Professor Snape grasped Kermit’s warm, velvetty
paw with his own pallid, clammy hand. If Kermit
Kermit had had a heart, which he didn't because he was a frog,
it would have beaten out of his
chest due to extreme arousal. The two stared into one
another’s eyes, naive anxiety meeting cold certainty,
as Kermit whispered,
“Let’s build a rainbow connection."
Snape nodded sagely, wiping the grease off
of his brow, and murmured those fateful words
that would lock the two into an eternal bond:
“I’m a top.”
So I’ve talked about fanfiction before.
I made an entire video about how it challenges
the concept of the author’s intention being
the end-all-be-all for how we should interpret
fiction, and why I think it can generally
be a pretty cool creative outlet. I even talked
about why so many authors used to oppose it,
and why that’s changed in recent years.
So why are we here today?
Cause it’s Pride Month, motherf*ckers, and
I wanna go deeper.
I mean, have you ever been on a fanfiction
website, or even heard about it from someone
else who has? If so, you’ll notice one common
theme seems to make its way into a lot of
the aforementioned stories. And that’s that
most of the relationships in these stories
are between people of the same gender. I mean,
when you look at the top 20 most popular pairings
on the most popular fanfiction website, they’re
all relationships between two dudes. And this
isn’t even a particularly new phenomenon
either; fanfiction writers were pairing Kirk
and Spock together in the 60s like nobody’s
business.
From an outside perspective, this may seem
a bit weird. There are decidedly more straight
characters in the media than there are gay characters. So
why is it that when we look at what fans choose
to write about, this is where people tend
to gravitate?
It’s particularly interesting given what
the most popular pairings actually are. Of
the top 20 couples to write about, only two
of them are actually together in the original
story. In fact, most of the characters who
are popular to write gay fanfiction about
aren’t confirmed by their original works
to be anything other than straight. Many of
these guys are actually in relationships with
women in the original works; yet very little
fanfiction we see written about them depicts
them as interested in women. For instance,
even though both main characters on the BBC
show Sherlock have had relationships with
women throughout the series, those relationships
are rarely the focus of fanfiction; instead,
fans tend to write about the two of them getting
together.
The question I wanna ask and hopefully start
to answer in this video is as follows:
What’s up with that? Where does the tendency among
fans to find queer subtext in non-queer media
come from? In order to answer that, let’s
first take a look at fanfiction as a whole.
Generally speaking, “fanfiction” is a
fairly broad term that could theoretically
apply to a variety of works. The definition,
at least according to Wikipedia, is “a work
of fiction based on characters or settings
originating in another work created by fans
of the original work rather than its creator”.
This can cover a lot of stuff, and some of
it is fairly obvious. You wrote a story about
you and all your friends entering the Hunger
Games? That’s fanfiction. Someone writes
about Captain America and Iron Man falling
in love? Fanfiction. An epic musical tale
detailing Godzilla’s fight with Robocop?
That’s fanfiction, baby!
That being said, there’s definitely some
grey area regarding the whole subject, and
there’s also a noticeable disconnect between
the technical definition of “fanfiction”
and what we tend to actually label as “fanfiction”.
Like, Romeo and Juliet is, in fact, not an
original creation of Shakespeare’s. Rather,
he based his play off of an Italian poem called
“The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet”,
written 35 years earlier. In the original,
way more people die, including the nurse.
Shakespeare, a fan of the original poem, published
what was essentially his own version of the
story with a changed ending that he preferred.
Would we therefore call Romeo and Juliet fanfiction?
Or let’s look at Neil Gaiman, by all accounts
a very successful author who has written a
lot of good stuff. His short story, A Study
in Emerald, draws heavy inspiration from both
Sherlock Holmes and Lovecraftian horror. He
himself described what he created as fanfiction.
But because Neil Gaiman is an acclaimed author
and not a teenage girl, many people wouldn’t
be quick to associate his work with the idea
of fanfiction.
In fact, people still tweet at him asking
him to disavow the practice as a whole, presumably
figuring “oh, he’s a respectable author,
he’ll phrase my opinions succinctly!”
And when he tells them he’s written fanfiction,
they get confused.
Like, “what do you mean A Study in Emerald
is fanfiction? Neil Gaiman is a serious author
who writes serious, acclaimed works, not frivolous
fan things!” I’ve had people get mad at
me because I told them Neil Gaiman was a fanfiction
writer. They took it as me insulting him,
rather than it simply being a statement of
fact.
That’s largely because when we sit down
and think about the types of works we’ve
traditionally associated with the term “fanfiction”,
a few commonalities stand out.
Primarily, people tend to associate the practice
with young women. There’s in fact evidence
to support this; a 2010 survey of fanfiction.net,
one of the most popular fanfic websites at the time,
found that just under 80% of the userbase
was female, and that most were young adults.
Keep in mind, this survey is nine years old,
and I’m sure many of you have already noticed
some problems with how the data is measured,
but the perception that many fanfiction authors
are indeed young women isn’t baseless.
This matters largely because when we think
about things associated with teenage girls,
they also tend to be very quickly associated
with frivolity. Oftentimes even the phrase
“teenage girls” makes us think of things
that are silly and thoughtless, and oftentimes
fans of works that teenage girls also like
try to distance those works from that image
in order to be taken seriously.
So, for instance, when we’re looking at
fanbases, the first real instance of widespread
fanfiction as we know it today came from Star
Trek. In 1967, right as Season 2 of Star Trek
was airing, the first edition of a fanzine
called Spockanalia was published and distributed
by two women named Devra and Sherna. In fact,
it got so popular that Gene Roddenberry called
the fanzine “required reading”, and many
fanzines based on Spockanalia began to publish
fanfiction of Star Trek. This was really the
origin of the “Star Trek fandom” as we
know it today, and by all accounts most of
the people driving this were young women.
If you’re curious and want to hear some
firsthand accounts from the people involved
in the Star Trek fandom at the time, I’ll
link an article on Spockanalia in the description.
The reason this is interesting though, is
that most people who haven’t actively done
a ton of research on the origins of the Star
Trek fandom generally probably wouldn’t
associate it with young girls. I mean, the
stereotypical image of a “Star Trek fan”
for many people is a guy in his mid-20s who
can spout off statistics about all the fictional
races at the drop of a hat. And like, the
reason the “Fake Geek Girl” meme that
was popularized a few years ago was “funny”
was that this image of a girl pretending to
be into Star Trek but not really being a real
fan was so ubiquitous. The image of the Star
Trek fandom kind of retroactively became this
super serious logical fandom of nerds, and
the stereotypical image of a teenage girl
just generally didn’t really fit with that idea.
The reason I’m bringing this up at all is
because the practice of fanfiction in general
definitely comes with this stereotypical image
of being frivolous nonsense that’s only
worthy of mockery, and I would be remiss not
to point out the connection this might have
with to fanfiction is associated with. I know
it’s easy to see people pairing like, Harry
Potter and Draco Malfoy together, and to have your
initial reaction be “wow, cringe”, but
I would urge people to hold off on that judgement at first, at least before taking into
consideration why this practice is as popular
as it is.
Of course, that’s also not to say that if
you don’t like fanfiction or a specific
pairing, it’s just because you’re being
sexist and hate all teenage girls. But throughout
this video, I hope to explore why fanfiction
and “shipping”; that is, pairing two fictional
characters together in a couple, is so popular
in the first place, and I think a first step
to understanding where that popularity comes
from is to consider why it’s important to
people, and start seeing it beyond the lens
of just silly nonsense- even if you come out of
it still thinking it’s dumb. And I think
a first step to doing that is looking at why
it’s historically been considered “silly
nonsense” in the first place.
So with that out of the way… why is fanfiction
so popular? And, particularly, why are gay
ships so popular, especially when it comes
to taking canonically straight characters
and interpreting them… queerly?
A few reasons.
Have you ever seen a really bad series finale,
or read a book that you were super enjoying
up until the ending? And it’s like… you
devoted so much energy to this work; you cared
about what happened to the characters, and
then they just… completely ruined it? If
you’re one of the 1.6 million people who
signed a petition for Game of Thrones to remake
their final season- more people signed that
petition than live in my city- then you know
the frustration of loving a work of fiction,
but just wishing some of it went… differently.
Of course, they’re not going to remake Game
of Thrones, and everyone will just have to
live with the fact that Dragon Show Bad. But
that desire to take a work of fiction you
love, and just change some things up about
it in a way that you prefer, is that same desire
driving a lot of people to write fanfiction.
I mean, if you go on any forum dedicated to
talking about- for instance- Game of Thrones,
everyone has their own ideas for how another
season could have potentially gone. Maybe
this character could have died, or these two
characters could have gotten together. They
have this whole established universe to play
with, and so it’s interesting to look and
take into consideration how each character
would react if we changed things up a bit.
The primary difference, of course, between signing a “remake
game of Thrones” petition and just writing
a fanfiction where you kinda remake it yourself
is just whose hands you’re placing the power
to change things up into.
I mean, it’s easy to say “this isn’t
perfect and I want to see it changed”, but
taking the time to exercise that creativity
yourself, even if those changes aren’t technically
canon, can definitely be inherently rewarding,
especially when you do so in a community of
like-minded people. This is particularly true
when you’re surrounded by other fans; people
who love those works and characters as much
as you do, even if sometimes that means wanting
to see them in alternative situations.
That doesn’t necessarily always mean hating
the original works either. Sometimes it’s
a matter of “I think the show handled this
subject absolutely terribly and here’s my
attempt at doing it right”, but the practice
is often borne not out of dislike for
the original work, but out of loving it so
much that you want to play with it and see
how things could go differently. What if Jean
Valjean hadn’t stolen the bread? What if
Harry Potter was sorted into Slytherin? What if Zuko
was the Avatar instead of Aang?
In all of these cases, there are a lot of
interesting outcomes you can envision from
making those changes, and given that books
and shows are necessarily limited in their
scope, it’s a cool way to get more of the
world you enjoy while changing the stuff you
don’t. This transformative practice requires
engaging in alternative interpretations of
the original works; taking something you love
and changing it up because it makes you happy
to play with familiar characters and settings.
So, where does shipping come into play?
I mean, there’s the obvious answer; if you
don’t like that two characters didn’t
get together in the original story, writing
a story where they ended up as a couple is
both a fun use of one’s creative muscles
and can be genuinely cathartic. If I was super
disappointed and sad when Katniss chose Peeta
over Gale, it can be really satisfying to
create an ending where my preferred couple
gets together instead, and I can do that without
demanding the author change up their original
work to suit me. It’s a fun way to see different
romantic outcomes and explore dynamics I might
not have gotten to see in the original work.
But that doesn’t necessarily explain why
so much of this fanfiction leads to people
interpreting their favourite stories through
a queer lens. Is it just that fans are unhappy
the original work wasn’t queer, and this
is an attempt to remedy it?
Well, sometimes. There are occasionally works
that seem to allude to their characters being
interested in the same gender, but never take
the final step of confirming it. I’ll talk
a bit more about that later. But on a larger
scale, these attempts to “remedy” problems
in the original works can sometimes come from
a rejection of poorly handled romance arcs
in canon.
What do I mean by this?
Well, one of the more common criticisms of
various films and shows are criticisms of
“forced romance”, particularly when those
shows are perceived as creating romance Just
Because. Oftentimes, a relationship between
a man and a woman can be seen as kind of a
foregone conclusion, and thus not really treated
with a lot of nuance. It’s kind of like the first
line of SK8R BOI. They get together because
they’re a man and a woman, so we don’t
really need to explore their feelings or
really have them like each other.
Think about any Bond movie, where we rarely
see actual chemistry develop as it’s moreso
just presumed. Or the romance in Jurassic
World just kind of happening. Or whatever
was happening in Age of Ultron, I don’t
even know any more. Often these romances can
feel forced or shoehorned in without any real
development because of the presumption that
a man and a woman together is just naturally
going to equal romance. Like, “there’s
an attractive man and an attractive woman;
obviously they’re going to get together,
so why should we bother developing them or
spending a lot of time on the budding romance?
We know what’s going to happen in the end.”
But, when it comes to friendships between
characters of the same gender, it seems like
a lot of writers kind of accidentally pen
quasi-romances between them. Because oftentimes
a romantic relationship is neither planned
nor considered, any interpersonal development
that happens between the couple tends to be
organic rather than something that happens
simply because it’s expected to happen.
So, oftentimes, even if they’re not written
as expressly romantic, these characters can
have more genuine bonds and development with
one another than in a lot of heterosexual
romances, where writers sometimes don’t
bother to really develop a relationship because
it’s presumed from the start. So, for example,
look at Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers from
the Marvel movies. Whether sees
that dynamic as romantic or not, it’s certainly
one that’s undergone a lot of development
and emotional work, arguably moreso than the
development between Steve and Peggy.
So because fanfiction oftentimes exists as
a way to explore unexplored themes in stories
and just get rid of the stuff that didn’t
work exceptionally well, that often means
a sort of “correcting” of romance arcs
that didn’t work. And because the presumption
that straight romance is always inevitable
often leads to poorly developed romances,
that can mean looking elsewhere for characters
with a genuine sense of connection to one
another.
It’s also notable that, while pairings between
men and women are relatively rare on the list
of the most popular 100 ships, the ones that do
make the list: Mulder and Scully from the
X-Files, Rose Tyler and the Tenth Doctor from
Doctor Who, Spike and Buffy from Buffy, and
others, are by and large characters who have
spent a lot of time together in their original
works and have, if not a developed romantic
relationship, at least a developed friendship.
So in this sense, this could suggest that
while some audiences don’t necessarily require
their favourite pairings to be gay, it’s
those pairings that tend to be the least forced
in their original works and tend to have more subtle emotional development over
time, even if unintentionally. The desire
for relationships that develop over time and
don’t feel presumed could also point to
why a lot of the most popular pairings don’t
actually depict characters who are in a relationship
in their original work. Of course, some of that
is again just because there are more straight
characters than gay characters, but the desire
for organically developed relationships and
an attempt to sort of “correct” poorly
handled romances are certainly factors.
So why else might this be a thing?
If this were the only reason, we’d probably
still see a lot more heterosexual ships in
that top 100. Or, I mean, any in the Top 50.
It’s not like slow burn romances between
men and women don’t exist, even if they
are less common than their somewhat forced
counterparts.
Well, another purpose fanfiction serves is
the creation of representation.
What do I mean by this?
First, I wanna look at the misconception that
the vast majority of people writing these
stories are straight women. I mean, there’s
definitely a problem of people who aren’t
gay writing gay stories in an asshole way.
So for example, you have some people describing
two men kissing as “sinful yaoi” and stuff,
or writing people as one-dimensional stereotypes,
which doesn’t really do wonders for gay
people. But as it turns out, most of the people
writing fanfiction in general aren’t actually straight
women.
A couple years ago, a user named Centrum Lumina
polled just over 10 thousand users on the
most popular website for fanfiction, AO3. About
90% of people expressed an interest in male/male
ships, while only 30% identified as straight
women. In fact, most of the respondents identified
as queer in some way. Of course, there’s
definitely some selection bias regarding who
might be more likely to answer a demographics
survey, so do take this with a grain of salt,
but it does seem to indicate the majority
of people writing these stories aren’t straight
women.
So, why might this be significant?
Well, one thing that’s pretty universal
is a desire to see yourself represented in
the media. Growing up watching TV and having
there be no characters who are like you can
be a pretty demoralizing experience, especially
if there’s no one like you where you grew
up. It can be easy to feel as though there’s
something wrong with you, or like you’re
the only person out there who understands
a certain experience.
But of course, like we talked about earlier,
one really cool thing about fanfiction is
that if something you like doesn’t really
exist in media, you can just make it exist,
and you can do so in a much easier and more
accessible way than like, publishing your
own novel or writing your own TV series.
If you’re straight and just wanna read about
straight people and that's it, and you read something
that does a straight romance poorly and wanna see
it done better, you have lots of options to
choose from. If you don't like A Walk To
Remember, there’s always The Notebook, or
another one of Nicholas Sparks’ fifty million
books about a pretty white guy and a pretty
white girl staring at each other intensely.
But that’s not really true for gay media;
while there’s a lot more of it now than
there used to be, the volume of available
options still isn’t that amazing.
Believe me, I’ve perused the entire
gay and lesbian section on Canadian Netflix
and everywhere you can pirate. There are a
few good movies, but there’s only so much
of: creepy age gap, main character dies tragically,
romance is actually horrible and toxic, movie
was filmed with less of a budget than my goddamn
videos, and “I’ve seen but I’m a Cheerleader
8 times” before you want something different.
And because there aren’t that many queer
stories, oftentimes people can turn to more mainstream
stories to find that representation. So, given
that fact that many fanfiction writers are
queer, it makes sense that there’d be more
of a demand for creating those stories than
there is for straight media, even though there
are more straight people overall. There’s
just so much straight sh*t to choose from that there’s
less of a need to create your own stuff unless
you’re just a really big fan of writing
fanfiction as a whole.
And of course, the reasons queer writers might
turn to writing fanfiction of already existing
stories to do this, rather than just writing
like a lesbian romance novel or something, are
multitudinous. For one, it takes a lot less
time and money to write fanfiction, especially
given how many writers are teenagers. Also,
anyone can publish fanfiction online, while
the process of getting a professional publisher
is pretty challenging.
And there’s also something nice about having
the support of a built-in community of people
who are just as aware of, and excited about,
the characters as you are. If I’m initially writing
a story about my own original characters,
there’s no one to get that excited about
my story with me yet. But I can definitely enthuse
with people about like, John Watson and Sherlock
Holmes. There’s a lot of support in that,
which makes the process of writing fanfiction
so appealing.
There’s also the fact that a lot of people
use fanfiction about queer characters as a
form of self-reflection to write about their
own identities. So many people relate to fictional
characters, so writing a story where a character
discovers they’re trans or gay or asexual
or anything else can be a safe way of exploring
your own self that’s easier and a lot more
comforting than writing original works. Because
most straight, cisgender people generally
don’t go through the painstaking process
of discovering they’re straight and coming
out as heterosexual to their families, there’s
also less demand for that kind of story.
Mom, Dad, I’m straight. I listen to Coldplay
and Taylor Swift. My favourite movie is A
Christmas Prince. And I get excited every
year for the Kia Summer Sales event. I hope
you can find it in your heart to accept me.
So, I think the desire for seeking representation
is definitely a significant factor in why
gay fanfiction is such an institution. But
that doesn’t explain why certain pairings
are so popular. I mean, if we just based what
ships were the most common after like, what
the most popular movies and TV shows were,
there’d be a lot more pairings involving
the blue guy from Avatar. But many the most
popular gay ships are popular for a reason,
and sadly, that reason can be a little unfortunate.
Once again, queerbaiting is something I’ve
already talked about a little in the past,
and if you’re curious to know more about
it, I did sort of a deep-dive into the topic
about a year ago where I talked about the
history of the term and its meaning, as well
as its misuse. I’ll link it below along
with my JK Rowling video.
The short version, though, is that queerbaiting
is basically what happens when a work of fiction
deliberately hints at the possibility of a
same-gender relationship between two of its
characters in order to draw in fans with no
intention of actually following through. It’s
not the same thing as just having a close
friendship between two members of the same
gender; although sometimes people do write
gay fanfiction about characters who are just
friends in the original story, that doesn’t
necessarily mean the story was queerbaiting.
Rather, queerbaiting involves throwing around
specific hints and tidbits to fans that deliberately
suggest that a character is queer in some
way, like having Dean from Supernatural make
a small reference to visiting a gay bar in
Miami. Most people wouldn’t even pick up
on it, but if you’re gay and you’re already
looking for it, that might hint to you that
the character is bisexual. And, unfortunately,
this is a pretty popular thing, and when you
look at some of the most popular pairings,
they tend to come from shows that do this,
like Supernatural, Sherlock, or Teen Wolf.
If you want more specific examples on how
these shows specifically engage in that practice…
video’s in the description, baby.
This can draw in a lot of fans who are being
deliberately baited with the prospect of a
particular relationship, so it makes sense
that because those relationships never happened
in canon, those are the ones that are primarily
elaborated upon in fanfiction. Sometimes this
is from fans who are fully aware that they’re
being baited, but there’s just not that
much other stuff available. It’s like dumpster
diving for fries. I’m aware that I’m consuming
garbage with no real value, but I’ll take
what I can get.
Other times, particularly because a lot of
fanfiction writers do skew pretty young, a
lot of people don’t necessarily recognize
queerbaiting and are writing these stories
and falling in love with these couples in
genuine hopes that they’ll end up together.
This is particularly notable when it comes
to Sherlock. During the time the show’s
final season was airing, there was a sort
of conspiracy theory community called TJLC,
or “The Johnlock Conspiracy”, Johnlock
referring to the ship name of the two main
characters. Essentially, this was a fan theory
that Sherlock and John were intended from
the start of the show to end up in a romantic
relationship together, and that there were
hints all throughout the series that this
was destined to be. Among these hints were
Sherlock denying being interested in women
but not responding when asked about interest
in men, creator Mark Gatiss’ comments in
interviews implying the show contained romantic
subtext, and cinematic parallels to other
“missed love confession” scenes on multiple
instances.
A few weeks before the Sherlock finale officially
aired, the final episode was leaked online,
and people were pretty upset when it did not
in fact feature John and Sherlock getting
together. Because the episode was pretty low
quality, a lot of people theorized that this
was a fake episode, created and leaked on
purpose to throw people off the show’s tracks.
Of course, the finale aired as planned, and
the episode was indeed real. So the next stage
was to theorize that there was a secret fourth
episode that was going to air next week in
Sherlock’s timeslot, instead of a new series
that was supposed to premiere called Apple
Tree Yard, which was going to make the pairing
canon. Of course, Apple Tree Yard aired as normal and
was decidedly Not Sherlock, and that’s where
sh*t really hit the fan.
People were angry-tweeting the creators, making
posts comforting each other, and generally
expressing a lot of anger and sadness over
the fact that the couple never got together.
I have to admit, when Sherlock was airing,
I was really annoyed with these people, largely
because a lot of them were pretty obnoxious
and kinda rude to the main female love interest,
and because I felt like they were reading
too much into something that, to me, was obvious
queerbaiting that I’d seen a million times
before. I’ll admit I took a little bit of
schadenfreude in the fact that there was no
secret episode. But I also think it’s worth
acknowledging that these people weren’t
pulling the evidence out of nowhere. There’s
a reason there’s no massive conspiracy to
claim that, say, Jake and Boyle from Brooklyn
Nine Nine are secretly endgame even though
the two of them are also very close together.
The show was indeed including deliberate hints
and references to the two being a couple,
albeit not for the reason that TJLC fans thought that
they were including those hints. They were
wrong about the final purpose of those clues,
and certainly overreacted to it not being
a thing, but they did correctly identify that
a form of hinting was happening. It’s easy
to just make fun of those fans for being dumb
and naive, but especially to people who aren’t
well-versed in how queerbaiting works, it’s
worth acknowledging that they weren’t making
it up out of thin air. Of course, this is a pretty extreme example, but it’s an
interesting case study into how queerbaiting
can make these pairings super popular, especially
when geared towards a younger audience.
All in all, I think these are kind of the
main three reasons why gay fanfiction is so
popular. It’s a nice alternative to the
common problem of super forced romances between
men and women, it’s a good way to easily
and safely create representation, and a lot
of these works do queerbait, which makes the
prospect of these relationships seem like
a real option for a lot of fans.
In making this video, what I hope I’m doing
is to elucidate why gay fanfiction is as popular
as it is and to offer an explanation that
goes beyond “lol epic cringe”. That being
said, I don’t want to come off as though
I’m saying there are no problems with the
way these communities currently look. Besides
some writers writing gay people in fetishized
or hyper stereotypical ways and harassing
creators, there’s also kind of an unfortunate
discrepancy in who fans are largely willing
to develop in fanfiction right now.
If you look at the top 20 pairings on AO3,
all of which are gay, none feature women in
any capacity, and none feature relationships
between two people of colour. Seventeen pairings
feature two white guys together and three
pairings feature one person of colour. This
is a little bit Not Great, because it kinda
suggests that while fans are willing to elaborate
on the character development of white dudes,
that same consideration and empathy isn’t
really extended to characters who don’t
fit into that mold.
Part of this, of course, can come down to
the fact that most main characters are white
dudes, so it makes sense to see that statistic
reflected in the amount of fanfiction about
them as well. But, sometimes it certainly
feels like other characters who do experience
a lot of development and emotional bonds with
others are kinda being ignored by fans.
Like, Hux from Star Wars, who gets barely
any screentime and virtually no emotional
development and his actor literally said he
was playing him as a one-dimensional fascist,
gets written about more than main character
Finn. Like, Finn and Poe Dameron are right
there and have a close bond that could be
easily interpreted as romantic, and yet way
more people write about the flat piece of
cardboard that vaguely resembles a n*zi.
That’s a bit concerning, and I think it’s
absolutely worth mentioning how prejudice
plays into why most fanfiction is about white
dudes. Even though some of it is indeed due
to the fact that many female characters and
characters of colour are not present or well-developed
in the original stories, I think it’s still
cause for consideration that even when they
are present and well-developed, some people
inherently don’t find those characters compelling
as a result of bias.
So no. The fanfiction community as it stands
is absolutely not perfect, and even though
my video does come from a place of wanting to
better understand why the community has a
lot of positive uses, I don’t want anyone
to take that as a call to not criticize the
mainstream popularity of this gay fanfiction. Instead, I’d rather it be criticized
for the right reasons instead of having blanket
labels of “cringe” and “reading too much
into it” applied to the community with no
real critical thought behind it.
If you’ve stuck around this long, before
we get to the real conclusion, I have a couple
of announcements to make.
First of all, I’m gonna be at VidCon from
July 10th to the 13th. If you wanna see me
there, make sure to get a ticket before they
sell out.
Or maybe it won't sell out. I don't know. But get a ticket! I’m hoping to meet a lot of cool
viewers and have a great time with people, so make sure
to get out there!
Also, since we’re on the topic of Extremely
Good Media, I’m in a DND podcast called
Trials & Trebuchets. It’s about four students
arriving at a mysterious magical school and
gradually beginning to unlock its secrets
as they navigate such trials as starting a
revolution, passing exams, and showing up
their school rivals. Since it's Pride Month,
I’ll add that my character is also super
gay. Also there’s a talking cat in the podcast
and he’s amazing. I’ve also added links
in the description for where you can check
out both the podcast and our social media
so you can watch clips and see art and stuff.
Now, where were we?
Gay fanfiction is popular for a lot of the
same reasons fanfiction as a whole is popular.
It exists as a sort of way to play with canon,
correct things we don’t think worked, and
see our favourite characters in new settings.
The mutable and fan-driven nature of the practice
also allows us to create representation where
there wasn’t previously any, and even explore
some of our own issues in the process. And,
finally, a lot of this drive comes from
the original works still hinting at the prospect
of these relationships: and even though they’ll
never follow through, at least we can still
read about those couples getting together.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a riveting
tale about Snape and Kermit the Frog to finish.
Here’s some bonus content in the meantime.
Hi everybody! I'm in Nasvhille, Tennessee, standing next to a ball.
And I'm here to tell you: specifically, came all the way here to tell you, that you're going to have a ball listening to Trials & Trebuchets
Hi everybody.
I'm standing next to a candy store sign, and I'm here to tell you to treat yourself,
and take a listen to Trials & Trebuchets.
Hi everybody. Listen to Trials & Trebuchets, a pillar of the podcast community
Hi everybody. I'm standing next to a cool door.
Trials & Trebuchets is both cool and adorable.
Hi everybody. I'm here in Fort Nashborough, and I'm here to tell you
that you'd be extremely fortunate to listen to Trials & Trebuchets.
I'm standing next to a construction zone, and I'm here to tell you
that my sister, Sarah Z, has constructed a wonderful podcast called Trials & Trebuchets. Give it a listen.
I'm sitting next to a building permit, and I'm here to tell you
that you have my permission to take... you know what? I think you get the idea.
Just listen to Trials & Trebuchets.
On top of a big thank you to all my patrons, I would also like to specially thank Datafox
for joining my $20+ tier.
