Fannish #1
Welcome to the inaugural issue of Fannish, circulation 1. We'll gather here some news from around fandom, and information and links of interest to fen of all types. There's a pretty big backlog from over a century of fandom!
The plan is to publish an issue like this every two weeks, and perhaps something more in-depth on the alternate weeks.
Submissions, comments, and suggestions for future topics are welcome.
Kindred spirits
Fanac for your reading or viewing pleasure.
The FanActivity Gazette's February 2024 issue (PDF) is out, with articles on the latest Hugo fiasco and King Kong. The March 2024 issue (PDF) was also published while this newsletter was being prepared, with an article on The Shadow.
There's a new FANAC History Zoom: "The Women Fen Don't See" with Claire Brialey, Kate Heffner, and Leah Zeldes Smith. Part One and Part Two.
Random fandom
News and information about all corners of fandom.
There are a substantial number of Ghostbusters fanclubs around, often making appearances at charitable events. There's a documentary about Ghostbusters fans, Ghostheads, on Netflix.
Bowling Green State University is offering a class this summer, Fandom in the US: Taylor Swift (PDF), "an introduction to fandom studies through the lens of Swift and Swifties".
The OTW Systems Committee has released a report on the July/August 2023 DDoS attacks.
The Historical Dictionary of Science fiction has added a few new words this year:
Terrestrial n. 2 (1944) (“a language or dialect spoken on Earth; a universal language spoken widely by Earth people”)
Vulcanite n. (1932) (“a native or inhabitant of Vulcan (a hypothetical planet orbiting nearer to the sun than Mercury”—rather a nicer word than ‘vulcanian’, used in Trek)
changewar n. (1958) (“a conflict in which participants engage in time travel in order to alter history to effect a desired timeline”)
time war n. (1950) (same as changewar)
terraformation n. (1971) (same as terraforming)
New quotations were added in March for weird, spidey sense, spider sense, and hyperspace.
The OTW has released the results of the survey it ran for International Fanworks Day's 10th annual celebration (PDF). It's mostly about users' interaction with AO3, but there are some interesting bits:
The average respondent has been active in fandom for 6-10 years.
70% of respondents have written fanfiction.
49% have created fanart.
27% have made image edits.
25% have made fan-related crafts (e.g. knitting, models).
And a lot of people have created fanworks of other kinds, too!
Irissa Cisternino is conducting a study about the intersection of generative AI and fandom. Participate!
The Future of ‘Star Trek’: From ‘Starfleet Academy’ to New Movies and Michelle Yeoh, How the 58-Year-Old Franchise Is Planning for the Next Generation of Fans (via The Rec Center)
Fanac… ademia
Academic work related to fandom.
The fading of the elves: Techno-volunteerism and the disappearance of Tolkien fan fiction archives
Published (open access) in Transformative Works and Cultures.
Dawn Walls-Thumma writes about smaller, individually-run Tolkien fanfic archives:
The online Tolkien fandom has historically supported dozens of fan-run community fan fiction archives, but recent years have seen a sudden loss of most of those remaining. While platform preferences account for some loss, eroding technology and the invisibility of archivists' and developers' work are areas that can be addressed to preserve existing fan cultures.
The invisible labor needed to maintain the software we use is an issue outside of fandom, too, of course–the recent attack on the xz Utils package might have brought the online world to its knees, and it was enabled partly by too much thankless work being done by too few volunteers. But as fans, we really should appreciate the labor of our fellow fans that enables us to enjoy our hobby.
Public versus private aca-fan identities and platforms: An academic dialogue
Published (open access) in Transformative Works and Cultures.
This conversation between Yvonne Gonzales and Celeste Oon examines the difference between two contrasting fan experiences and identities. Through an exploratory academic dialogue, the authors aim to start a discussion on the ways in which our online selves and our IRL selves interact to create unique identities as both fans and scholars across, between, and within social platforms.
The conversation is more about the participants being open about their positions as researchers than about the issue of separation of identities, so this is somewhat orthogonal to the point, but:
In the days of print zines, people usually wrote under their real names, but pseudonymity has been the rule in those online fan spaces that I've been a part of–did anyone ever create a tumblr in their own real name? These days people worry about doxxing, but at the same time people are more likely to just use their own names online, probably because of the rise of Facebook and its real name policy. Our online lives are not separate from our 'real lives' in the way they were decades ago.
Fanfic stats
What's popular among fan writers, and what's growing in popularity.
The fandoms on AO3 with the most new fics are:
Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling (+172 per day)
Hazbin Hotel (Cartoon) (+136 per day)
Marvel (+93 per day)
原神 | Genshin Impact (Video Game) (+88 per day)
DCU (+83 per day)
The quickest-growing (by percent new fics, minimum 100 fics) are:
Regretevator (Roblox) (+57, +24.1%)
A Roblox game. "Regretevator is a roulette style elevator puzzle game where you can hang out, look for secrets, and have fun."Masters of the Air (TV 2024) (+67, +18.7%)
A drama about World War II on Apple TV+.SolarBalls (Web Series) (+18, +16.4%)
A YouTube series.年会不能停! | Johnny Keep Walking! (2023) (+41, +13.0%)
A Chinese comedy/drama film.Mashle: Magic and Muscles (Anime) (+25, +12.9%)
A fantasy manga. The anime adaptation is available on Crunchyroll.
Statistics were collected between 2024-03-23 and 2024-03-30.