Article about Fanfic.
4 Mar 2013 09:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
My friend
lindahoyland posted a link on her journal to this article about fanfic.
It is interesting in a number of ways; the writer clearly enjoys reading fic, understands the 'why' of so much of it - I started reading fan fiction because I wanted to read more about characters I already knew, and gives an interesting history of fanfic.
But... she is clearly one of the lurkers - not really involved with the feeling of fandom as a community, I think, so there is little sense of that existing. And she mainly discusses FF.Net (aka The Pit of Voles, around here) and AO3, rather than the more fandom specific archives. And so she quotes a piece of research that concluded that the average user of FanFiction.Net in 2010 was a 15.8-year-old girl from the United States who didn’t write fan fiction herself. Not to say that 45-year-old mothers and adolescent boys don’t also read it, or that fan fiction is only written in English; but the odds are not good. ...the community is 80 per cent teenage and 80 per cent female.
We've seen this before - quite a few of us think it is probably not a true picture of fanfic at all - and the person who wrote the article should have really thought about it when she quoted it - as she also pointed out that from her first forays in the Pit of Voles she lied about her age and always ticked to say that she was over 18... I mentioned on Linda's journal that I have a feeling that quite a lot of the over 40s probably knock a few years off, as well... Linda agreed that she did, just because she got fed up being asked her age.
So logic suggests that any measure of age should tend towards a modal age in the early 20s really - not one of under 16!
Still; an interesting article, I think.
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It is interesting in a number of ways; the writer clearly enjoys reading fic, understands the 'why' of so much of it - I started reading fan fiction because I wanted to read more about characters I already knew, and gives an interesting history of fanfic.
But... she is clearly one of the lurkers - not really involved with the feeling of fandom as a community, I think, so there is little sense of that existing. And she mainly discusses FF.Net (aka The Pit of Voles, around here) and AO3, rather than the more fandom specific archives. And so she quotes a piece of research that concluded that the average user of FanFiction.Net in 2010 was a 15.8-year-old girl from the United States who didn’t write fan fiction herself. Not to say that 45-year-old mothers and adolescent boys don’t also read it, or that fan fiction is only written in English; but the odds are not good. ...the community is 80 per cent teenage and 80 per cent female.
We've seen this before - quite a few of us think it is probably not a true picture of fanfic at all - and the person who wrote the article should have really thought about it when she quoted it - as she also pointed out that from her first forays in the Pit of Voles she lied about her age and always ticked to say that she was over 18... I mentioned on Linda's journal that I have a feeling that quite a lot of the over 40s probably knock a few years off, as well... Linda agreed that she did, just because she got fed up being asked her age.
So logic suggests that any measure of age should tend towards a modal age in the early 20s really - not one of under 16!
Still; an interesting article, I think.
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Date: 04/03/2013 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 04/03/2013 10:02 pm (UTC)Other places I have things with a couple of thousand hits and no comments at all. It is a pity, because I tend to get on with the next chapter better if I have any sign that people enjoyed the last one!
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Date: 05/03/2013 08:18 am (UTC)I remember that I also started in FF.net (ages ago), and when I wanted to comment, it was very hard to register (technically, it simply rejected my attempts over and over).
I didn't really had much motivation to comment.
It was only later, on more specific archives, that it changed. So, I am not THAT surprised she's a lurker.
But I agree on the main quote you posted: I started reading fan fiction because I wanted to read more about characters I already knew
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Date: 05/03/2013 08:33 am (UTC)But that quote does go a long way to explaining to anyone who has no idea at all why we write, and why so many others read.
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Date: 04/03/2013 09:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 04/03/2013 10:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 04/03/2013 10:14 pm (UTC)HP and Twilight are a mystery to me!
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Date: 04/03/2013 10:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 04/03/2013 10:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 04/03/2013 10:17 pm (UTC)Absolutely!
I was surprised to see that she had AO3 as so big, too. But I guess it is that they are both totally pan-fandom and accept everything - whereas other archives are more specific.
Also I would be surprised if she had even heard of some of the others - for example TtH currently has 22,147 stories posted and so is quite big. But then I realise that it is tiny compared with FFNet - where there are 45,607 Buffy stories alone - and that is only about 6% of the number of Harry Potter fics there!
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Date: 04/03/2013 10:08 pm (UTC)I know several writers in their 40s or 50s who write in several fandoms, and I'm pretty sure they're less open about their age in the more 'youth oriented' corners, lol. As I said on Linda's post, you have no way of judging age online. Even gender can be an open question. I think that's a good thing, btw. You get to interact with people on the basis of shared interests and world views rather than gravitating to your age, your colour, your gender.
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Date: 04/03/2013 10:24 pm (UTC)It would be interesting to read an article sometime that actually said 'A lot of readers and writers are in the 20 - 90 age group, a few may be older. And there are a good few things around that are much better written than many things that are published. Better, too, than a lot of the fanfic that is published, like 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies', or '50 shades of grey' etc!'
But this was at least a little more realistic than some of the articles we've read in the past.
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Date: 05/03/2013 01:06 am (UTC)I've never understood someone reading and liking a fic enough to come back chapter after chapter and still never comment. Just 'this was cool' or 'gosh, I never saw that coming' makes so much difference for the writer. I suppose that's why you'll find most people who comment also write. I mentioned this once and one of my readers delurked and admitted she never knew what to say, which I guess is part of it.
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Date: 05/03/2013 08:40 am (UTC)I guess she is not really writing about fanfic in general so much as about her own interaction with it - so it is not really an article that required background research - but the once piece of published research she did look at came to a conclusion that most of us would disagree with!
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Date: 06/03/2013 03:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 05/03/2013 08:31 am (UTC)Not accurately, you can't. But you CAN get a feeling if someone is young (early 20s or less) or have some life experience.
You can feel it in the the way they write and the way they show their characters and interactions within the story.
At least, this how it feels for me.
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Date: 05/03/2013 05:01 pm (UTC)Whereas I read something on a Tolkien archive at one time, or at least the first couple of chapters, and decided it was the work of a 14 year old - until I noticed a discussion in the comments about her children and junior high school....
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Date: 04/03/2013 11:10 pm (UTC)At least she doesn't work on the "fic is for crazy people" model, but she needs to expand her experience - and leaving a few more comments would help that way. (Only ONE!!!???)
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Date: 04/03/2013 11:49 pm (UTC)That was really what I found most interesting, if you see what I mean. Because she is in so many ways the typical reader - right down to not commenting - I reckon I get something like one comment per 300 - 350 hits. And she clearly has not really strayed far from the Pit - which is where the research on readership was done.
So the research was almost bound to come up with a younger age than if they had looked in the places where the writing standard is higher. There are some wonderful stories at the Pit (Altariel's 'A Game of Chess' for example) - but a lot of dross.
But I was still amused that she accepted that 'research' as valid, knowing that she lied about her age - so why wouldn't others?
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Date: 04/03/2013 11:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 04/03/2013 11:53 pm (UTC)So I think that however that piece of research was done it was probably not a totally representative sample.
And yet it is quite likely that she is typical of an awful lot of those who do read there - very young and only ever a reader, rather than commenting. Whereas, as you write as well as read, you know the joy of getting a review - and so leave them for others!
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Date: 05/03/2013 03:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 05/03/2013 08:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 05/03/2013 01:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 05/03/2013 06:20 am (UTC)I'm not terribly surprised that she focused on the pit of voles; it's an easy place to find plenty to keep you busy. I suspect a lot of people start reading there. And I'm not terribly surprised that FFN skews young; though I have to say 15 seems younger than I'd expect.
I started reading fic when I more or less accidentally stumbled onto a spuffy fic back in season 6 of BtVS. I was actually looking for recaps and/ or spoilers as I had a lot of thoughts about season 6. That story lead me to a now long defunct list of other stories by the author, and also links to more by other writers. I was unusually lucky I think in that a lot of those stories were really, really good. I remember Annie SJ was one writer, also Wisteria. If I'd just stumbled onto ff.n I probably wouldn't be on LJ today!
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Date: 05/03/2013 05:04 pm (UTC)Yes - especially as so many of them lie to say they are over 18!
I am an oddity - I began reading online fanfic when my husband started writing it... rather a long time ago, now. And yet I had always made up my own continuations and gap-fillers - just not thought to look on-line for other people's before that point!
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Date: 05/03/2013 07:39 am (UTC)The best work is in the fandom specific archives, although more genuinely good authors now use AO3.
I didn't even know about FF.net until after I'd begun posting on LOTRFF.com in 07, and the SWG.
I also wish there was a focus on the older authors who produce quality work.
As for really not being bothered to comment, which is what it boils down to, I never understand it, but I've seen it ever since I began posting. I've got more hits on Faerie since July '11 than I did on LOTRFF.com from 2007 - July 2011, and in the last month or so, one story gets about 1000 per week, but no comments. I find though, that less people comment on older and finished works anyhow.
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Date: 05/03/2013 08:37 am (UTC)I commented on that here (http://curiouswombat.livejournal.com/348292.html?thread=10266756#t10266756)
I think that the "where" matters a lot when it comes to commenting.
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Date: 05/03/2013 09:33 am (UTC)(Also, just my opinion, but my experience of FF.net is that it is tacky as hell. Even its layout looks like an old dot matrix printer. AO3 is more classy, and the admin seem like good eggs.)
Re: The sense of community. The only 'community' I have seen on FF.net is the forums where it can too easily turn into bitching and bashing. Ghastly. And I feel no community on AO3, although I do respect what they're doing, and how they feel about fanfic, so I post there.
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Date: 05/03/2013 05:13 pm (UTC)It does manage to look as if it was designed some time before the internet!
And yes - the best sense of community is here, or at the archives like Faerie, HASA, or Many Paths.
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Date: 05/03/2013 05:09 pm (UTC)Absolutely. I didn't know of the existence of the Pit until I'd already been introduced to Buffyverse fic through fandom specific archives - and when I began to look for Tolkien stuff I still didn't think to look there - but basically googled 'Tolkien fanfic archive'! Oddly I think the first one I found was Open Scrolls - which is very, very, quiet these days - but still has some class stuff that was written ten years ago, and the odd good thing is still being posted there now and again.
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Date: 05/03/2013 05:32 pm (UTC)I didn't know of it either, but I found a fandom specific archive by accident, and only looked at FF.net some time after I began posting. I was told they didn't host adult ratings, and that flaming was rife, and it reminded me of some huge comprehensive school, all noise and bad behavior and rubbish. If I'd discovered that place first, I would have been appalled.
I was extremely lucky with finding good stories on fandom specific archives, and stayed with them. I also got to know people through them. They feel like quiet, cosy libraries, whereas FF.net - I literally cannot read on it, as I can almost *hear* the noise and shouting.
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Date: 05/03/2013 09:51 pm (UTC)What a perfect description.
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Date: 06/03/2013 03:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 05/03/2013 04:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 05/03/2013 05:19 pm (UTC)I guess this was meant to be a personal view rather than research - but is a pity she had not done a little ore homework and mentioned fandom specific archives.
I suppose if you are mainly interested in Harry Potter and Twilight there is little reason to stray from the Pit of Voles - except that with 640,000 HP stories posted there you must have to be a totally indiscriminate reader, or wade through an awful lot of total dross to get the odd gem.
Perhaps one of the most interesting things is an English student at a prestigious university actually discussing fanfic - oh, and that she still has time to read any!!
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Date: 05/03/2013 08:56 pm (UTC)It's surprising she has time to breathe, let alone read for fun. :)
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Date: 05/03/2013 08:46 pm (UTC)It's an interesting article, and definitely one-sided. As someone who originally got into fanfic in the early 2000s through ff.net, I can honestly say that the existence of fandom-specific archives didn't even cross my mind until a couple of years later. (Though I don't think my gateway fandom had an archive, and it definitely doesn't now.)
It doesn't surprise me she knows of AO3, because of the mass exodus from ff.net to there that took place last summer.
As for lurking… I tend toward that. For me, it's a combination of not knowing what to say, not knowing how to phrase something intelligently, not wanting to say "I liked it" instead of something more substantial, not wanting to be corrected on my interpretation of something, or simply not having the energy. Plus, I go through phases of commenting on everything and then nothing at all. So lurkers don't bother me, and I do consider them part of the community.
The age thing, she's dead wrong on. It's definitely archive-related (because Tumblr skews noticeably young, too), but my experience in the Silm-section of fandom is that I'm on the young side-- in my mid-to-late twenties.
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Date: 05/03/2013 10:04 pm (UTC)I think one of the things that interested me most was that the writer is, in many ways, the typical reader. Discovered FFNet and never left it until some of her favourite writers moved to AO3 - lurks but hardly ever comments, and so on.
As a writer I am quite happy with comments that say 'I just want to let you know I am reading this and enjoying it' - and so I quite often leave that very comment. No-one has ever replied to say they think it was a waste for me to say so, and couldn't I have said something more intelligent/constructive/insightful, so I continue doing it! But on the odd occasions that I do read at the Pit I am a total lurker there....
As for the age thing - I do wonder quite how the research was done (perhaps sometime I will see if I can find out), it seems to be such a commonly held belief - and yet everyone I know is at least your age, and some of the people I know, writing not only in the Tolkien fandom but others too, are 55-60, or older.
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Date: 06/03/2013 01:10 am (UTC)You're right; she is. Sometimes, it's easy to forget that our corners of fandom aren't the only way to do or look at things. (Though I do remember when AO3 opened, there was a huge kerfluffle about hit counts versus reviews because LJ-centric fandom hadn't experienced that as normal!)
That… is actually very useful for me to hear. I may steal that, if you don't mind?
Finding out would be interesting. I for one don't have my age listed publicly in any profiles, and no desire to. So I do wonder-- possibly self-reported?
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Date: 06/03/2013 08:43 am (UTC)Feel free!
I wonder who we can find to publish an article about 'fanfic writers/readers; the reality'?
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Date: 06/03/2013 07:42 pm (UTC)I know TIME did one a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, that's the only positive one I know of. Beats me who else would be willing to report fact and not "look at the strange people."
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Date: 07/03/2013 10:17 am (UTC)I’m Done Explaining Why Fanfic Is Okay (http://bookshop.livejournal.com/1044495.html)
You probably know it, although it is a pro-fanfic article rather than an article about who is writing it/reading it and how old they are.
I do, however love this quite from it:
We get that you think fanfic is a stepping stone to being published. You're wrong. Fanfiction is not a set of training wheels, not some shameful awkward thing you do before you grow up and learn the ~true meaning~ of being a ~real writer.~ Fanfic is brilliant, beautiful, faithful to canon, critical & powerful, hysterically funny, iconic, full of love, subtle, diverse, poetic, adorable, epic, subversive, heartbreaking, progressive, self-aware, political, sharp, inventive, smart, satirical, incredibly complex, feminist, read by thousands of people, redemptive, and transformative on a scale that's hard to describe.
Fanfiction becomes an independent collective experience for the people who write it. And it is written by some of the most incredibly talented people on the internet. Fanfic writers are bestselling and acclaimed professional authors. They are agents and editors. They are network television executive producers. They are New York Times journalists. They are Supreme Court clerks. They are PHDs and experts in their fields.
All of us are still writing fanfic. None of us need training wheels or stepping stones.
Because as some-one who moved from o-fic to fanfic, yes, I am not writing fanfic for practice, so that I might produce an original fic and get it published. I am writing it because I prefer Middle-earth to anything I have created myself.
Now, she would be a great person to write a current article on fanfic readers/writers.
*waves hello*
Date: 04/09/2013 02:57 am (UTC)After reading your post and the replies to it, I have to say that it's fantastic to see more writers and readers of fan fiction who are over the age of 20! And I am truly enjoying reading the discussions going on in response to this post. I myself am in my 50's (no, I have no qualms about admitting my age) and have been involved in fan fiction since I stumbled across it on the internet in the early 2000's. I'd have been involved in earlier zines and such, but I had no idea they even existed, sadly, nor did I have a Compuserve account to access a lot of the things available online in the 90's. :( I don't do a lot of writing (I can't keep the thread of a plot and the character's voices for an extended story to save my life), but I do most definitely comment on the stories I enjoy, whether they're on the Pit of Voles, LJ, Dreamwidth, AO3, TTH or wherever. Feedback is a fic author's food and drink and it's only right to say so when you enjoy their efforts. I also do my best to give any serious constructive criticism in a locked review or private message, as no one enjoys being nit-picked in front of everyone.
So many of my real life friends only admit to reading fan fiction in private, one on one conversations with the proviso that it never be mentioned elsewhere. I just never got the reasoning behind that, but whatever floats their boat, I suppose. I find it rather humorous because I've read the blogs of published authors who admit to writing fan fiction under pseudonyms and if they write it, they undoubtedly also read it, even if they could run into copyright issues by admitting it.
As for the article you mentioned, I have to admit that I'm not really motivated to read it as the author seems to have failed to collect much data at all before writing it. Call me an old snob or whatever, but I expect someone writing an article to at least bother to collect a wide range of data before sitting down to put words on the screen.
Re: *waves hello*
Date: 04/09/2013 07:48 am (UTC)There are definitely writers on my friends list here who are into their 60s now, and a lot in their 40s and 50s. The good news, too, is that there are also some good writers in their 20s so we won't run out of good fic as we get older.
I think the article was really more a subjective look at fanfic than an objective one - but it certainly provided food for discussion.