do with society and the hypocrisy I saw growing up in church.
   The Who seemed to offer something more spiritual and fulfilling at the time than religion, so I was amazed but not yet hooked, even though the laser show used in "Won't Get Fooled Again" at the end of the film was also something new to my young psyche.
It was a rather enlightening experience for a young boy to witness who had never seen anything as monumental as The Who had created.
   Now about a month or 2 later I was watching cable T.V. at the time, which was pay T.V. aside from the usual networks that started out as the only source for entertainment on the small screen, so once we got the Showtime channel it opened my mind to all sorts of shows and films I had never seen before, and one in particular that aired was the 1975 Rock Opera "Tommy" that at the time I hadn't made the connection to the band I had just witnessed a month or so earlier in the documentary my brother turned me on to, and after watching it something switched on in my brain and I was soon on the hunt for the soundtrack to this strange film with visualizations I definitely had never seen in Disney and other musical films from my childhood.
   This was something from a different world and I wanted more of it.
I set off on a quest to the closest department store in my hometown of Muscle Shoals Alabama on foot with my best friend, and we arrived and walked to the entertainment department and I thumbed throughout the records they had there but couldn't find the "Tommy" soundtrack anywhere, but I did find the soundtrack to the film I had seen before that, picked up the album, flipped it over and saw about 4 songs from the "Tommy" film and thought what the heck, I'll buy it and take it home and listen, and then got to hear some of the songs played in the film, and still found them enjoyable and powerful and somehow they stood out from every other band or artist I had heard anywhere throughout my 14 years since I could comprehend music and it's meaning, either lyrically or musically, and decided then and there I was to begin a journey in finding out all I could about this band, and try to collect all I could find on them in which I have been doing since late 1979.
   I fell on bad luck in 1985 and lost every cassette of theirs I owned, and 2 weeks later lost every LP of theirs I owned on a impulsive 2 week trip to Florida, but when I made it back home I began to replace what I had lost on vinyl, added newer things and then began collecting CDs when they became available until a friend stole half of them in which I've since replaced all of the LPs, most of the Cassettes, all of the CDs stolen and many more of each, and haven't let up since.
I even started an online fans collectibles page where members post their albums and other items they've collected of The Who, and me as well whenever I can afford a new piece of their history.
It has managed to grow and become a popular place for new fans to learn from old fans, and old fans to see what other fans have, so if and when available they can own it too if any are available due to not everything they produced is easy to find, affordable, or not already collected by someone else. 
   A member just commented today that they thought it is the best online place for sharing and seeing collectibles of The who and that has made it worthwhile.