Links roundup for 3 July 2012

[otw_staff]

Here's a roundup of age of fandom stories in the news that might be of interest to fans:

• Anyone still in any doubt that fanworks, particularly fanfiction, has broken through as an activity and genre of writing need only look at the variety of sources producing stories on it within the past year. In the last month the Wall Street Journal was added to the list, posting a feature on fanfiction itself which cited OTW board member Naomi Novik and Legal chair Rebecca Tushnet, a video interview with the feature story's writer about her piece, a spotlight on former fanfic writer Cassandra Clare, and a blog post with fanfic samples. The blog post, strangely, avoided linking to any of the actual stories or to Fanfiction.net, Twitter, Tumblr, or LiveJournal, though it did link to the AO3 and Wattpad.


• Wattpad itself made news recently because of its venture capital fundraising, but an article in Gigaom noted its importance in fanfiction circles: "[Venture capitalist] Andrew Chung said he believes that Wattpad can transform the world of writing and publishing in the same way that YouTube has transformed the world of video. Although the five-year-old company only has 15 employees, Chung said Wattpad has produced 'an absolutely phenomenal amount of growth' with very little investment so far."


• Tumblr may not be much of a fanfiction archive, but it is certainly a hotbed of fanart and fannish activity in general. Editor-in-Chief Chris Mohney created a list of the ten most popular user-generated tags, four of which represented music fandoms, one the series Legend of Korra, and two that represented Loki and its actor, Tom Hiddleston.


• The success of The Avengers was what led Deseret News to declare the rise of an increasingly prominent moviegoing demographic: young female fans, "who will stay up and pay up to see their heroines and heartthrobs come to life on the big screen — even at midnight, even on a school night. Their devotion takes a number of forms, from costumes to conventions to their own creative twists on the stories they so cherish." The article went on to briefly detail fannish history, its fanworks, various fans, and mentioned "Filmmaker Hansi Oppenheimer [sic] is in the midst of making a documentary on this community, said 'you kind of expect people to be kind of geeky and they're not, they have jobs and families.' Oppenheimer is intrigued by how 'passionate (fans [sic] fiction writers) are about the stories they're telling.'"

If you're a Legend of Korra fan, an Avengers fan, a fanfiction writer or have favorite fanworks you'd like to see cited, why not write about them in Fanlore? Additions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, event, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent Links Roundup — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. Links are welcome in all languages!

Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW. Mirrored from an original post on the OTW blog. Find related news by viewing our tag cloud.

Links roundup for 3 July 2012

[otw-staff.livejournal.com]

Here's a roundup of age of fandom stories in the news that might be of interest to fans:

• Anyone still in any doubt that fanworks, particularly fanfiction, has broken through as an activity and genre of writing need only look at the variety of sources producing stories on it within the past year. In the last month the Wall Street Journal was added to the list, posting a feature on fanfiction itself which cited OTW board member Naomi Novik and Legal chair Rebecca Tushnet, a video interview with the feature story's writer about her piece, a spotlight on former fanfic writer Cassandra Clare, and a blog post with fanfic samples. The blog post, strangely, avoided linking to any of the actual stories or to Fanfiction.net, Twitter, Tumblr, or LiveJournal, though it did link to the AO3 and Wattpad.


• Wattpad itself made news recently because of its venture capital fundraising, but an article in Gigaom noted its importance in fanfiction circles: "[Venture capitalist] Andrew Chung said he believes that Wattpad can transform the world of writing and publishing in the same way that YouTube has transformed the world of video. Although the five-year-old company only has 15 employees, Chung said Wattpad has produced 'an absolutely phenomenal amount of growth' with very little investment so far."


• Tumblr may not be much of a fanfiction archive, but it is certainly a hotbed of fanart and fannish activity in general. Editor-in-Chief Chris Mohney created a list of the ten most popular user-generated tags, four of which represented music fandoms, one the series Legend of Korra, and two that represented Loki and its actor, Tom Hiddleston.


• The success of The Avengers was what led Deseret News to declare the rise of an increasingly prominent moviegoing demographic: young female fans, "who will stay up and pay up to see their heroines and heartthrobs come to life on the big screen — even at midnight, even on a school night. Their devotion takes a number of forms, from costumes to conventions to their own creative twists on the stories they so cherish." The article went on to briefly detail fannish history, its fanworks, various fans, and mentioned "Filmmaker Hansi Oppenheimer [sic] is in the midst of making a documentary on this community, said 'you kind of expect people to be kind of geeky and they're not, they have jobs and families.' Oppenheimer is intrigued by how 'passionate (fans [sic] fiction writers) are about the stories they're telling.'"

If you're a Legend of Korra fan, an Avengers fan, a fanfiction writer or have favorite fanworks you'd like to see cited, why not write about them in Fanlore? Additions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, event, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent Links Roundup — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. Links are welcome in all languages!

Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW. Mirrored from an original post on the OTW blog. Find related news by viewing our tag cloud.