All was no longer well: Fix-it fanfiction through the years (Part 1)

Disclaimer: The contents and opinions of this blog post do not represent the views or values of Honours Review as a publication.

“The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well.” [1] Chances are, you remember quite well when and where you read this sentence for the first time. It might have marked the end of the Harry Potter-era, but started a seemingly endless supply of fix-it fic: fanfiction that addresses a – according to the author – unfathomable error in the original work and tries to set it straight. Especially the final Harry Potter book has lead to an innumerable amount of such works. Yet, Harry Potter is far from the only franchise inspiring fanfiction writers all over the world to fix their predecessor’s errors. How has this genre developed over the years?

Back in the days

The term ‘fanfiction’ first emerged in 1939, though it was then still used for amateur science fiction stories. It did not acquire its current meaning until the 1960s, when fan-written stories started appearing in so-called fanzines: magazines produced by fans of a certain franchise, notably Star Trek. Despite the fact that the term is relatively young, the concept of fanfiction is anything but. Coming up with new stories inhabited by characters and places from existing literary worlds is probably as old as the art of storytelling itself. Before the fan-age, these would simply be called ‘unofficial sequels’ or ‘pastiches’. Long before the internet or even fanzines would emerge, people wrote and read countless unauthorized stories set in the worlds of Sherlock Holmes or Jane Austen’s novels. But the oldest fanfictions we still know today are probably the Iliad and the Odyssey, as long as you believe in the theory that Homer wasn’t one guy, but instead a collective (in which case you might still debate the rather vague boundaries between using legends as source material and ‘actual’ fanfiction). And even then we’ve probably not reached the beginning: fanfiction most likely has its roots in the oral tradition. [2]

Whatever its exact history may be: an ages-old storytelling phenomenon suddenly got a name halfway through the last century. This had everything to do with the new-found concept of copyright. Now not only the works were appreciated as copyrighted material, but also their characters and the world in which the story takes place. Apparently this gave rise to a need to distinguish stories that make use of these pre-existing elements from stories that uses a more original setting. [2]

But did these early fanfictions also count as fix-it fic? In order to answer this question, we will need a solid definition first. Seeing as every fanfiction already changes something about the original work, fix-it fic must have some special quality to the change. I argue that this has everything to do with intent: someone writing fix-it fic will have one main goal, namely set straight something that they think is not right in the original work. That does not seem to be the case for the works in Spockanalia, generally considered to be the earliest source of written fanfiction. [3] The stories here are more like ‘unofficial sequels’ like those long before them: stories that add to the universe of the original work, without changing what happens in the canon[1] work itself.

Later the Star Trek-fandom would produce one of the fundamental parts of modern fix-it fic: slash fiction, which is fanfiction focusing on romantic and/or sexual relationships between characters of the same sex. This didn’t happen in Spockanalia (which is somewhat regrettable, given the title), but in 1974 in the fanzine Grupi. [3] Slash fiction would only be considered to be fix-it fic is the author of the fanfiction deems the choice not to bring these characters together in the original work to be a mistake. Although same-sex relationships have become increasingly more common in the different media types that usually inspire fanfiction writers, it took a long time to get there. Fanfiction has for a long time served as an important platform for both the telling and consummation of queer stories within our storytelling culture, especially when these places were scarce in the more mainstream original works. But not all slash fiction inherently belongs to this category: some has just been written because there is an audience for it, or simply because the author thought it would be interesting to write about an improbable couple.

Fanfiction in the internet age

Fanfiction might precede the internet, but it could not grow to the global phenomenon it is now without it. Where before fan stories could only be shared on a small scale, internet pages provide spaces where fans can share their enthusiasm and fantasies. Initially, the differences with the fanzines were only minor: fandoms[2] had their own websites and communities, allowing them to remain relatively small and close-knitted. However, this changed when the first collective websites emerged, importantly fanfiction.net. This would prove to be a quintessential change for fanfiction readers and writers alike: no longer the different fandoms lead a more or less isolated existence. Instead, a more or less overarching culture emerged, with unwritten rules, customs and trends.

These internet archives of fanfiction provide a wealth of information about the ways fans interact with the stories they consume. For example: how did fix-it fic change through the years? Perhaps Harry Potter can tell us a little more about that. With over 813,000 stories on fanfiction.net and over 222,000 on archiveofourown.org (which has gained much popularity over fanfiction.net in recent years), it is probably the biggest fandom in history. For comparison: the second biggest fandom on fanfiction.net is Naruto (~429,000 stories) and on archiveofourown.org Harry Potter only gets superseded by the Marvel universe (~399,000) stories, which actually consists of a wide array of movies, tv-shows, and comics about a large cast of superheroes and the even broader category of K-pop (~260,000 stories). Furthermore, the first Harry Potter fanfiction on fanfiction.net was published as early as 1999, which allows us to look back into twenty years of fanfiction history.

So get your time-turners ready for a little trip down the history of Harry Potter fanfiction. In part 2 of this blog, we will see how the genre of fix-it fic has developed within this world of witches and wizards.

Bibliography

1. Rowling, J.K. (2007). Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. London: Bloomsbury.

2. Hellekson, K., & Busse, K. (Eds.). (2014). The fan fiction studies reader. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.

3. Spockanalia. Available on https://fanlore.org/wiki/Spockanalia

4. Grossman, Lev. (2011). “The Boy Who Lived Forever”. In Time.com. Available from http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,2081784-2,00.html

Footnotes:

[1] Canon is everything that happens in the original work and is deemed by the (fan) community to be part of the fictional world.

[2] Fandom: the community of people who are fans of a certain franchise, work or artist.

Birds of a Feather: How TV Fandoms End up as Twitter Echo Chambers

Disclaimer: The contents and opinions of this blog post do not represent the views or values of Honours Review as a publication.

In today’s social media dominated world, platforms like Twitter are not only there to allow users to express themselves in 280 characters. On a scale achievable only by a multi-billion company, people can now turn to tweeting as a way of connecting over-shared preferences for their favourite media, with television emerging as the winner. Here is where we see the emergence of a golden rule: fans of the same TV programs prefer opinions which support their own (4). This phenomenon, known as opinion homophily or echo chambers, deserves attention as the number of fandoms increases in this triumphant TV era of content streaming platforms like Netflix. But why exactly do TV fandoms on Twitter have a tendency to form homophilic echo chambers? 

The Power of Hashtags

Perhaps the most apparent link between online fandoms and homophily is the way Twitter’s technological affordances – the media platform’s characteristics determining what users can and cannot do – make it easy for TV fans to connect with similarly-minded people. Functions such as likes, retweets and mentions allow fans to start a friendly chat with a fellow fan whose opinions they find agreeable (10). What’s more, some affordances can be used to broaden online interactions from dialogues into conversations by involving other fandom members. A like or a retweet is limited to displaying individual support of a Twitter message. Referring to someone by their @username, however, invites responses not only from the mentioned user, but also from the fan audience as a whole (3). As fans seek out similarly-oriented comments within these responses to reassure themselves in their opinions, fandom echo chambers are created. 

Twitter’s filtering tools, like hashtags and user-blocking, also allow fans to avoid opinions they know they would disagree with. As a result, the hashtag as a keyword-filtering feature often ends up polarising the fandom by visibly dividing it into fan armies defending their favourite TV couples or characters. Twitter discourse on the show Game of Thrones, for example, is visibly divided into supporters of the main characters who might end up on the coveted Iron Throne. Name-based hashtags – #DaenerysTargaryen, #JonSnow and #NightKing – trend on Twitter like clockwork every time a new episode is aired, with their respective supporters largely ignoring the content marked by the other side’s hashtag. Additionally, according to research by Bruns and Burgess (1), hashtags can cultivate homophily within themselves as the top opinions can become known and followed fandom-wide. Isolating themselves even further, some Twitter users also remove the potential for others to directly speak against their views: taking advantage of the “increased control given to consumers by the new media” (4), fans can actively block their opposition to form uninterrupted echo chambers. 

Friend or Follower?

Beyond technological features, user-constructed social networks on Twitter are the backbone of discourse spaces where fan opinions can be expressed unopposed. Research suggests that users primarily use social media to maintain real-life friendships and only secondarily to generate new ones (8). This implies that an individual’s fandom related activities are often witnessed first by their close acquaintances. Receiving agreement or even a simple lack of counter-arguments from their “inner circle” then provides a sense of approval to the fan, empowering them to spread their views to the rest of the fandom. Thus, friendship bonds contribute to the creation of personal online echo chambers.

The social ties between members of TV fandoms can range from personal to anonymous as fans impose an opinion to be echoed by their followers. These followers are people who have chosen to see the fan’s every post, retweet and mention in their timelines. Accordingly, the fan’s mental perception of them becomes the individual’s “imagined audience” which does not necessarily represent the actual reality (6). In fact, investigations like Litt and Hargittai’s 2016 study have revealed that online social media users commonly imagine their audience simply as “people who they thought would like or agree with their posts” (5). This perceived lack of opposition leads many TV fans to format their opinions as if they are the only valid ones, inviting online homophily. 

Echoes Across Time and Space

With friends, followers or alone, the immediacy of viewing a beloved TV show as it is broadcasted and simultaneously commenting about it via Twitter often leads to reactive homophily among live-watching fans. Multitasking by using a phone or computer while watching TV, known as second-screen viewing (9), results in many fandom tweets being posted while the episode is airing. These emotionally charged reactions frequently exhibit echo chamber properties, since shows are constructed to broadly evoke certain emotions, such as excitement or shock, in every viewer. Thus, increased Twitter user agreement is likely, compared to the diversity of informed opinions between fans who watch and comment after the initial airing of the episode. Additionally, the fandom being more present on Twitter while the show is “live” distributes user attention unevenly. The trending or initially most popular opinions are favoured, threatening to overshadow any alternative perspectives added later on (11).

Interestingly, TV lovers in close physical proximity, although connected in the global media space of Twitter, often still gravitate towards each other to form regional fan groups (7). As this shared characteristic becomes another bond between them, such communities are especially vulnerable to becoming echo chambers. Besides geocultural similarities drawn upon when constructing opinions, there is also the social pressure to fit in among peers by not opposing the dominant perspective of the group. This effect increases when a shared language, other than the ever-present English, is used to communicate within the cluster of fans, acting as an additional isolating barrier between their opinions and those in other languages (2).

Conclusion

In the end, the opinion homophily of Twitter TV fan communities appears to be a multi-step process. Firstly, the platform provides built-in tools, like hashtags, for fans to connect and distance themselves from other opinions. Secondly, the fans’ social networks and imagined audiences influence the presentation of their views as ones to be echoed. Finally, differences in time and space invite fans to interact in environments favourable to homophily. 

References:

1. Bruns, A., & Burgess, J. (2012). Researching news discussion on Twitter. Journalism Studies, 13(5/6), 801–814. https://doi-org.proxy-ub.rug.nl/10.1080/1461670X.2012.664428 

2. Hale, S. (2012). Net increase? Cross-lingual linking in the blogosphere. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 17(2), 135-151. doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2011.01568.x

3. Hemsley, J., Stromer-Galley, J., Semaan, B., & Tanupabrungsun, S. (2018). Tweeting to the target: Candidates’ use of strategic messages and @Mentions on Twitter. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 15(1), 3-18. https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2017.1338634

4. Karlsen, R., Steen-Johnsen, K., Wollebæk, D., & Enjolras, B. (2017). Echo chamber and trench warfare dynamics in online debates. European Journal of Communication, 32(3), 257-273. doi:10.1177/0267323117695734

5. Litt, E., & Hargittai, E. (2016). The imagined audience on social network sites. Social Media and Society, 2(1), 1-12. doi:10.1177/2056305116633482 

6. Marwick, A., & Boyd, D. (2011). I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience. New Media & Society, 13(1), 114-133. doi:10.1177/1461444810365313

7. Takhteyev, Y., Gruzd, A., & Wellman, B. (2012). Geography of twitter networks. Social Networks, 34(1), 73-81. doi:10.1016/j.socnet.2011.05.006

8. Vallor, S. (2012). Flourishing on Facebook: Virtue friendship & new social media. Ethics and Information Technology, 14(3), 185-199. doi:10.1007/s10676-010-9262-2

9. Van Cauwenberge, A., Schaap, G., & van Roy, R. (2014). “TV no longer commands our full attention”: Effects of second-screen viewing and task relevance on cognitive load and learning from news. Computers in Human Behavior, 38, 100-109. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2014.05.021

10. Young-shin, L., & Lee-Won, R.J. (2017). When retweets persuade: The persuasive effects of dialogic retweeting and the role of social presence in organizations’ Twitter-based communication. Telematics and Informatics, 34(5), 422-433. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2016.09.003.

11. Zubiaga, A., Spina, D., Martínez, R., & Fresno, V. (2015). Real-time classification of Twitter trends. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 66(3), 462-473. doi:10.1002/asi.23186.