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Kudos, Capitalism and Commoditised Fanfic

12/13/2017

 
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Earlier this year I was a guest on the excellent fandom-centric podcast, Fansplaining, when I was invited to talk to Elizabeth and Flourish about LGBTQ+ young adult fiction. As my conversations often do, we turned to works produced in fandom communities. During that conversation, I expressed thoughts on the unfettered nature of fanfiction and in my typically predominantly fandom-positive Utopian idealism, offered my perspectives on the importance of keeping fandom a free space – something I have talked about previously in my post On Selling and Silencing Fanfiction.
 
A brief diversion into the ‘commodity of kudos’ has been niggling at me since that discussion, and as my academic research leads me to explore in more depth the impact of capitalism on virtual communities, I have been forced to evaluate and interrogate some of the earlier ideas around fandom I espoused in that podcast. Specifically, I have been giving a lot of thought to the notion of fanfiction as a 'free' enterprise.

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Con Debrief: 'leviosa', Las Vegas

9/10/2016

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You can find my post on my experience at 'Leviosa' HERE

Leviosa was a dedicated Harry Potter convention run by fans for fans in 2016. The convention was held at The Green Ranch Valley Hotel in Las Vegas, and it was completely wizard.
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on selling and silencing fanfiction

11/5/2015

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I fell down the fanfiction rabbit hole five years ago.  Full of wide-eyed excitement I found myself explaining what fanfiction is, even when people didn't really want to listen. By the time my whirlwind romance with fandom settled into something more permanent, geek culture had boomed.  Fanfiction is rarely something I have to explain anymore. Increasingly the response to 'fanfiction' isn't a furrowed brow, but an enthusiastic, "Oh yeah, I was in SPN fandom for a bit and now I write Johnlock."  With the success of former fan writers (e.g. Cassandra Clare), the success of former fanfiction having been edited and marketed as original fiction (e.g. Fifty Shades of Grey) and the boom in fandoms which attract a media circus (e.g. One Direction fandom), writing fanfiction isn't as private as it once was. The shift has been rapid and intense, and those fandom stalwarts who remember the days when fic was only available in hard copy printed fanzines will feel the shift even more keenly.  

The increased visibility of fandom has brought with it media commentary leveled at readers and writers of fanfiction. This post explores how that media attention raises interesting questions around the suppression of women's writing, and considers why the ability to write in a not for profit space is vital to fan communities, and to the largely female identified writers creating in those spaces.


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