#did i accidentally embroil myself in wank on the eve of bboi claims where i am writing something that'd upset a lot of people

[omgkatsudonplease]

competing access needs in yoi fandom: a quick rant

since i’m not done wanking i’ll add this thing which i briefly touched on in an article i’m writing for the transformative works and cultures journal: i really suspect half of the current wank in yoi fandom is due to competing access needs and definitions about what fandom is, some of which is generational. 

a lot of the older fans (or, like myself, older-in-fandom-years fans) have lived through active censorship of slash fanfiction prior to ao3′s creation, including purges on livejournal and fanfiction.net. these fans also tend to see fandom more as a hobby, something they do for fun on the side without profit which they may have had to hide from their family when they were younger.

fans that enter fandom with the rise of tumblr and social media don’t necessarily have that background, and are engaging with fandom in a time when slash has become more accepted in fandom culture, and people are (in part thanks to racefail 09) successfully pushing for more diversity in media. this leads to a sense, especially with the growing success of many fanwriters who ascend into content creators, that fan culture is part of the mainstream, and that engaging in fandom is a way of life and a potential vehicle to future success. 

so with this difference in mind it’s not surprising that some newer fans are quicker to equate shipping with activism (having never been in a fandom environment where contacting the creator with your gay ships -- or any fanworks at all -- could get you sued) and attempt to critique fanworks with the same amount of scrutiny -- or, arguably, more scrutiny -- paid towards mainstream media. it’s just the current environment, where the common perception is that fanfiction is a lot more accepted and widespread than it really is. (it’s also possible this acceptance of pop culture/fandom into existing cultural studies in academia could be why “wank” is now “discourse” though i could’ve sworn “the discourse” started as a meme -- but i digress)

so when two different though not diametrically opposed fandom cultures collide -- old fandom with its squicks and wanks and its kinktomatoes and “don’t like don’t read”, versus new fandom with its willingness to critique media for greater diversity and representation and its sincere belief that fandom can be a brewing ground for all of that -- it’s not that surprising that the current wank exists. that new fandomers are trying to push out old fandomers on the basis of “being creepy predatory adults” who “clearly condone problematic shit”, when it’s really just old fandomers following their old fandom rules and mores. 

that’s why it may seem impossible to bridge the gap, because most of the “let people write what they want” camp is of the opinion that fandom is a hobby done for free on the internet where at most a couple thousand people will read your fic and like it. in the grand scheme of things, no criminal will claim that a dark viktor fic inspired them to commit their crime -- and even then it’s the criminal’s fault they did that, not the author of the dark viktor fic, but i digress again. i’m sure i’m really generalising the demographics of both camps, but that’s the general trend i’ve seen. most of this wank boils down to culture clash between old and new fandom: old fandom ignores things it doesn’t like, new fandom is aspirational and seeks to eradicate things it doesn’t like. 

so perhaps it would be in all of our best interests to step back and say that there are competing access needs here. someone venting about their perception of how popular dark viktor is in fandom clearly has a different need out of fandom than someone who doesn’t understand why yoi fandom is ridiculously light and fluffy compared to other fandoms they’ve been in (i’d hate to see everyone reacting to my next fic collab when y’all are insistent that the siren au is angst, for the record). someone who wonders why anyone would write viktor and/or yuuri in pairings with other characters when they can be together clearly has a different need out of fandom than someone starved for rarepair fics. 

anyway that’s my wank and hopefully the last i’ll say about this before my article comes out so yeah. sorry this is long, feel free to discuss or rebut or whatever, though i might not respond.

tl;dr: old fandom and new fandom culture clash in yoi fandom leads to competing access needs out of fandom and subsequent piles of disk horse on my dash.