- 11/08/2023
- Category: Commentaries
Author: Refina Anjani Puspita
Editor: Alfredo Putrawidjoyo
As the world is becoming more socially digitized and interactive, fandoms have become vital in keeping and expanding media franchises. This case is best reflected in the rise of the Ao3 (Archive of Our Own) website, which often serves as a meeting point for fans to share, bicker, brainstorm, and support each other’s interpretations of a media piece via the writing of fanfiction. Fanfiction, or fanfic, is a work of creative writing written by fans of TV shows, movies, novels, and video games. These creative communities are dubbed “fandoms”.[i] With the internet, fans could create virtual libraries, which were then used as a space to create and publish their fanfics on a webpage. There are three most popular internet libraries that hold these fanfiction archives: Archive of Our Own (AO3), FanFiction.net, and Wattpad. AO3 is by far the most popular. It is also the only one that stays true to its mission of being a non-profit library, not a for-profit social media site.[ii]
As of 2 May 2023, Archive of Our Own hosts 11,050,000 fanfiction works in over 57,840 fandoms.[iii] Ao3 demographics predominantly consist of young women with a zest for writing a thousand pages worth of fanfiction.[iv] Fanfiction allows these women to experiment with characters, scenarios, and dialogue they so dearly love. Besides, it also offers them a sense of community. Through this means, they seize control of characters or celebrities to subvert narratives for their ends.
However, this newfound agency is not without contention. In 2021, a controversy was brewing over the sexualization of male K-Pop idols in Ao3 fanfiction. As petitions rose to 161,906 signatures, netizens questioned whether the writing piece could be considered a form of digital sex crime.[v] A stigma of an obsessive community is therefore attached to the K-Pop fandoms afterwards.
By no means was this an exclusively K-pop fandom experience. A decade ago, female-made fanfiction of Twilight and Justin Bieber had received similar sentiments. Time and time again, the world shows that gender norms and expectations undergird the presumption about women’s propriety in displaying their collective passions. Women’s stories, along with their desire and camaraderie, have long been assumed to be, if not trivial, dangerous.[vi] This commentary would like to discuss further how, particularly, female-dominated fandoms seized ownership of their likes and hobbies by writing fanfiction and then building communities around it.
First, by redefining the authenticity of the media products. Fandoms transform a reading of a certain media that is essentially a private inquiry into a collective writing project in which everyone has a say. By building ‘niche’ fandom communities online, fandoms actively make and remake said media products, essentially blurring the line between what constitutes authentic and counterfeit. Through websites such as AO3, fandoms can publish their work under copyright protection, which can be read, “liked,” and commented on by anyone from the community.[vii] By building collective belonging between fans, fanfiction shifts the ‘ownership’ of stories and characters to not only based on its usually big corporate producers but also its consumers.
The big corporate producers have experienced the magnitude of said power expressed by fandoms. In 2019, in response to the alarmingly high number of fanfictions about BTS, Hybe Corporation–BTS’s production company–released a ‘fiction’ book consisting of the boyband members as characters.[viii] Although the book was in high demand, the enormity of fan-produced fiction is still growing. The book’s scale of production and popularity is nothing compared to the 195,000 BTS fanfiction archives on AO3.[ix] It makes sense since the book’s retail price is $35.99, whilst fanfiction is created by and for fans for free.[x]
There are two implications borne out of the above dynamic. One, consumption sparks production, reading generates writing, until the terms seem logically inseparable.[xi] Blurring the lines between these aspects means that fans are no longer isolated from producing the meaning of their media consumption. Two, a piece of media’s production of authenticity will not only be defined by and beneficial to the artists or producers, but also its fandoms. Fanfiction has democratized access to entertainment, one in which everyone does not have to attend to the financial demand of artists or corporate producers. Said space will be useful for young girls and women to hone their writing skills, express identity, build communities, and have fun.
Second, by strengthening their agency. One of the reasons fan fiction is so sneered at is that a major part of it has always been women, often young women, writing sexy stories about men.[xii] The 161,906 netizen signatures mentioned above prove this point. This commentary would like to argue that fan fiction has become an outlet for female fans to express and interpret their cries, desires, and pleasures in a world where women are denied those rights.[xiii] Dare I say, in the process, it also becomes a sanctuary for those who have been disqualified on the arbitrary basis of gender, race, or class, such as the LGBTQI+ community, to do the same thing as well.[xiv]
By writing fanfiction, fandoms can swap commercially-produced media commodities with their own readings that reflect their social experiences and grievances. Fanfiction then essentially has served as a space in which gender norms and expectations around pain and pleasures are interpreted, rejected, or accepted in public realms. Since fandom is a community, its fans will determine which are permissible to be displayed and enjoyed, not the fidelity of the ‘original’ producers and netizens.
In conclusion, fanfiction is a place in which fans, particularly female ones, modify their readings and enjoyment of a piece of media into a play in which the rules and norms are bent for and by them. By obscuring the perception over who is the real ‘owner’ of said media or art, creating and interpreting a piece of it becomes an act of empowerment and camaraderie. Fan fiction also serves as a ground for female fans to collectively explore and in talks about their pain and pleasure, a space usually reserved for men. For the most part, fan fiction has done some good deeds for these women. To a large extent, it has become a safe space for them to express their likings and build communities online. Besides, from a practical standpoint, if crazy good, collectively grown, free-of-charge, fanfictions are better than the pricey new prequel book produced by its ‘original’ writer, it would be nonsensical to run for the later.
[i] Risch, J. (2022) Not just lustful literature: Self-liberation through fanfiction, Rhetorikos. Available at: https://rhetorikos.blog.fordham.edu/?p=1712 (Accessed: 09 May 2023).
[ii] Martinez, K. (2023) An AO3 algorithm would be horrible, actually, Wired. Available at: https://www.wired.com/story/aoc-fanfiction-algorithms/ (Accessed: 09 May 2023).
[iii] AO3 (2023) Archive of our own beta, Home | Archive of Our Own. Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20230502083007/https://archiveofourown.org/ (Accessed: 09 May 2023).
[iv] Busse, K. (2017) Framing fan fiction: Literary and social practices in fanfiction communities. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.
[v][v] Germaine-Jay (2021) Controversy brews over sexualization of male K-pop idols in fanfics, allkpop. allkpop. Available at: https://www.allkpop.com/article/2021/01/controversy-brews-over-sexualization-of-male-k-pop-idols-in-fanfics (Accessed: April 15, 2023).
[vi] Penny, L. (2019) We can be heroes: How the nerds are reinventing pop culture, Wired. Conde Nast. Available at: https://www.wired.com/story/culture-fan-tastic-planet-fanfic/ (Accessed: April 15, 2023).
[vii] Risch, J. (2022) Not just lustful literature: Self-liberation through fanfiction, Rhetorikos. Available at: https://rhetorikos.blog.fordham.edu/?p=1712 (Accessed: 09 May 2023).
[viii] Herman, T. (2019) BTS announce New book ‘the notes 1’, Billboard. Available at: https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/bts-the-notes-1-book-8494208/ (Accessed: April 15, 2023).
[ix] AO3 (2023a) Archive of our own beta, 1 – 20 of 195,193 Works in 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS. Available at:https://archiveofourown.org/tags/%EB%B0%A9%ED%83%84%EC%86%8C%EB%85%84%EB%8B%A8%20%7C%20Bangtan%20Boys%20%7C%20BTS/works (Accessed: 09 May 2023).
[x] Amazon.com : BTS bangtan boys – [花樣年華 the notes 1] the most beautiful … (no date). Available at: https://www.amazon.com/BigHit-Ent-BTS-Bangtan-Boys/dp/B0832Q3B38 (Accessed: April 14, 2023).
[xi] Jenkins, H. (1988) “Star Trek rerun, reread, rewritten: Fan writing as textual poaching,” Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 5(2), pp. 85–107. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/15295038809366691.
[xii] Penny, L. (2019) We can be heroes: How the nerds are reinventing pop culture, Wired. Conde Nast. Available at: https://www.wired.com/story/culture-fan-tastic-planet-fanfic/ (Accessed: April 15, 2023).
[xiii] Devlin, H. (2022) Orgasm gap: How Hollywood and science neglected female pleasure, The Guardian. Guardian News and Media. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jun/11/orgasm-gap-how-hollywood-and-science-neglected-female-pleasure (Accessed: April 15, 2023).
[xiv] Penny, L. (2019) We can be heroes: How the nerds are reinventing pop culture, Wired. Conde Nast. Available at: https://www.wired.com/story/culture-fan-tastic-planet-fanfic/ (Accessed: April 15, 2023).
