The Media's Encroachment on Fan Culture

I’ve been engaged in fandom spaces for about a decade. Now, most of that comes from being raised without Internet restrictions which made getting involved in fan culture much easier. Even in early middle school I was consumed by cosplay music videos and character quizzes on Quotev. Above all else, the part about fandom culture that really caught my attention was fanfiction.

I was always writing stories even as a young kid, but after I learned people were writing stories about other stories - like all the book series I loved - I spent even more time with a pencil in hand. My first fanfiction was written when I was nine years old on ripped out notebook paper. It was about the horror video game Five Nights At Freddy’s – a fandom I’ve written for as recently as January of this year.

For the uninitiated, fanfiction may seem like the wild west. There’s multiple sites – like Wattpad, Archive of Our Own, and the historical Fanfiction.net, and even though it might not look like it from the outside, there are rules. These are rules one learns rather quickly. The biggest is “don’t like, don’t read” which is rather self-explanatory. The second rule is where things have gotten rather messy recently.

There’s a genre of fanfiction called “RPF” which stands for “Real Person Fiction.” These pieces have been around as long as fanfiction has been around, usually following celebrities, actors, musicians, and even athletes. Writers of RPF share one important rule with readers and other writers: these works stay within the fandom.

They aren’t written with the intention of getting the attention of those the works are about. In fact, writers would rather those they write about never find their works.

Regardless of your beliefs on whether or not RPF is ethical, it seems like a rather understandable rule. I know if I was a celebrity I would try to distance myself from whatever fans were writing or reading about me.

Though this rule is long standing, it seems to have been trampled in the past few years.

I’m an Formula 1 fan which means my feed is constantly filled with promotional videos from drivers and teams. Sometimes I watch them, sometimes I just scroll past. One video made me stop.

A team put out a video where drivers read fanfiction, and not just any fanfiction, but fanfiction about themselves. For the purposes of protecting the writers, I won’t say the titles of the stories. However, what I will say is that one of the stories shared with the drivers was locked, meaning an account is needed to access it. It wasn't meant to be shared outside of fandom spaces.

Learning this, finding the fanfictions in question, and reading notes from the authors put a pit in my stomach. Neither of these authors were contacted beforehand; they didn’t allow for their works to be shared with the drivers and certainly didn’t ask for thousands upon thousands to see them.

I know some will argue that by posting a piece of fanfiction online you’re putting yourself out there. There’s always a chance that someone you don’t want to find it will read it, but this wasn’t by happenstance. This was intentional.

That’s the problem fans have in this circumstance and those similar where fandom spaces are poked and prodded at for the entertainment of those on the outside. Those outside of fandom culture see things like fanfiction as something to be made fun of. They don’t understand the love, care, and hard work fanfiction takes. There are pieces I’ve worked on for years, slowly chipping away day by day to get a result I’m happy with. Just because fanfiction isn’t made for profit doesn’t mean it’s any less meaningful.

The act of sharing RPF with celebrities also puts them in a sticky situation. On one hand, it can be uncomfortable, especially if a work isn’t entirely safe for work. Seeing yourself depicted in certain ways, doing things you wouldn’t do in real life, must be rather unsettling. On the other, it's puts them in a very difficult spot. There are really only two reactions they can have: either they can accept it even if they don’t really want to, or reject it – though that risks angering their fanbase.

It’s no wonder then RPF writers have that one very simple, and very important, rule. The “don’t share” rule makes sure everyone is comfortable. Celebrities don’t have to see the works, especially if they don’t want to, and fans can still keep on writing. It’s a great time for all.

What I hope PR managers and other media personnel learn with this mistake is to respect fans a bit more. It might seem like a funny video idea at first, “let’s see how this actor will react to crass fanfic!”, but it just ends up hurting everyone in the long run.

RPF isn’t going anywhere, so it shouldn’t be expected that every author out there is going to put down the pen or shut down their computer. We just need to be a bit more understanding, let the lines stay where they are, and everyone can continue to enjoy fandom just as they have in the past.