What Happens Next: A Gallimaufry

melancholic romantic comic cynic. bi & genderqueer. fantasy writer. sysrae on ao3.

Large fandoms—things like Doctor Who, or Supernatural, or Star Trek, or any superhero comic—tend to have unique and separate sides to them: curative and transformative.

Curative fandom is all about knowledge. It’s about making sure that everything is lined up and in order, knowing how it works, and finding out which one is the best. What is the Doctor Who canon? Who is the best Doctor? How do Weeping Angels work? Etc etc. Curative fandom is p. much the norm on reddit, especially r/gallifrey.

Transformative fandom is about change. Let’s write fic! Let’s make art! Let’s make a fan vid! Let’s cosplay! Let’s somehow change the text. Why is Three easier to ship, while Seven is more difficult? What would happen if ______? Transformative fandom is more or less the norm on tumblr. (And livejournal, and dreamwidth, and fanfiction websites, and…)

Here’s the big thing: there’s a gender split. Find a random male fan, and they’ll probably be in curative fandom. Pick a random transformative fandom-er, and they’ll probably be female. Note that this is phrased in a very particular way—obviously there’s guys who cosplay and write fic, obviously there’s women who don’t. But men tend to be in the curative fandom, while transformative fandom is predominately women—and/or queer people, POC, etc. Why? Because the majority of professionally-made media is catered towards a straight white male demographic, leaving little room for ‘outsiders.’ Outsiders who, if they want to see themselves in media, have to attack it and change it—hence slash fic, hence long essays claiming that Hermione Granger is black, hence canons about trans characters or genderqueer characters.

And then curative/male fandom tends to view most things that transformative/female fandom does with disdain. Why? Because, in their eyes, it devalues canon. Who cares about knowing about Tony Stark’s lovers if somebody’s gonna write a fic where Toni Stark is flying about? Their power is lessened. Scream of the Shalka is unambiguously not canon—but it doesn’t have to be in order for me to read and enjoy a 30k fic where the robotic Master was secretly in the TARDIS during Nine and Ten’s time and they shagged behind the scenes. Canon? No, but who gives a shit?

Also, as transformative fandom tends to be an outsider looking in, they’re much more likely to analyze the work from a queer/PoC/neurodivergent/gender perspective. If I come to /r/gallifrey and start to talk about how ‘In the Forest of the Night’ had a questionable portrayal of mental health/autism, I get blank stare. If I go on tumblr, I get a conversation. This is also where the ‘overreacting, shrieking SJW’ trope plays in, either because of a redditor’s misunderstanding of terms and therefore assuming that a mild critique is a scathing one, or because the tumblr user in question is young/inexperienced and jumping the gun.

So, there you have it: /r/gallifrey’s bashing of reddit is part of a larger split in how men and women tend to enjoy fandom, and a lashing against how fanfiction/related things addresses fandom because it’s not the right “kind” of fandom. And also because tumblr is popular with teenage girls, and there’s nothing reddit loves more than shitting on whatever teenage girls like.

reddit user lordbyonic on the difference between reddit and tumblr fandom

but it also explains WHY fanfic (and the population of people who read it) is largely written by women

(via iloveyouandilikeyou)

Damn. This would make such an interesting research study…

(via adiwriting)

I have been in fandom (both types) and also in the queer geek community a long time and so much of this makes sense to me. Like… dang! -Wendy

(via gplusbfics)

Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture by Henry Jenkins. Sure it was published in like 1992 or something but fandom is fandom and a lot of what was true then is true now and he makes some good observations. I’d say he falls down on the slash side of things but it isn’t like he is wrong there just…. myopic. But good book about looking at fandom through an accademic context that doesn’t treat us as weirdoes but as a culture doing perfectly valid and normal things for cool reasons.

(via nethenclawpuff)

So, without wanting to detract from the point being made here, I’m struck by how strongly the wording and structure of the above post resembles something I wrote back in 2014, but with examples thrown in, which… is maybe a coincidence? But given that part of the point being made is the difference between how this stuff is approached on Reddit vs tumblr, which are the two platforms the different pieces were posted on, I thought it was worth pointing out.

(via violetemerald)

  1. clothes-whatnot reblogged this from sparklingdisc-hoe
  2. iamthemaestro reblogged this from mercurygray
  3. fandom-frenzy reblogged this from montanabohemian
  4. montanabohemian reblogged this from mercurygray
  5. flightytemptressstuff reblogged this from mercurygray
  6. mercurygray reblogged this from studiesof-fandom
  7. justasmalltownbean reblogged this from bara-dads
  8. bara-dads reblogged this from doingfondue
  9. doingfondue reblogged this from studiesof-fandom
  10. studiesof-fandom reblogged this from studiesof-fandom-primaryblog
  11. maawi1253 reblogged this from stravaganza
  12. notthegeeks reblogged this from unamedwatcher
  13. bluemindspring reblogged this from i-gotta-go-good-day-bitch
  14. ecstaticasdean reblogged this from folkloredean
  15. folkloredean reblogged this from ishipdeanwithhappiness
  16. lavenderinoz reblogged this from ishipdeanwithhappiness
  17. deans-infinite-playlist reblogged this from ishipdeanwithhappiness
  18. ishipdeanwithhappiness reblogged this from cobrilee
  19. forbiddensn0wflake reblogged this from chiaroscuroverse
  20. iloveyouandilikeyou posted this