{"id":101,"date":"2015-02-17T23:00:05","date_gmt":"2015-02-17T23:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2015\/02\/17\/large-fandoms-things-like-doctor-who-or\/"},"modified":"2015-02-17T23:00:05","modified_gmt":"2015-02-17T23:00:05","slug":"large-fandoms-things-like-doctor-who-or","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2015\/02\/17\/large-fandoms-things-like-doctor-who-or\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Large fandoms\u2014things like Doctor Who, or Supernatural, or Star Trek, or any superhero comic\u2014tend to have unique and separate sides to them: curative and transformative.<\/p>\n

Curative fandom is all about knowledge. It\u2019s about making sure that everything is lined up and in order, knowing how it works, and finding out which one is the best. What is the Doctor Who canon? Who is the best Doctor? How do Weeping Angels work? Etc etc. Curative fandom is p. much the norm on reddit, especially r\/gallifrey.<\/p>\n

Transformative fandom is about change. Let\u2019s write fic! Let\u2019s make art! Let\u2019s make a fan vid! Let\u2019s cosplay! Let\u2019s somehow change the text. Why is Three easier to ship, while Seven is more difficult? What would happen if ______? Transformative fandom is more or less the norm on tumblr. (And livejournal, and dreamwidth, and fanfiction websites, and\u2026)<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the big thing: there\u2019s a gender split. Find a random male fan, and they\u2019ll probably be in curative fandom. Pick a random transformative fandom-er, and they\u2019ll probably be female. Note that this is phrased in a very particular way\u2014obviously there\u2019s guys who cosplay and write fic, obviously there\u2019s women who don\u2019t. But men tend to be in the curative fandom, while transformative fandom is predominately women\u2014and\/or queer people, POC, etc. Why? Because the majority of professionally-made media is catered towards a straight white male demographic, leaving little room for \u2018outsiders.\u2019 Outsiders who, if they want to see themselves in media, have to attack it and change it\u2014hence slash fic, hence long essays claiming that Hermione Granger is black, hence canons about trans characters or genderqueer characters.<\/p>\n

And then curative\/male fandom tends to view most things that transformative\/female fandom does with disdain. Why? Because, in their eyes, it devalues canon. Who cares about knowing about Tony Stark\u2019s lovers if somebody\u2019s gonna write a fic where Toni Stark is flying about? Their power is lessened. Scream of the Shalka is unambiguously not canon\u2014but it doesn\u2019t have to be in order for me to read and enjoy a 30k fic where the robotic Master was secretly in the TARDIS during Nine and Ten\u2019s time and they shagged behind the scenes. Canon? No, but who gives a shit?<\/p>\n

Also, as transformative fandom tends to be an outsider looking in, they\u2019re much more likely to analyze the work from a queer\/PoC\/neurodivergent\/gender perspective. If I come to \/r\/gallifrey and start to talk about how \u2018In the Forest of the Night\u2019 had a questionable portrayal of mental health\/autism, I get blank stare. If I go on tumblr, I get a conversation. This is also where the \u2018overreacting, shrieking SJW\u2019 trope plays in, either because of a redditor\u2019s misunderstanding of terms and therefore assuming that a mild critique is a scathing one, or because the tumblr user in question is young\/inexperienced and jumping the gun.<\/p>\n

So, there you have it: \/r\/gallifrey\u2019s bashing of reddit is part of a larger split in how men and women tend to enjoy fandom, and a lashing against how fanfiction\/related things addresses fandom because it\u2019s not the right \u201ckind\u201d of fandom. And also because tumblr is popular with teenage girls, and there\u2019s nothing reddit loves more than shitting on whatever teenage girls like.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

reddit user lordbyonic<\/a>\u00a0on the difference between reddit and tumblr fandom<\/p>\n

but it also explains WHY fanfic (and the population of people who read it) is largely written by women<\/p>\n

(via iloveyouandilikeyou<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Large fandoms\u2014things like Doctor Who, or Supernatural, or Star Trek, or any superhero comic\u2014tend to have unique and separate sides to them: curative and transformative. Curative fandom is all about knowledge. It\u2019s about making sure that everything is lined up and in order, knowing how it works, and finding out which one is the best. … Continue reading <\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[49],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}