aquila_black (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
aquila_black) wrote2022-11-08 04:00 am
aquila_black) wrote2022-11-08 04:00 am
One way to look at it
[This post started life as a comment on melannin's entry in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fictional_fans]
Fanfic is what happens when you take stories that were kidnapped from the commons and free them. Someone decided this thing should have their name (or brand) attached and only be enjoyed by people who send monetary tribute, and only be expanded on by people who have their express permission to do that. And, in many first world countries, the courts play along with their notion. Fanfic is about accepting inspiration and continuing these stories, without a storyteller's license or a formal "we assign you to add content to this franchise, but only within these controlled parameters" work contract. Fanfic is the no-effective-gatekeeping, wild woods of fiction writing.
There are places, like Japan, where fanfic is treated with more respect and acceptance, and understood as something that prolongs the life of canons, even to the benefit of paid authors. Because without new additions to old stories, they settle into people's memories. And often the additions that attract the most attention and emotion are not the ones someone was tasked with making. This shows me that canon does not *have* to regard fanon as unwanted competition, and that they aren't inherently at odds with each other.
But I think cultures admit to quite a bit about how they regard the fringes of the imagination - particularly about whether they regard it as an ally or an enemy - in how they respond to noticing fanfic. In the US and the UK, the media held our writers up for shame and ridicule. Several abortive attempts have been made to buy and commercialize the libraries we wrote for love. Efforts to arm-twist advertisers to get our writings censored and deleted were much more successful - fic writers are still forced to abandon for-profit social media by hostile, pointed changes to the Terms of Service - but that eventually led fed-up fans to found and run the AO3.
Currently, I see three major challenges for fanfic. One is the sustained cultural pressure to monetize it. Two is the proliferation of rhetoric accusing the words no one asked permission to write of social harm. And three is the way the search engines have made it hard to find certain things on the internet - as a side effect, making it harder for fans to locate libraries, events, and each other. But I'm sure other fanfic writers see all this and are trying to address it or find work-arounds: we've a dynamic culture. And I've learned to trust that when I'm doing what makes sense to me, I'm anything but alone.
A more underlying issue is that I've watched the generation that is now in the middle of adulthood reject the idea that jobbing is socially valuable or personally fulfilling. People see the life capitalism allows them is a pale shadow of what could be if they directed themselves, without paying for the "privilege" of staying alive. This relates to fanfic because workplaces are still full of adults who would be denied food and shelter if they quit, but their loyalty to the idea of being employed is gone. They write and make art and meta and socialize, guilt-free, as memorable human beings with limited lifespans. Capitalism is scrambling hard to recolonize this, but I think it realized too late that it had lost them.
This feeds back into monetization because no matter how hard "influencers" promote side-hustles, freelancing, etc., most people don't see a future in this economy, or find the idea of being money-grubbers inspiring. The fans trying to call attention to their published works, etsy shops, and commissions are loud, but they're outnumbered (and often outclassed) by people who are listening to their muses, writing, and sharing. Ever since businesses got online, self-promotion and attempts to hold content hostage have become ubiquitous. Very few people navigating the modern internet are particularly receptive or naive to marketing. That's crystallized into the quiet awareness that, if none of us like the ways the internet already resembles a strip mall, other people probably won't welcome the opening of yet another online shop.
I see a lot of work expended on trying to argue that selling is just as valid as giving, where fanfiction is concerned, but when I consider the goodwill I have towards something that is there for me, and not my pocketbook, there's just no comparison. Fanfic is available to people when they're underage and may have neither money nor privacy, and it's still there for them if they lose their income. Whereas, commercialized stories are part of the long list of things society has decided poor people should be excluded from having. And if that's making you think of the way piracy and fandom are fast friends, me too. More power to it.
melannin's entry in fictional_fans]Fanfic is what happens when you take stories that were kidnapped from the commons and free them. Someone decided this thing should have their name (or brand) attached and only be enjoyed by people who send monetary tribute, and only be expanded on by people who have their express permission to do that. And, in many first world countries, the courts play along with their notion. Fanfic is about accepting inspiration and continuing these stories, without a storyteller's license or a formal "we assign you to add content to this franchise, but only within these controlled parameters" work contract. Fanfic is the no-effective-gatekeeping, wild woods of fiction writing.
There are places, like Japan, where fanfic is treated with more respect and acceptance, and understood as something that prolongs the life of canons, even to the benefit of paid authors. Because without new additions to old stories, they settle into people's memories. And often the additions that attract the most attention and emotion are not the ones someone was tasked with making. This shows me that canon does not *have* to regard fanon as unwanted competition, and that they aren't inherently at odds with each other.
But I think cultures admit to quite a bit about how they regard the fringes of the imagination - particularly about whether they regard it as an ally or an enemy - in how they respond to noticing fanfic. In the US and the UK, the media held our writers up for shame and ridicule. Several abortive attempts have been made to buy and commercialize the libraries we wrote for love. Efforts to arm-twist advertisers to get our writings censored and deleted were much more successful - fic writers are still forced to abandon for-profit social media by hostile, pointed changes to the Terms of Service - but that eventually led fed-up fans to found and run the AO3.
Currently, I see three major challenges for fanfic. One is the sustained cultural pressure to monetize it. Two is the proliferation of rhetoric accusing the words no one asked permission to write of social harm. And three is the way the search engines have made it hard to find certain things on the internet - as a side effect, making it harder for fans to locate libraries, events, and each other. But I'm sure other fanfic writers see all this and are trying to address it or find work-arounds: we've a dynamic culture. And I've learned to trust that when I'm doing what makes sense to me, I'm anything but alone.
A more underlying issue is that I've watched the generation that is now in the middle of adulthood reject the idea that jobbing is socially valuable or personally fulfilling. People see the life capitalism allows them is a pale shadow of what could be if they directed themselves, without paying for the "privilege" of staying alive. This relates to fanfic because workplaces are still full of adults who would be denied food and shelter if they quit, but their loyalty to the idea of being employed is gone. They write and make art and meta and socialize, guilt-free, as memorable human beings with limited lifespans. Capitalism is scrambling hard to recolonize this, but I think it realized too late that it had lost them.
This feeds back into monetization because no matter how hard "influencers" promote side-hustles, freelancing, etc., most people don't see a future in this economy, or find the idea of being money-grubbers inspiring. The fans trying to call attention to their published works, etsy shops, and commissions are loud, but they're outnumbered (and often outclassed) by people who are listening to their muses, writing, and sharing. Ever since businesses got online, self-promotion and attempts to hold content hostage have become ubiquitous. Very few people navigating the modern internet are particularly receptive or naive to marketing. That's crystallized into the quiet awareness that, if none of us like the ways the internet already resembles a strip mall, other people probably won't welcome the opening of yet another online shop.
I see a lot of work expended on trying to argue that selling is just as valid as giving, where fanfiction is concerned, but when I consider the goodwill I have towards something that is there for me, and not my pocketbook, there's just no comparison. Fanfic is available to people when they're underage and may have neither money nor privacy, and it's still there for them if they lose their income. Whereas, commercialized stories are part of the long list of things society has decided poor people should be excluded from having. And if that's making you think of the way piracy and fandom are fast friends, me too. More power to it.