The fanfic-ification of mainstream culture
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Where were you like in your life when you first started reading fanfic?
I was a preteen when I stumbled upon fanfiction.net. Like, they were talking early 2000s here. You know, that whole contraption where, like, the family desktop is, like, in that room and, you know, and I'm, like, looking over my shoulder. But it was kind of convenient that my parents are both older, so they had no idea what I was doing or reading.
So I was also a fanfiction.net guy a little later than Ashley. I think I came to it when I was like 12, 13. I started reading and writing fanfiction on fanfiction.net and did that for about four years. And I was very into the Hunger Games fandom, and then I branched into other fandoms as well. Glee, when that started, and HouseMD as well, which I got into in my later teens.
So Eli, you are a fandom hopper.
Very much so, yeah.
I'm not loyal at all. So one thing about me is that I'm nosy. If something is going on that people are talking about, that they feel passionate about, I don't want to be on the outside of it. And one thing that started showing up on my radar a few years ago was fan fiction. Fanfiction has been around a long time, centuries actually, so it's not like I hadn't heard of it before. However, when I asked people like in real life what was on fanfic sites like Archive of Our Own, better known as AO3, they looked at me so crazy.
What role does fanfiction play in mainstream culture?
So I did some sleuthing. I checked it out and I saw all kinds of things. Some very creative smut, for sure. Some really compelling novel-length narratives about existing characters. But most of all, people connecting over shared fandom. And I don't think it's just me that's been curious about it. If you are anywhere near fan spaces online, even just as a passive enjoyer of tweets about specific shows, You've probably seen people talking about fanfic, but it's also behind some of the biggest books of the last decade. Some of the publishing industry's greatest hits started as fanfic. Fifty Shades of Grey, which was a whole thing. The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood, that was number one on the New York Times bestseller list.
And so was Alchemized by Sen Lin Yu. Those latter two are both getting screen adaptations as well. Studios are spending millions of dollars in deals to adapt these stories. To get into how fanfic is becoming mainstream and the burgeoning culture war over what gets published and who reads it, I'm joined by Ashley Reese, writer, cultural commentator, and fanfic veteran. Welcome, Ashley.
Hi, thanks for having me.
And Eli Cugini, culture writer, PhD student, and author of a defector article called Fan Fiction's Total Cultural Victory. Hey, Eli.
Hi, happy to be here.
Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Luce, and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident.
So the first fanfic I ever read was for The Pit on HBO. Someone linked to their own fanfic on their ex-account. And I was like, okay, I get now why people are into this. But then I started to learn about Omegaverse, which has really kind of opened up a portal in my brain.
Yeah. I had to block Omegaverse. I had to block the phrase.
OK, so for those who don't know, Omegaverse is a subgenre of erotica where people have like specific roles based on pseudoscience about hierarchies within wolf packs. Like characters are either alphas, betas or omegas. Not safe for work, but you can look it up if you're curious. Also, I wasn't reading the tags of anything. I was just like, you know, going through it. And I'm like, I think this is supposed to be set in a Wendy's. And I'm like, everyone's pregnant. Everyone can smell each other.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:58
2
What role does fanfiction play in mainstream culture?
1:58–4:50
3
How did the guests first encounter fanfiction?
4:50–23:00
4
What are the economic forces driving fanfiction's popularity?
23:00–28:35
5
How have perceptions of fanfiction changed over the years?
28:35–31:53