Oh. *Oh.* Fans, the gift that never ever stopped giving — How fans breathe life into and amplify the author’s creation
Written by: Lynette (25-U1)
Designed by: Angelica (26-U1)
My dear reader,
Don’t tell me you’ve never been a fan of anything in your life! Whether a fan of the latest shows —Euphoria certainly seems to be giving a good go at capturing people’s attention at the moment— or the shiniest k-pop group, or even a fan of a celebrity, you’ve probably found a group of people to share and revel in your newfound interest. WOAH! You’ve just joined what has been coined a ‘fandom’.
When thinking of the term “fandom”, what springs to mind? Perhaps the joy of discovering new releases from your favourite artist/writer/singer/actor. Perhaps rabid and toxic fans poisoning everything you liked about the media. Perhaps you cringe away from the term, knowing it has to do with the ‘weirder’ crowd. The term tends to carry a stigma for it, a place for the socially awkward, a place for the celebrity-obsessed, deliberately anti-original. A fandom is informally defined as a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of camaraderie with others who share a common interest. And, chances are, if you’ve ever consumed any media and liked it, talked to someone about it, you’ve unknowingly been in a fandom.
Fans have always existed, as long as art has existed. Before the invention of the internet, where fans could have created their own fandom spaces, tucked away in the recesses of the wide expanse of the internet, fans still gathered to talk about their favourite media, going on to create further expansions upon the author’s work. In 1946, a group of fans of Sherlock Holmes published the first ever recorded instance of fanfiction. The Baker Street Journal had articles debating what-ifs in the Sherlock universe, acting as a zine that was a halfway point between scholarly research and fiction of Sherlock that they had written themselves. Until today, the Baker Street Journal is still active, providing fans of Sherlock Holmes with quarterly zines. With the death of Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes could have faded into obscurity with thousands of other authors. Instead, his name is forever now etched into the memories of all, with the BBC even airing a remake of Sherlock in 2010, which stars the talented Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as the enigmatic Sherlock and his down-to-earth friend John Watson. Only with the support of the fans and their continued dedication to the series could it have endured decades, whilst most stories fade out over time.
However, a particular subsection of fans have taken it one step further by trying to emulate the original, by creating a sub genre known as fanfiction. Fanfiction is loosely defined fiction based on a situation and characters originally created by someone else. When thinking of fanfiction, normally people think of the cheesy cringey fics written in the 2020s, of the archetype of the “wattpad mafia alpha ceo” and the helpless damsel in distress and giggle. However, although that was a very popular subgenre, and where many people start out in their journey, fanfiction is more than that. It has become a way for a piece of fiction to transcend beyond the limits of the parameters set by the story. The original story may go through the motions of the rising action, climax, yadda yadda. But with fans bringing the characters into different settings, it has become a way for them to explore different facets of the character and explore central themes of the story by taking them out of the story to study them better. Moreover, with popular settings like the Magical Wizarding World created in the book ‘Harry Potter’, these settings are able to go beyond just a place for the characters to act as a device for storytelling. This ‘death of the author’ allows fans to take control of the narrative and showcase their creativity within the safe space of pre-existing narratives.
On the potential author’s side as well, fanfiction is an alluring and easy way to explore the world of writing. With zero barriers-to-entry, anyone can make an account on a website like Wattpad or Archive of Our Own and type away! When writing a piece of media to be sent to a publisher, the work often has to be scrubbed clean and polished smooth, concerned with the moneymaking of it all. In fanfic, however, the world and the characters already exist. The reader has a wealth of knowledge about the world, which the writer can tap into. Writing a story about an original character can be hard. Creating an original setting, a backstory, a plot, are all time-consuming for those working full-time jobs in addition to writing, with feedback from readers being minimal, and struggling with the characters and the universe is time-consuming and difficult. Writing a story about characters from a successful TV series, film or book which has readers ready and willing to give feedback, and a world which the readers are already familiar with and invested in, takes a lot of that difficulty out of writing. Moreover, since fic writers have more connection to their audience and the benefit of anonymity, since only those interested and already in the fandom would go looking for such treasure, they’re more likely to be able to receive feedback and heartfelt compliments.
Officially, fanfiction has already seeped into the foundation of media today. No longer is it the taboo thing whispered at the back of the bus, or messaged covertly in chatrooms, it in fact has become a widespread phenomenon. In fact, some of the most popular media we have ever seen have been spin-off fics! Take The Love Hypothesis, a novel by Ali Hazelwood, which was an allegedly high popular fanfiction, posted about other characters, before being taken down and reworded into the bestselling novel it is right now, with it being a finalist for the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Romance in 2021, and winning praise as a New York Times bestseller, with even a film adaptation on its way! With fanfiction slowly coming out of the recesses of the Internet and slowly being legitimised as “actual media” with global recognition, it seems as though fanfiction is stripping away the stigma of being ‘uncool’ or ‘weird’ one piece of media at a time. Fifty Shades of Gray, Heated Rivalry, The Kissing Booth…. If you recognised any of these names or watched any of these shows or read the books , you're living proof that fanfiction has been able to trickle into media, all originating from fanfiction written by passionate writers.
With all that said, we must consider, at one point, when does the fan turn into the author? Writing itself is a virtuous cycle, a self-sustaining feedback loop, where the author inspires the fans to become the author and the author then inspires the fans, again and again. Each has their part to play, with the author’s power in creating the world and characters who live within it, and the fans’ passion to truly transcend past the limits of the author to keep these characters alive, and even bring forth new life! Thus, dear reader, I hope you pick up the pen (or keyboard), think awfully hard about your favourite piece of media, forget the academia, and join the fun of being a fan!
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