Paint Me Amused 2
It's almost been a year since this entry, and my dad comes home from a business trip toting the Wall Street Journal and talking about fanfiction thanks to the lovely article The Weird World of Fan Fiction.
I didn't read this article as thoroughly as Time's article about fanfiction, but a clear difference was that there were more fandoms covered in WSJ's one. On the cover were some cute illustrations about fan fictions that the author found online, although the fandoms were still pretty mainstream like crossovers with Glee and Twilight, Mad Men, Sherlock Holmes, and of course, Star Trek. I didn't really read the entire article (which I really shouldn't be blogging about otherwise), but they covered the concerns of originality versus fanfiction and legal issues, which I think is pretty typical of WSJ articles? At least, I would expect so.
A section that I did not expect were authors with established novels that started from fanfiction: the key example being Fifty Shades of Grey. Now, I had not known this about this novel, but asking my sister, she merely said it was a "porno" and listening to dramatic readings, I don't think the 'fanfiction-writer-turned-author' track is really getting a good rep.
Another issue I'm concerned about that this article raises is its fanfiction authors they pick as a representation of fanfiction writers in general: there is a "35-year-old sales manager...in Toronto" who writes fanfiction. Now perhaps it's because I'm younger than that, as my mother maintains that people that age consider themselves young, but I feel that making these individuals "fanfiction writers"...otaku-fies the entire phenomenon. Otaku are considered to be grown adults who are often portrayed as hikkikumori and hole themselves up, financially dependent on others and getting stereotypes of being perverts or pedos. I'm worried that making these relatively older women be the fanfiction authors that news articles make the face of fanfiction in general is going to give us all a bad image. Myself, I hope that at 35, I'll be writing real actual legitimate novels instead of badly imitating someone else's ideas. Fanfiction, with this image, makes me think of deadbeats who can't make up stories of their own. I don't think this is the case.
It's good that this is getting more publicity, but I still think fanfiction in the public could be handled better, but I guess it's good enough it's not being handled worse.
I didn't read this article as thoroughly as Time's article about fanfiction, but a clear difference was that there were more fandoms covered in WSJ's one. On the cover were some cute illustrations about fan fictions that the author found online, although the fandoms were still pretty mainstream like crossovers with Glee and Twilight, Mad Men, Sherlock Holmes, and of course, Star Trek. I didn't really read the entire article (which I really shouldn't be blogging about otherwise), but they covered the concerns of originality versus fanfiction and legal issues, which I think is pretty typical of WSJ articles? At least, I would expect so.
A section that I did not expect were authors with established novels that started from fanfiction: the key example being Fifty Shades of Grey. Now, I had not known this about this novel, but asking my sister, she merely said it was a "porno" and listening to dramatic readings, I don't think the 'fanfiction-writer-turned-author' track is really getting a good rep.
Another issue I'm concerned about that this article raises is its fanfiction authors they pick as a representation of fanfiction writers in general: there is a "35-year-old sales manager...in Toronto" who writes fanfiction. Now perhaps it's because I'm younger than that, as my mother maintains that people that age consider themselves young, but I feel that making these individuals "fanfiction writers"...otaku-fies the entire phenomenon. Otaku are considered to be grown adults who are often portrayed as hikkikumori and hole themselves up, financially dependent on others and getting stereotypes of being perverts or pedos. I'm worried that making these relatively older women be the fanfiction authors that news articles make the face of fanfiction in general is going to give us all a bad image. Myself, I hope that at 35, I'll be writing real actual legitimate novels instead of badly imitating someone else's ideas. Fanfiction, with this image, makes me think of deadbeats who can't make up stories of their own. I don't think this is the case.
It's good that this is getting more publicity, but I still think fanfiction in the public could be handled better, but I guess it's good enough it's not being handled worse.