Episode 182: Ask Fansplaining Anything: Part 14
In the fourteenth installment of “Ask Fansplaining Anything,” Flourish and Elizabeth read and respond to a fresh batch of listener questions. Topics covered include fictional fandom conspiracy theories, the use—or misuse—of the AO3 collections feature, the spaces created within fandom for toxic behavior, and advice for anyone looking to move from lurking to participating.
Show Notes
[00:00:00] As always, our intro music is “Awel” by stefsax, used under a CC BY 3.0 license.
[00:04:16] The last episode was #181, “The Illusions of Crowds.”
[00:08:10] The book Ruth is writing about is If This Gets Out by Sophie Gonzales and Cale Dietrich.
[00:12:00] Zan Romanoff came on the podcast to talk about Grace and the Fever in episode 47.
[00:22:22] In past episodes, we talked about K-pop and stan culture dynamics with Miranda Ruth Larsen and Keidra Chaney.
[00:24:17] Ewan McGregor’s video message about racist Star Wars fans was actually posted by the official Star Wars Twitter account.
[00:26:37] The AskMetafilter thread Flourish was reading!
[00:37:58] “Late night tales” by Lee Rosevere, used under a CC BY 3.0 license.
[00:38:28] The cover of our newest Tiny Zine!
If you become a $10 patron or boost your current pledge to $10, you’ll get one of these in the mail in the next few weeks!
[00:41:56]
[00:44:04] Fact check: 9-1-1 is, in fact, about all sorts of first responders—including police in addition to firefighters and paramedics.
[00:46:29]
[00:49:17] Yes, Flourish literally lives inside The FRIENDS™ Experience.
[00:49:33] Actually looking at the numbers, Friends fic isn’t that popular on the AO3 (not the only fic site, but still!), generally and even compared to the most-ficced contemporary sitcoms: right now, there are approximately 1,300 works posted.
[01:07:17] Episode 170: “Fandom-Tinted Glasses.”
[01:08:57]
[01:13:46] Many thanks to our intrepid transcriptionist, Maria, who found out that “McFeely” was actually Fred Rogers’s middle name!
Transcript
[Intro music]
Flourish Klink: Hi, Elizabeth!
Elizabeth Minkel: Hi, Flourish!
FK: And welcome to Fansplaining, the podcast by, for, and about fandom!
ELM: This is Episode #182, “Ask Fansplaining Anything: Part 14.”
FK: Every time you say that, I always go, “Oh my God, it’s Part…14?” And it’s like, “Yup. Actually, time marches on, and we continue to answer letters from listeners and readers like you.” [ELM laughs] Not you, Elizabeth. You know, you, the listener or reader.
ELM: What if I wrote in and asked you a question?
FK: I would find that weird.
ELM: “This is for Flourish…” [laughs]
FK: I would be confused. [ELM laughs] But, you could do it. I’m not doing it back to you, to be clear.
ELM: I’m not going to do that. OK, so, we have a bunch of letters. Should we get right to it?
FK: Let’s do it. All right, the first one is from someone anonymous.
“Dear Elizabeth and Flourish,
“Love the podcast! In almost every episode of Fansplaining, a fandom is alluded to without being mentioned by name. I often find this frustrating, as I am curious and want to know what we are talking about. Sometimes I think naming the fandom would provide context to the issues at hand. Most importantly, though, often the fandom sounds right up my alley, and I want to check it out!
“I want to specifically ask: Why do we avoid saying the names of our fandoms? My first assumption is that the conversation and listener questions sound more academic when it’s on a more theoretical level. We want to discuss fandom as a concept, not get bogged down into a specific fandom. However, my academic background is not in the humanities, and I like a more concrete approach, where the thing we’re talking about is named.
“My second assumption would be that there is a level of embarrassment or privacy attached to shipping and fandom. Fandom wars can feel petty, but also bring up strong emotions in us. Ships are private and often feel a bit precious. I mostly don’t even share ships and fandoms with close friends, preferring to keep my fandom identity close to my chest.
“Thanks for your great fandom discussions! Love (ironically), Anonymous.”
ELM: Thanks, Anonymous! This is a funny letter to start with. A very meta letter.
FK: [laughs] It just seemed, like, you know, something to get done right off the top, right? So that way, we’re not thinking, like, later, “Oh, [laughs] Anonymous is referring to [ELM laughs] one of our other letters.” Which, they’re not, obviously. The letters are sent in separately, but, you know.
ELM: Well, so, I think there’s a somewhat obvious answer, and then maybe a more nuanced answer. Or maybe there’s a few answers. So maybe I’ll just say some answers. You ready?
FK: Yeah, what’s—I’m curious to find out what you think the obvious and the nuanced ones are. [laughs]
ELM: Well, I think that when people write in to us, I think that the second paragraph here is closer to—my assumption is, a lot of the time, especially when you’re talking about discourse, or wank, or, you know, differences of opinion or interpretation or whatever, I could see, even if you’re writing in as anonymous, you don’t want to, like, relitigate it in the thing. You say, “Some fans said this about Character A and some about Character B.” But if you use their names, then we could have another response the following week. I mean, I appreciate not being a bulletin board for, like, people’s fandom discourse, you know? Where they’re like—
FK: Oh my God. Yes. And we do get that! Like, when we name fandoms and talk about things that are happening in fandoms of any kind, we often get letters after that, that are like, “Well, I’m from X fandom, and here’s all the things that you oughta know about X fandom.” And we’re like, “OK OK OK. All right. Too much.” [laughs] You know?
ELM: Right. Yeah, and I think that’s part of it, too, is, you know—and I mean, to get at the first paragraph here, when we’re doing it, I think we are talking about fandom at a more theoretical level. And oftentimes, when I’m talking about something, I’m not talking about one fandom. Right?
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: You know? Or, it’s really not about that, because I’ve seen the same sort of thing in other ones, and maybe there are specifics there, right? And I think I do give—I mean, we both give specific names of fandoms we’ve been in, when we have a concrete example, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: You know? Like, just the last episode, I brought up, once again, [FK laughs] quote-unquote “queerbaiting” in Black Sails. I’m just gonna bring it up over and over again, right? And I think that in that case, when it’s us, I think it is valuable, if we have a specific example, to name it, because—I mean, that’s what you would do in the humanities, too. You wouldn’t just be like, “Some books [FK laughs] do this.” You know? You actually do have to name at least an example or two, if you’re talking about some sort of theory.
FK: Definitely. And I mean, I will also offer that when I don’t, sometimes it’s because I’m talking about a fandom that I did professional work on, and I’m not always allowed to [laughs] talk about those. You know? I mean, like—
ELM: Yeah.
FK: Not to say that I’m not allowed to talk about those fandoms sort of in general as a fan. But, like, I am willing to make sort of abstracted comments about them, but maybe not any details, because that would violate some NDAs. So that’s another thing that sometimes I’m doing, which I don’t think applies usually to listener questions or anything like that, but [laughs] I will say that I’m guilty of that sometimes.
ELM: I mean, that’s not in your control.
FK: No, it’s not.
ELM: It’s also something I think—even if you hadn’t signed NDAs, I think that would be the professional move. You know, if I talk about my experiences working at magazines, for the most part, because I’ve worked at a number of magazines, unless it’s something specific to one of them, I will say, “My experience working in the media.”
FK: Yeah, definitely, definitely. And there’s also times where I don’t want to blow up somebody’s spot, right? Especially if I’m talking about stuff that’s happening with actors, or with showrunners or something like that. I don’t know, like…I don’t always—they didn’t ask to be put on blast sometimes, [laughs] so…
ELM: Right, right. I mean, I think that’s probably true of some of the people who are writing in to talk about their own fandoms, also, right? You know?
FK: Oh, yeah.
ELM: Where they’re not an actor but, you know, someone in their fandom, right?
FK: Definitely.
ELM: You know, like, someone at the center of a discourse or, like, a popular fic writer or whatever. Et cetera, et cetera, so…
FK: For sure.
ELM: Yeah, I think it is true, because there are some times we get letters, and they’re very careful to be like, “So this is the scenario…” And I’m just sitting there being like, [FK laughs] “What fandom is this?” And they’ll be like, “Character A does this, Character B does this, so…”
We got one recently—we haven’t read it on the air yet, uh, we’re saving it for a future episode—where they named how many fics, roughly, the fandom had, and I was like, “I gotta know what it is.” [both laugh] And I figured it out. So, um, not that I’m gonna say so, but, you know, I just wanted to give a little context.
FK: You, too, do this. You too have this feeling. This desire to know.
ELM: Well, I’m curious, because you know, ah, it is true. I do have a sense of vibes from various fandoms, right? You know? And say, for example, they said they were in a huge fandom. Saying they were in the Harry Potter fandom versus the MCU, which are two of the biggest fandoms on the AO3. You know, those are different vibes. Different contexts, right?
FK: Totally. Well, Anonymous, I hope that we have answered your question. It may not be super satisfying, but perhaps it will make others who write in think about whether they really do want to obscure the fandom or if they’re willing to, you know, say what it is for those who might want to join it. I mean—
ELM: Usually the people are complaining about something, so I’m actually really impressed—
FK: Yeah! [laughs] I started to say that, and I was like—
ELM: —that Anon is like, “I want to join these fandoms,” and it’s like, “These fandoms?” [laughs]
FK: Yeah, uh, you know, have a wonderful journey, Anon. [both laugh] All right, will you read the next letter, Elizabeth?
ELM: All right. I’m on it. The next letter is from Ruth. Ruth, who has written to us before.
“Hi Flourish and Elizabeth,
“Hope you are both well and thanks for all the hard work on the podcast. I recently finished reading a romance book—If This Gets Out by Sophie Gonzales and Cale Dietrich—which was about two members of a boy band falling for each other and starting a relationship. But they weren’t allowed to come out and tell their fans about the relationship because of their evil, manipulative, controlling management company. Of course, [spoilers!] this being a romance novel, they found a way to defy their management and tell the world the truth about their relationship, and of course all their fans were super supportive.
“It was a cute story. However, it left a slightly bad taste in my mouth, and you may be able to guess why. While the boy band in the book were not especially One Direction-y, nor were the two main characters especially like Harry and Louis, nor do I have any particular reason to believe that the book’s authors intended the story to resemble One Direction and Larry, it's impossible to read a book about a secret boy band romance and not think about Larry, and a lot of people in the Goodreads reviews had certainly joined the dots and decided this was basically a Larry fanfic.
“And the story uses some of the tropes of the Larry conspiracy theories—like the idea that they were deliberately kept closeted by their management, and that there is meaning behind the glances boy band members share on stage and that dedicated fans might be able to figure this out (although thankfully there was no fake baby involved).
“The whole thing felt to me a little bit...irresponsible?? Like it was wish-fulfillment for Larry shippers that fed back into their conspiracy theories and would encourage them further, and while most fandom conspiracy theories are relatively harmless, a theory that leads fans to harass their idols’ real-life girlfriends and claim Louis Tomlinson’s actual son is fake is—not harmless.
“The I Met You On LJ podcast did a really good episode about 18 months ago, I think, featuring an interview with Shit Larries Say, which dissected some of this conspiracy stuff, and it made me realize that fandom conspiracy theories are ultimately very similar in structure to other conspiracy theories, so there’s a danger that someone who gets into Larry theories could then be sucked into other theories.
“What do you think about this? Do authors have a responsibility towards their readers not to encourage them in ways of thinking that are ultimately damaging? Does it make a difference if this is all happening metatextually? Does it make a difference that this book is coming out long after the heyday of the Larry ship—surely there must be some kind of statute of limitations on this stuff?
“Thanks, keep up the good work on the podcast, Ruth.”
FK: Aw, this one’s sticky. [laughs]
ELM: [laughs] All right, thank you, Ruth.
FK: Yeah, thank you very much.
ELM: I agree it’s sticky.
FK: Yup. So, the first thing that actually I thought of when I heard this letter was, on the one hand it’s easy to think of Larry when it comes to this, but you could also think about, like—I mean, I’m dating myself now, but NSYNC and popslash had similar, you know—and in fact, Lance actually was closeted—
ELM: Right.
FK: —because of management telling him he had to be, right? So, this is, like—not to take away from the Larry aspect of this, which, as someone who just saw Harry Styles in concert a couple nights ago, as of this recording, very much on my mind. But just to say that one of the reasons this is so sticky is it’s not just like, “Is there a statute of limitations?” It’s also, these are sort of longstanding tropes that are being mobilized within different fan communities, and that makes it really hard to say, like, “Oh, yes, this is one particular thing, and you can’t do it.”
But…Ruth’s also not wrong! You know? Like, it is—if you’re in it, and you’re feeding yourself with this kind of story again and again, and normalizing that as, like, the thing to expect, maybe it does lead you to babygate. I don’t know.
ELM: Well, is this the moment to invoke the phrase “fiction is not reality”?
FK: Yeah! Let’s do it. [both laugh]
ELM: Because I think one of the issues here is… You know, as we’ve discussed in the past, I don’t think it’s black and white. I don’t think that the things that we read and see are, like, utterly divorced from our real life beliefs and actions. And I certainly can see how, you know, whether you’re reading 1,000 different Larry fics, or you’re reading this novel or any of the other novels, including our friend Zan Romanoff’s Grace and the Fever was—
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: And I think that was a bit more directly inspired by One Direction.
FK: Yup! [laughs]
ELM: [laughs] If anyone missed that, that was a few years ago. It was, like, a combo of the two, I would say the two big boy band fanfiction plots, or boy band romance plots, right?
FK: Yes.
ELM: It was “female protagonist falls in love with the lead singer, and vice versa” and two other guys in the band were, like, the secret gay romance, right?
FK: Yup.
ELM: And she’s a fan of that, too, so…
FK: Yeah yeah.
ELM: You know, I’m not saying that if you read a bunch of these novels or you read a bazillion fics and, um, it put a narrative in—you saw this narrative over and over again of this idea, “This is how it goes down. Actually, you know, they’re secretly in love and there’s this restrictive contract,” or whatever. Et cetera, et cetera. Um, that that won’t lead you in the real world to assume that’s how things work. Because I think that we could say “fiction is not reality” all we want, but a lot of people like cops a lot more than they should, because they see cops on TV, you know?
FK: Yup.
ELM: Like, et cetera, et cetera, right? You know, like that kind of thing.
FK: Absolutely.
ELM: Or any plot line, right? That is handled in a kind of tropey, not-quite-accurate way, and that’s our perception of that profession or that kind of person or whatever, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: That being said, Larry fanfiction or NSYNC fanfiction or any popslash is fanfiction. These are romance novels. Those are works of fiction. They’re clearly labeled as works of fiction. And the people who believe in conspiracy theories are pretty convinced that no, but actually the thing that they believe is not fiction.
FK: Right.
ELM: Right? Like, I don’t think anyone stumbles on a fanwork and is like, “Oh, this is actually—this is documenting what’s really happening.” Right?
FK: Right.
ELM: I mean, I don’t know. Do you disagree? You’re having a thinky face right now.
FK: I mean, I think you’re right. I do think that there are—that there is a tendency to, like, sort of—I guess when you dream about something enough, you can convince yourself that it’s real.
ELM: Sure.
FK: And I do think that that’s something that I see people doing. They talk about, you know—even talking about a glance that they see in a video, and they’ve written—they write stuff that’s fiction about it, but they sort of talk themselves into being sure that that’s the right interpretation, that’s really what happened, because everybody else seems to see it that way, right? And I guess I see that happening. This is a separate thing from a romance novel about—
ELM: Hang on a second. I mean, you’ve written RPF. I think we both know a lot of RPF writers. One thing that always strikes me, as someone who’s not an RPF person, is they seem, more than anyone in celebrity fandom, to have a really clear line about what they know they’re doing is fiction, and what they’re writing is fiction, and they hold two things in their head at once. But you’re saying that in your experience, the line for RPF writers is blurrier?
FK: I don’t think all RPF writers. I don’t think most RPF writers. But I do think that there are people within the space, maybe who aren’t RPF writers, but are RPF consumers, for whom reading RPF can be something that then sort of reinforces their additional conspiracy theory idea. The thing that I don’t think is, I don’t think anybody, like, looks at RPF and goes, “That’s a documentary.” No.
ELM: Sure.
FK: I think that people look at the stuff that’s happening, listen to conspiracy theory people talk about it, and then maybe they read RPF and feel like, “Oh yeah, that’s what I’m seeing when I see the real-life stuff between them.” The vibe, anyway. Maybe not the exact actions, but the vibe. Just as the same as, like, you know how some people convince themselves at a ship is going to be endgame in a fictional TV show, and you’re like, this is clearly not gonna happen, but you’ve been obsessing about this and, like, reading shippy fanfic, and you’ve talked yourself into the idea that this is intentional, right?
ELM: Sure.
FK: But the thing I would say is, that’s not a problem of the writer of the fanfic, or the writer—whether that’s RPF or not. That’s a problem of the reader. And I don’t think you can blame the person writing it that there’s some fraction of people who take it in that direction.
ELM: Yeah. I think that’s a really good distinction. And, yeah, I was gonna say, but you don’t see people going back and blaming…you know, we were talking about the fandom gaslighting idea in the last episode, right? And do you see people going back and saying, “You wrote that ship so convincingly in your fanfiction, I thought it was definitely gonna happen!” [FK laughs] Right? Like, I mean, whatever. I’m sure that does happen, actually. I’m sure people are, like, [laughs] you know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: “You convinced me it was real, because you made it seem so real in your story, and then the show ended and that didn’t happen.”
FK: Yeah.
ELM: But I feel like that seems much less likely than with RPF.
FK: Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, now, I do think that you have to think a little harder about the ethics of what you’re writing when you’re writing RPF than other kinds of fanfic. I absolutely think that, because—
ELM: Well, this isn’t RPF. To go back to the original letter, right? And that just makes me think, like—
FK: Yeah. It’s true.
ELM: I mean, we’re talking about romance, so, ah—what is—I’m not a romance reader personally, but I’m aware of many of the subgenres, and do billionaire romances further lead us to humanize billionaires instead of, like, wanting to guillotine them?
FK: Probably! [laughs]
ELM: Right? You know what I mean? So, like—
FK: Certainly the bajillion William-and-Kate inspired romances lead us to perhaps think that the royal family is a good thing. [laughs]
ELM: Actually, that’s a great example. And this is one that I really struggle with, because I think that the British monarchy—and I’m not a British citizen, so I don’t really get a say—but I think that it should be abolished. [FK laughs] There’s one royal AU which has now been taken off the internet that I read and really enjoyed and hated myself the entire way through, [FK laughs] because I was like, [grumbling] “I hate this…” And still, whenever I think about how much I like it, it makes me feel bad, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And so, I see this and, like, whenever there’s any sort of, like, royal fascination, particularly from the Americans on my feed, whenever there’s an interview or an event or something, and I just find—I’m, like, losing my mind, right? And that, I feel like, truly, I feel like that’s a combination of fantasy narratives about real people—
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: —partly the ones they want you to have—
FK: Right.
ELM: —through their extensive, complicated PR, or whatever. And also, like, a culture that is steeped in, like, framing these as correct and good people and structures for society, right? You know?
FK: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
ELM: I mean, whatever. Does that lead people to threaten people, like people threatened people during babygate?
FK: Yeah—
ELM: I don’t know. You know what I mean?
FK: I don’t know. I mean, whatever. If we’re gonna go into that, right, like, I also wrote a regency AU, which definitely—like, anything regency is going to have all sorts of things that do not align with my politics, [laughs] to say it, you know, like, very very mildly. Right? No matter how much you’re like, “Oh yeah, I’m gonna write a progressive one,” it’s like, “Yeah, but, he’s still a fucking duke in the end.” [both laugh] You know?
And, like, if we decide that—and I do think that actually that probably does lead some people to sort of be like, “Oh yeah, that’s fine,” the same way that, as you said earlier, copaganda does. But I am not yet to the point with everything that I will be like, “Yeah, you can’t enjoy that as a fantasy.” You know? Like, I do believe that people can enjoy some fiction, and have some broader ideas that do not necessarily, like, just march with that fiction, and that we have to trust readers to make good choices, and put things in context. I don’t know.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: I can’t live otherwise, because otherwise we can’t have, like, stories, you know? [both laugh] We can’t have stories!
ELM: Yeah, I mean, at the very least, like, fantastical—you know, fantasy. I’m not just talking about fantasy, like, Game of Thrones or whatever.
FK: Yeah yeah yeah.
ELM: But, you know, like, that kind of thing. All right, but I mean, going back to this letter—and I know we’ve got to wrap up because we’ve got other letters, too. You know, I get it. I absolutely get where Ruth is coming from here. And, you know, I say—to name names, even though I do say the names sometimes—I was someone who was in the Sherlock fandom, [FK laughs] which was utterly destroyed by a terrible conspiracy theory. You know, and I think having experienced that personally, if I saw a novel that had come out about the T-blank-blank-C, like, whatever, fictional show conspiracy, right, you know? Like, if I saw a fictionalized version of any of that, I would feel really bad, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And I’m absolutely certain that there are people who were in the One Direction fandom, to see a story like this in a mainstream romance novel, probably feels pretty bad.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: People not just threatening celebrities and their spouses or whatever, but, like, you know, fellow fans also, right? Being threatened if they don’t align on these things, right?
FK: Yeah, I mean, I wasn’t, like, emotionally impacted by this the same way that many people who are fans of One Direction were. But I don’t think that I would want to necessarily read that as a straight-up romance novel.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: I guess it would depend a lot on the execution. I mean, I’ve written RPF that’s sort of about some of these issues, so, who am I to say that I wouldn’t do it, but, like yeah. I think it requires some fine handling, [ELM laughs] and I can easily imagine that there are many people I know who would be like, “Absolutely not. Nope. Not feeling good.”
ELM: Right, right. So, like, I—yeah. I mean, this—obviously, the tl;dr is “it’s complicated.” I do think, to bring it way back to the beginning of this conversation, I think it is important to contextualize it within the broader tropes. I don’t think this is unique. And as Ruth says—neither of us have read this book, but the relationship doesn’t feel particularly Larry-like, you know…
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Yes, that is a huge recent conspiracy theory about a boy band. But this has been kind of a hallmark of celebrity fandom for a very long time, right? And so—
FK: Mm-hmm. And sometimes it’s—I mean, again, I need to say it. There are reasons, also, you know, so…. That’s hard, too.
ELM: Yeah. Tricky.
FK: All right. Thank you so much for this letter, Ruth.
ELM: Yeah. Very, very interesting topic, and I think that one we’ll continue to talk about, I’m sure.
FK: All right. Shall I read the next letter?
ELM: Do it.
FK: This one is from Steve. He writes:
“I have been thinking a lot on the topic of bad fans or ‘antis’ and how the structures of social media seem to encourage and empower bad behavior. The way people talk and are creating quote-unquote ‘content’ around that celebrity trial in the news I'll be vague about feels so drenched in stan culture in an incredibly toxic way. Even the more quote-unquote ‘typical’ bad fans of pop stars sending death threats around mildly critical tweets has me wondering how much these fans really care about their objects of fandom or are instead motivated by the digital violence that they see their fandom giving permission to. Even something like the recent Ewan McGregor post criticizing racist Star Wars fans doesn’t feel like it’s going to move the needle. The response is basically prewritten, and the ‘bad fans’ already have their talking points and gunk up any topic they can find. I found your previous conversations on K-pop fandoms so enlightening that seeing the response to Tucker Carlson criticizing BTS being like, ‘go get him’ makes me feel kind of uneasy in how the harassment these fandoms are becoming known for is being validated. It feels like it’s only getting worse, and I’m not sure what we can do other than tunnel into smaller and more isolated fandom spaces, but do we maybe have an obligation to not cede ground to the toxic areas of fandom?”
And that’s from Steve.
ELM: Man, heavy hitters. I feel like we’ve started ourselves gently with, “Why don’t we say our fandom names out loud?” And then it was like, “Conspiracy theories! Toxic fans!” [laughs]
FK: Yeah, yup. I tried to create a, you know, an arc, or an ebb and flow to this episode—
ELM: Thank you.
FK: —as I organized these letters.
ELM: Steve, thank you very much. This is a very thoughtful question, and a giant can of worms. I don’t know where to start.
FK: Yeah, I mean…[sigh] I definitely think that the structures of social media encourage and empower bad behavior, and I think that’s a theme that we’ve come back to often on this podcast, that it’s not just—yeah, like, a lot of these are human behaviors that have been around forever, but the economies of scale, and the way that, um, attention is driven to people just makes it 10,000 times worse now than it ever has been in the past.
ELM: I agree with that. I feel like there’s some nuance going on here in this question around that, though. I think that’s the place to start.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: But, breaking this down a little, so, there’s the idea of, like, who is the fan? And in this paragraph, I see a few different things going on. If you have the idea of, like, OK, so we’re talking about the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard—I’m gonna say their names—ah, Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial, [FK laughs] right? And you have Johnny Depp fans behaving abhorrently across the board, right? But then thinking about the Ewan McGregor thing—so, if anyone doesn’t remember, that was a few months ago. It was when the Obi-Wan Kenobi show—is it called Obi-Wan? I don’t remember what it was called. [both laugh] It’s called Obi-Wan, right?
FK: Yeah, I’m pretty sure.
ELM: Came out, and one of the actors is a Black woman, and people were being, like, super racist, uh, about her, and Ewan McGregor came and, like, recorded a video from his car—as they do, those actors in their cars—being like, “Stop it. Unacceptable.” You know? Which felt like a turn for the Star Wars fandom in the past, where they had just ignored that sort of thing.
FK: Yup.
ELM: When actors of color in their franchise were getting harassed. And then the third example here is Tucker Carlson, who’s the, like, worst man on the planet, to be fair, [FK laughs] but then BTS, like, kind of—BTS fans, some portion of them, mobilizing to attack him, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: So, the thing that I’m thinking about, summarizing all of those, is, like, with the Star Wars example, a lot of the commentary around that was like, “These aren’t Star Wars fans. Like, cut them out of the fandom, the people who are doing this.” Right?
FK: Right.
ELM: Whereas, for the other two examples—and obviously, BTS, massive, massive fandom here. So, I think there’s a lot of different things going on, but some portion, this is their mode of operation, is to attack people who are critical of BTS, whether they are the worst person in the world, Tucker Carlson, or [laughs] journalists who are saying something mildly critical about BTS, right?
FK: Right. Like, this is their main fandom—maybe not their only fandom activity, but a main fandom activity.
ELM: A fandom activity, and you’d be hard-pressed—you don’t see the same sort of, like, you know, people coming out and saying, “That’s not us. That’s not us.” Right?
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: And so, my kind of question here is, like, about—the things that Steve’s describing, it seems like a lot of them, like, that is fandom.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: Right?
FK: Yeah. I think that’s true. But I guess I—one of the things that I’m thinking about is, I recently was—[laughs] I was reading an Ask MetaFilter post where somebody was like—
ELM: Like, a recent one?
FK: Yeah! A recent one.
ELM: Wow.
FK: Because sometimes I do that. I read Ask MetaFilter in the Year of Our Lord 2022.
ELM: Look, I’m sure it’s still going strong.
FK: It is! It absolutely is. With the same people [laughs] who were there 20 years ago.
ELM: Yeah. That feels right.
FK: Anyway, so, I was reading a post, and it was a person saying, like, “I have a happy life, but I keep reading things on the internet that make me feel bad and, like, reacting to them. And I wish I knew how to stop this, or why I do this.”
ELM: Mm-hmm.
FK: And the answer—somebody posted and was like, “You know, this is classic sensation-seeking behavior.”
ELM: Mmm.
FK: It’s like, you’re living your life, you have no reason to feel bad, but you also don’t particularly have anything that’s, like, exciting to you in that moment, and so you seek out something that’s gonna make you feel something. Even if it’s making you feel bad, you just want to feel something.
ELM: Sure.
FK: And I kind of relate that to this. I wonder, you know, if this is—
ELM: Mmm…
FK: I mean, he says, like—he talks about this giving people, you know, permission to take part in digital violence, and I kind of wonder if he’s not wrong. I mean, digital violence is a really strong word, but it might not entirely be a wrong word. I think people get online, and they’re like, “Yeah, [laughing] I’m allowed to do this thing, and it sure makes me feel something.”
ELM: Yeah, but I feel like now you’re just talking about the behavior, and you’re divorcing it from what I just brought up, which was about the content itself.
FK: Yeah, but I don’t know—but I’m disagreeing with you. I don’t know that it is about the content itself. You think that it is?
ELM: Yeah. I think that Johnny Depp fans who were saying that—being horrific about Amber Heard—
FK: Uh-huh.
ELM: I think they have a deep love of him and a deep hatred of her.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And if you don’t think that that’s true, I think that that kind of invalidates the horrific things that—you know what I mean? Like, there’s no way that’s not true.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Right?
FK: No, I think that is true, I just don’t know if that’s the, um—I don’t know which comes first, the chicken or the egg, right? Like, are those people sitting around here, like, did they already hate Amber Heard beforehand, because they just didn’t like her face? Or was it more like, “Here’s this thing happening, and I have some connection to it—”
ELM: Well, no, they didn’t—no. I mean, they didn’t hate Amber Heard because they didn’t like her face. They hated her because she accused their fave of being an abuser, right?
FK: Right. Yeah.
ELM: I don’t think they had any feelings about her before.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: But once she was seen as a threat to their fave, they were like, “I’m gonna make it, you know, my life’s mission to destroy this woman.” Right? You know?
FK: Yeah yeah yeah. Yeah, yeah. For sure.
ELM: And, you know, this is a very—not to go too deep into this example but, like, I remember—I don’t think this is just an internet thing, because first of all, we’ve seen so much evidence of people out in the world sharing these, you know—like, people who are minimally online, and frickin signs of businesses being anti-Amber Heard, right? But I even remember a few years ago, when we saw Johnny Depp as a surprise guest at a panel at Comic-Con, and I was just like, [uncomfortable noise]. And so I was telling a friend about it when I was back in New York, when we were in a Lyft together—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —and the driver got furious, and he was like—because I was saying, “Ugh, Johnny Depp’s, like, he sucks.”
FK: Yeah yeah yeah.
ELM: And the driver, like—I thought he was gonna, like, stop the car. Like, it was actually—
FK: Wow.
ELM: —one of my least pleasant Lyft experiences. [laughs]
FK: Wow.
ELM: Because he was just like, “What the fuck are you talking about? Like, he’s the greatest ever. Like, how could you say that?” And I was just like—I was glad I had a friend in the car with me, because I would not have wanted to be alone with that guy.
FK: Wow.
ELM: Right? And this man is not just sitting on the internet getting egged on and being bored.
FK: [laughs] Right.
ELM: This is a man with, like, a deep and abiding loyalty to this actor, right?
FK: Love. Yeah yeah yeah. Yeah, that’s true.
ELM: To the point where he might, you know, I don’t know. I don’t know what he would do. But, like…
FK: No, you’re right. I mean, but I do think that it’s to some extent, like, maybe emboldened or encouraged by some of these online spaces.
ELM: Yeah, yeah. Oh, sure.
FK: I guess I’m thinking about, you know, people I know who, like, are, you know, whatever. I have—there’s someone in my family who generally seems to hold fairly progressive viewpoints, all things considered. Like, not, you know, not arch-conservative, anyway. And I recently discovered that they had somehow—someone had gotten Libs of TikTok on their page.
ELM: Oh no.
FK: And they were, like, responding like, “Yeah! Fuck that person!” And like, I was just like, “Whoa. You—” Under normal circumstances, this person is not, like, a frothing-at-the-mouth, hates-queer-people person. This is not a person in my family who I would ever have felt that way around.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: And, yeah, they’re looking at a TikTok by someone who is, I will say this as a leftist myself, being kind of a dingus. You know? [both laugh] They’re being a parody of leftism. There’s a reason why people on the internet are gonna be like, “Really?” You know? But I was just like, “Where did that come from? Like, you would never have—oh, it’s because suddenly this thing was coming into your feed—”
ELM: Yeah.
FK: “—from someone else you know, and now you’re getting led down this path.”
ELM: Yeah.
FK: So, I think you’re right, but I think that it’s—I do think it’s kind of both, right? And, like, clearly this relative of mine was sensation-seeking. [laughs] They were clearly just being like—
ELM: Sure.
FK: “I’m bored, and I’m on the internet, and I’m gonna be angry about something!” [laughs]
ELM: OK, well I think also, then, add like a third category in there. I think we gotta call up Marshall McLuhan here, but, like [FK laughs] you know? There is an element—it’s not just—I don’t disagree with you on the sensation-seeking thing, but I also think there’s a form element here.
FK: Mmm. Mm-hmm.
ELM: There’s a media delivery element that I think Steve’s getting at here in his comments as well, you know?
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: And it’s the way the platforms are designed, the way that—you know, I think that it’s actually a little scary, and I know that there are some academics who are, like, working against the glacial pace of academia to try to stay a little bit on top of it, but TikTok has wound up to be this sort of, like, kind of wild speedrun of, like, social media—
FK: Oh, yeah.
ELM: You have something that’s a perfectly engineered algorithm for virality, right?
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: And then, like, that’s literally the point of it, right? No social connections. The point is, like, new content, new content, new content, right?
FK: Yup. Yeah.
ELM: And you have an audience and a base of creators who are, like, cycling through and learning in real time, right?
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: And shaping their content that way, and I think when we were talking about this recently, you know, a lot of, like, people being driven by—you know, I was the one who was arguing for, like, having strong content, you know, content-based reasons for wanting to do this stuff, right? Like, “they hate this person” or “they love this person.” Right?
FK: [laughing] Right.
ELM: And I think all that’s true, but I do think you have a huge number of people who are driven by whatever the metrics of success are. Whether that’s, like, just a ton of views and no monetary whatever, or monetary compensation, right? Like, I was really struck recently—I sent this to you, but I’m still not over this. This is bananas to me. I, um—you know, people always talk on Tumblr about how, like, Tumblr is immune from this because there’s no reward for anything there.
FK: Yeah, what can you do? [both laugh]
ELM: Like, having a post go viral is only a punishment, basically, right? You know?
FK: Yeah yeah yeah, absolutely.
ELM: And there’s—like, their muting functionality doesn’t work, so it’s like—
FK: And it’s—right. And it’s not even like you’re gonna get internet famous from it, because now, like, fewer and fewer memes are coming from Tumblr, and so it’s just like—there’s just enough people who hate you, but not enough to, like—[laughs]
ELM: You say that, and I believe you’re citing Know Your Meme, but I believe Know Your Meme is not actually spending enough time looking at Tumblr these days.
FK: Woo! Spicy! [laughs]
ELM: Hot take flying through! Anyway, so…
FK: All right, we’re not gonna get into that hot take. Maybe we’ll discuss it later.
ELM: So, there was a funny post that was like—it was a—I never even told you what the original post was, but it was, like, a slider, right? And it was, like, two sides of a spectrum, and it was like, one side was Supernatural and the other side was Breaking Bad, and it was like, “Shows I’ve never seen but, like, know a ton about on Tumblr from good to—” It was something about, like—the Supernatural side was like, “I didn’t want to learn about this show.” [FK laughs] And then Breaking Bad was like, “It’s funnier—like, this is way better than even watching it. This is funnier.” Because Breaking Bad has been hugely memeified on Tumblr in the last couple of months, right?
FK: Yeah yeah yeah.
ELM: Anyway. It did it much more effectively than I’m describing it, so I put the link in the draft for “The Rec Center,” and the morning we were putting it together, I get a comment on the doc from Gav, who’s like, “This is an ad for a podcast?” [FK laughs] I click on the link, the permalink for that post, and the OP has erased the original thing and put up an ad for their podcast.
FK: Ahhhhh!
ELM: Which is just—just—I can’t get over this, because it’s like, if anyone’s not familiar with how Tumblr works, like, the post that they made is now in thousands of different blogs, because it got—that’s what got reblogged, right?
FK: Yup.
ELM: But so now the post for their podcast looks like it has 50,000 notes—
FK: Yup.
ELM: —even though everyone who’s hitting like on it is hitting it for their original post’s content.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And I’m just sitting there being like, “What is going on in this person’s brain?” Like—
FK: Maybe they’re trying to get into a podcast network and justify that they have a certain number of listeners?
ELM: No, because a podcast network would want to see your actual listens. They don’t want to see how many notes your post gets on Tumblr, right?
FK: Yeah, good point.
ELM: And so it’s just like—I was just trying to be like, “What is going on?” You know? And it’s just like—I feel like I see this all around. It’s, like, just the strangest behavior. And I think a lot of it is just, like, pure numbers, right?
FK: Yeah. Yeah.
ELM: It’s a far afield of what Steve’s talking about, but I mean, whatever. I think this is all a morasse together, right? You know, like, I think a lot of the people, while I’m arguing about, like, “Oh, everyone is like that Lyft driver who wanted to get into a fistfight over Johnny Depp,” I do think there are a lot of people during that trial who jumped on the bandwagon so they could get, you know, including brands, right? And—
FK: Absolutely.
ELM: —while it seemed, like, incredibly mean-spirited and often misogynist, um, why not both? You know? Like, I don’t know if they would have jumped on this train if they hadn’t been able to do the numbers in the process.
FK: Yeah. I mean, I think that’s right, and I think that whether you’re talking about something that you agree with, or don’t agree with, philosophically, that can happen, right? I mean, think about all of the Black Lives Matter stuff that was ultimately pretty meaningless—
ELM: Yeah.
FK: —that people were jumping onto, right? And I mean, for that matter, it’s easy to see if you were protesting, like, it’s easy to see that there is a mob mentality in which people become angrier than they were before, and maybe aren’t making very strategic decisions, because they feel like they have license to—
ELM: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
FK: —you know, do various things. I mean, let me tell you, I am not criticizing people for being angry with the police, but I am saying that maybe there were some people who made some bad decisions about what they were going to choose to do or not do in the spur of the moment because they were with a bunch of people. And I think that everybody will say that this happens, right?
ELM: Sure.
FK: That happens in real life, and it also happens online, because it feels like, “Yeah, of course I can yell at this person. Like, of course I can dehumanize this person. No matter—” And the key point is, “whether that person is a scumbag like Tucker Carlson or whether it’s someone else, and no matter what they said.”
ELM: Yeah. Yeah. I mean I just want to say one more time: Tucker Carlson, worst person in the world.
FK: [laughs] OK, well, I think that with that—
ELM: Truly awful. Truly awful.
FK: Great. I think that with that, Steve, thank you for this thoughtful question. I am sure it will come up again.
ELM: Yeah. Thank you very much.
FK: All right. Let’s take a quick break then, yeah?
ELM: All right, let’s do it!
[Interstitial music]
FK: All right, we’re back, and you know what that means. It’s time to talk about Patreon!
ELM: OK, so, as you know—as we mentioned in the last episode and have been talking about on social media—we have made the most recent Tiny Zine, and it is a collection of ficlets by three authors: Flourish, Betts, and Britta Lundin—
FK: Yay!
ELM: That’s not her fandom name, that’s her real name. Um, [FK laughs] and the fandoms are, respectively, X Files, Star Wars, and Our Flag Means Death. Cute little ficlets in a cute little Tiny Zine, and that is for $10-a-month patrons, so if you’ve been thinking about pledging to our patreon, or upping your pledge, you know? If you go from what you are at now up to $10, you’re gonna get one of those in the mail.
FK: Now is the time.
ELM: Yes it is.
FK: And if you don’t have $10, then there’s also lots of other rewards that you can get, including a lot of special episodes, cute little Fansplaining pin… Basically, the world’s your oyster, so, uh, give us some money! [laughs]
ELM: That is not true. I think that the finite and small list of rewards you get, I would not say “the world is your oyster” to describe upwards of six to seven rewards.
FK: Well, you wouldn’t. You don’t eat oysters, do you? So, you wouldn’t say “the world is your oyster” no matter what.
ELM: Actually, you know, I know I don’t say I want to “get to the meat” of the episode, but “the world is your oyster” sounds fun. It doesn’t sound like eating oysters. To me, I imagine, like, I don’t know. Like, an oyster in a top hat dancing, you know? Like, [old-timey singing] “The world’s your oyster.” You know? It could be, like, very—it’s got a very—
FK: Could you—could you sing that again?
ELM: “The world’s your oyster…” [FK laughs] You know? It’s got a very, like—[both laugh] I just think that—[FK laughs, ELM laughs] Are you enjoying my, um, midcentury, or—earlier than that. This is more of an Art—
FK: [laughing] Earlier than that. Maybe twenties? Yeah.
ELM: —Deco, kind of, Roaring Twenties. Like, early Broadway, you know, like…
FK: I love it. I love—you’re a hoofer.
ELM: [laughing] Yeah. The dancing oysters, um…
FK: Great.
ELM: Maybe I’m thinking of a starlet in an oyster shell opening. There’s just so much to do with oysters. They’re so fun.
FK: All right. So, on—back to the topic, if you don’t have money— [laughs]
ELM: [singing] “The world’s your oyster…”
FK: —or don’t want to give us your money [both laugh] you can still help us out by spreading the word about the podcast, or by sending in letters, comments, thoughts, like the ones in this episode to help us make future episodes. So, you can do that @Fansplaining on Tumblr. The ask box is open, anon is on. You can email fansplaining@gmail.com. You can give us a phone call at 1-401-526-FANS and leave us a voicemail, which we love extra much. And you can also contact us on Twitter or Instagram if that really is how you roll, but probably not the best way to send a question because they’re short.
ELM: Did you mention fansplaining.com?
FK: Right! There’s also an ask, like, a little form on fansplaining.com, which is also anonymous, that you can use.
ELM: And while you’re on fansplaining.com, you can look at the transcripts to our episodes. You can share those transcripts with friends you have in fandom who may not be podcast listeners, but may like to read these great letters. Just saying.
FK: Yeah!
ELM: You could do that while you’re there.
FK: All right. I think that is our business over, so we should get back to those letters.
ELM: Well, this one came from our submission box on fansplaining.com.
FK: Oh, there you go. Will you read it to us?
ELM: Sure. Dafna writes: “I've often wondered about the relative lack of fannish activity for even very popular sitcoms. In addition to the reasons you discussed on your recent episode, I wonder if the present-day setting of most sitcoms also contributes to this. Is it possible we’re just less interested in fic for shows set in settings that look very much like the ones we inhabit now? Friends, for example, had so little fic that it qualified for Yuletide early on, but it’s seen a huge surge of interest in the last few years both on streaming sites and in fic, and I wonder if that’s because it’s now old enough to seem slightly exotic (e.g., no cell phones or social media).”
FK: All right, Dafna, if you heard a sound just now, that was the sound of both of us turning into corpse dust and blowing away.
ELM: Did you see—sidenote, did you see that post that was going around about, someone said they were reading a fic and they were like, no offense to this fic, but someone had a VHS in—it was set in the era when you had VHS—and they, like, let it sit for so long that it had “looped back to the menu screen,” it said. [FK laughs, then groans] Yeah. So there’s a lot of commentary about dust. Dust. Turning to dust.
FK: Right.
ELM: That’s great. I’m sure I screw up details of technical, uh—
FK: Oh, no doubt. Someone from the 1600s is gonna come back and haunt you.
ELM: [laughs] I was thinking more the 1960s.
FK: OK, well, they might haunt you, too.
ELM: [laughs] They’re still around. [FK laughs] I, in fact, ask people who were alive in 1960 questions a fair bit. Just to get a sense.
FK: Good. Good.
ELM: Just to gut check. Anyway.
FK: I think Dafna’s right.
ELM: Well, I think, mmm…I don’t know.
FK: OK, here’s my thinking of why Dafna’s right.
ELM: OK.
FK: I do think that a lot of the things with big fandoms around them have some element of difference from our everyday lives.
ELM: Sure.
FK: You don’t see that much fanfic about things that are, like, just a straight-up drama about people. Even things that are very popular, right? Like, I don’t know. I guess I’m thinking back to the heyday of the CW, you know? You had people writing fanfic about Buffy, not about Dawson’s Creek. Yeah. I know there are people who wrote fanfic about Dawson’s Creek. But not nearly as many, right? And I think that this is something that we see all the time, and sometimes that element is something supernatural, and sometimes it’s that it’s set in a historical time, or the future, and I think that there’s something—I don’t know why, but I do think that fanfic fandoms—fandoms maybe in general that operate like fanfic fandoms—tend to exist around those things.
ELM: So, I do see what you’re saying, and I don’t disagree fully. But I immediately thought of one of the hottest fandoms right now: 9-1-1.
FK: Mm-hmm. That’s true.
ELM: About the Ryan Murphy, uh, EMT, firefighter—are they EMTs? They’re firefighters. They might be both.
FK: I have no idea what they are. Maybe both.
ELM: They might be both.
FK: First responders.
ELM: Yeah, first responders. [FK laughs] Emergency, uh, responders. It’s a show on FOX. Like, it’s a hot fandom right now, is what I would say.
FK: Yeah yeah yeah.
ELM: Like, it seems to be growing. I’ve had people in the fandom on my feed for a while, but I’ve noticed, even in the last couple of weeks, like, a bunch of people surging in.
FK: Sure.
ELM: So, I think that’s interesting. That’s a—I mean, whatever. I’m not a firefighter, but that’s an everyday setting.
FK: Sure. I’m not saying there’s never anything like this.
ELM: Yeah, yeah, but you know. I feel like I could come up with some other examples. And, yeah, like the—
FK: Sure. I mean, House had a huge following. You know, uh…
ELM: The West Wing.
FK: West Wing, sure. That had fanfic. Hawaii Five-0.
ELM: Yeah. I mean, to be fair, a lot of these are—
FK: You know, Glee. Which has musicals, but, you know.
ELM: Yeah, oh. [laughs] Glee. Don’t forget about Glee.
FK: Yeah...
ELM: Yeah. You know, all these things, I don’t—I actually, I was gonna say, I don’t know people have these jobs, but I do know people who’ve worked in the West Wing. [laughs]
FK: Yup.
ELM: But other than that. I don’t know any firefighters.
FK: And I know people who have been high school music teachers, so…[both laugh]
ELM: [laughing] Me too. Yeah, I guess so. I just feel—
FK: You don’t know anyone who is a member of the Hawaii Five-0? [both laugh]
ELM: My uncle, Magnum, P.I.? No, that’s a different show. [laughs]
FK: I mean, I actually do know somebody who was a park ranger, who carried a gun in Hawaii. Is that the same thing? [laughs]
ELM: Uh…no? And why has there not been a show about that?
FK: Park rangers who—I know. Dude, dude, this is my friend Jack, and she also, before this, was in Alaska, and one of her jobs was to shoot bears that became, like, dangerous.
ELM: Oh my God.
FK: And she once brought me bear meat, and I’m sorry, this is really gross for you, but she is like—I mean, I am always very impressed by her feats of physical bravery and, like prowess, and then I think, “Wait, actually, she had a gun, it wasn’t that brave, all things considered, comparatively.” [laughs]
ELM: [laughing] Oh my God! You’re going on a journey all by yourself right now.
FK: [laughing] I went on a whole journey.
ELM: You’re praising this person—
FK: It was an irrelevant journey. [laughs]
ELM: —insulting her. Um, I try to think—
FK: I love Jack. Jack, I love you. Sorry. [laughs]
ELM: I was trying to think of if there’s been any shows about park rangers. I’m sure there have been some, but the only one I can think of is Yogi Bear.
FK: Is there not a park ranger in Yellowstone? [laughs]
ELM: I have no idea.
FK: I don’t either. I haven’t seen it. I did see the spin-off because…I don’t remember why. It was on one of the streaming services I had.
ELM: I thought Yellowstone was, like, set in the past?
FK: No, the spin-off is set in the past.
ELM: That’s the spin-off?
FK: The spin-off is set in the past, and Yellowstone is set in the present day.
ELM: All right. We’re gonna have to ask a boomer. But, you know, I just feel like there are also sitcoms that are in fantastical settings. I think there’s something about the sitcom format that kind of clashes with fandom.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: Because it’s funny hearing you say this, because it makes me think about how every fandom is full of extremely generic modern AUs and college AUs and stuff—
FK: Yeah! Like, it’s a lot!
ELM: —where they do, like, the most boring shit. Just order pizza and have—
FK: Yup.
ELM: —boring banter, right? You know? And it’s just like, “OK, so you took this fantastical thing and you took away all their powers and you’re having them just be, like, very generic.”
FK: Yeah. There are no more dragons. None of the cool things that people think are cool. [laughs]
ELM: Right? And, like, so many sitcom characters are very well-drawn and very interesting, and you would think, like, why can’t they be in college and order pizza and have this boring dialogue? I don’t understand. So, is there something about the act of, like, removing that difference and making them super ordinary? Maybe? I don’t know.
FK: I do think there’s something fun about that. I mean, I think there is.
ELM: Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, it’s hard for me to say. I write modern AUs, but that’s because I kind of find the cape dramas kind of boring personally, right? [FK laughs] And maybe that’s what everyone else feels, too. I don’t know why, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: So, I couldn’t say. But, like, you know, when I think of really sharply written sitcoms—I mean, part of it is thinking about what we were saying in the other episode. Like, you know, it puzzles me why there are some similarities, right? There’s really strong characters, really sturdy characters that you can throw a situation against and that’s what we do in fic, but maybe it’s because it’s too similar. Right? You know? Like—
FK: Yeah, it’s already got all the stuff that you want to do in fic that’s already happening right in there, so then it doesn’t feel as transformative, maybe, in a certain sense.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: [laughing] I don’t have to fix this characterization.
ELM: Right, right. Exactly. But you would think, like—I mean, whatever. Not all fic is about fixing characterization.
FK: It certainly is not.
ELM: Sometimes it’s just seeing characters that you like in different scenarios, right? And so, like—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: You know?
FK: I will say also that there’s, like, there is a bunch of fannish activity that’s not fanfic that exists. And I do think that that tends to happen around sitcoms and around other kinds of dramas to a much greater extent. I mean, Friends definitely had a fandom prior to it being discovered by Gen Z and turned into a fanfic thing. Right? Like, there absolutely were people who were obsessed with all the episodes of Friends.
ELM: Oh, yeah. I don’t think—but the—one of your local attractions—you live in this, right? The FRIENDS™ Experience? That’s where your apartment is? There?
FK: Unfortunately, [laughs] it is not far. Yeah.
ELM: Almost. Yeah, it’s not far.
FK: Yup.
ELM: Um, I don’t think that that FRIENDS™ Experience is a parade of, like, semi-ironic, Gen Z Friends fans, right?
FK: No, I mean, there are some. But, like—
ELM: Yes.
FK: —that ain’t all! [laughs]
ELM: I feel like, it’s interesting to hear—I haven’t actually looked at the numbers—that there is a resurgence of Friends fic. Perhaps that is kind the trickle-down effect of it being massively popular, having this huge surge again, right? You know, like, and so some portion of that is, like, “I’m thinking about Friends a lot. I like it. Here it is.” Right?
FK: I think that’s true, and I think also that it’s normalized. Like, I mean, when I think back to the early days of fanfic, one of the things about it was, of course, like, quote-unquote “nerds” have always liked all sorts of things.
ELM: Mm-hmm.
FK: However, there was a much stronger stereotype and association with nerds of the kind who might be into the internet, because the internet is a nerd thing, and therefore find fanfic, and sci-fi and fantasy—
ELM: Yeah.
FK: —and existing sci-fi and fantasy communities that were finding the internet. So, I do think that there really was, like—the kind of people who liked Friends were maybe not the kind of people—broadly speaking, not individually speaking—who were writing fanfic in the ’90s.
ELM: Sure.
FK: And now, [laughs] everybody writes fanfic, actually. You know? Like, it is very normalized.
ELM: Yeah. I mean, not—
FK: Not every person. But, like, every kind of person. You know? Like, it’s a much more widely accepted thing.
ELM: Yeah. Well, it’s interesting.
FK: Thank you very much for the question, Dafna. I don’t know that we came to any conclusions, but we liked thinking about it.
ELM: Yeah! I love talking sitcoms.
FK: All right. Shall I read the next one?
ELM: Yes, please.
FK: OK.
“Hi Flourish and Elizabeth,
“Going full-blown Fandom Old Yells At Cloud with my first letter, my apologies.
“I’ve noticed something people are doing consistently on AO3 that really bugs me: creating personal Collections and adding fic they like to them. That’s not what that tool is for! Collections are for fic exchanges, large projects, themed stories, etc.
“Obviously, from their perspective they’re just grouping ‘Stories I love’ or ‘fluffy favorites’ which is super flattering. But bookmarks exist on AO3, so I don’t even get why this trend started? I feel like I get a request every couple of months now. At least you can decline the requests, which I always do.
“I don’t want people coming to my story, and it being grouped with a load of other stories at random! Collections are public and listed so prominently in the fic information that it feels so strange to me that people want to lay claim to it in that way. Because that’s what it feels like to me, but clearly not the users who do this.
“Is this a trend other people have noticed? Why do you think this has started happening? Is it a spillover from a different site that had similar functionality?”
And this question is from Beaky.
ELM: Thank you very much, Beaky! Uh, a subject that many Fandom Olds are yelling at—a cloud subject many are yelling at on Tumblr.com over the last year or two, I would say.
FK: Yeah, I’m gonna—this has never happened to me and I know nothing about this, so I’m gonna have to, like, cede the floor to you, Elizabeth, talking about this experience.
ELM: Interesting. Well, I have had several of my works—I have experienced this. I have been on the receiving end. I have said yes. Um, because I don’t really care. [both laugh] But also, like, I don’t know. It depends. If it’s just, like, some of them are, like, just the name of my ship or their favorite ones in my ship, and I’m like, “OK. Like, I’m on someone’s rec list.” That’s how I see it.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: But at least one of the collections I got added to was very flattering. It was like, “The best stories I’ve read!” Or something like that. And I was like, “I’ll be in this group, that sounds nice.” You know? But, so, for people who don’t post on the AO3, maybe your eyes just kind of, like, slide over it if you’re reading, but what collection a work belongs to is very high up. It’s in the top information, right? You know? I can definitely see what Beaky’s saying, in terms of like, “Why is this given so much prominence?” And like, “People aren’t using this function correctly.” I suspect that there are a lot of newer users to the AO3 who are thinking of this like making a playlist.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And because the functionality of the AO3 wasn’t built this way because people didn’t think—I mean, I think it’s a bit on them, too. There are bookmarks, but can you make a bookmark collection?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: You know, like, “my favorites,” or like, “over 20K,” or like, you know—
FK: Right.
ELM: —“stories when you feel sad.” I don’t know. Like, what would you put—
FK: Yeah yeah yeah.
ELM: You make a bunch of playlists. But instead it was just a straight-up—
FK: Or rec lists. Yeah, or rec lists.
ELM: Yeah. Right.
FK: That’s definitely what I’m thinking about, with this.
ELM: Right, yeah. Exactly. And it’s very interesting to me that they chose not to make any kind of formal rec list functionality within it, because rec lists were arguably at their heyday in the LiveJournal era, right?
FK: Oh yeah.
ELM: And that’s where this was coming from, and so I’m a little surprised that they chose not to do that. And so, I think this is people who maybe organically are coming to the same need—
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: —and saying, “Yeah, I just want to make a list of my favorites, like I make playlists.” But, if you go to, like, I don’t know, Beyoncé or whatever on Spotify—is she on Spotify? I don’t know who’s on Spotify anymore. [FK laughs] If you go to whoever on—X artist on Spotify, you don’t click on their profile and you see at the very top, “On this playlist, on this playlist, on this playlist.” Right? You know? Like, on some random people’s playlists.
FK: Yeah yeah yeah. Right.
ELM: It does feel a little bit weird, but it doesn’t feel weird enough to me to reject. But one thing that I know the AO3 does have—and I’m not sure if this was created in response or this was already true—you have to approve it going into a collection, so you can say no.
FK: Right.
ELM: Because there was an issue of people saying yes to their works being in collections, and then the collection behind hidden and made private to the collection creator—
FK: Right.
ELM: —and then people’s works were winding up hidden.
FK: Right! Oh, wow, that’s bad.
ELM: And so I’m pretty sure they’ve changed it now so you can remove yourself from a collection.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: So you can have more control over where it goes. But I think that’s a worry that people have. I mean, you know, I don’t lose sleep over it, but it is something I’m aware could happen—
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: —and I would just remove myself from that collection at that point.
FK: Yeah, totally. All right, well, that makes sense. But I mean, this seems like it’s also a classic clash of expectations, based on what you’re describing to me. I don’t know that people are doing something wrong by using collections in this way. Fans have been using services in ways that were not necessarily originally their intention forever.
ELM: Right, and it’s—I think it’s interesting in the fact that this has been so notable in the last few years. I mean, whatever. I think the AO3 has a very large backlog of technical things they need to do. But I wonder how easy it would be to make the bookmark functionality—I mean, the horse is a little bit out of the barn at this point, because, especially, I think you have a lot of newer AO3 people doing this, right?
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: So, like, if you say, “Hey, stop doing this. [FK laughs] Collections are meant to be for, like, this Big Bang,” or whatever, right? You know?
FK: Right.
ELM: “And start using bookmarks differently.” But, like, there’s discourse about the bookmark stuff, too. Like, I don’t know if you’ve followed any of this, but people saying, like, “Oh, you can never say anything critical in a bookmark because the author can see it,” or whatever. And it’s just like, you know, I don’t know. I think that sometimes—and I say this as someone who has fic there and sometimes looks at the bookmarks to see what people say about it—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —I also understand that bookmarks are for the readers and not for me.
FK: Yup. And not even for, like, a public reader thing, but for their own memory.
ELM: Yeah. I mean, you could argue, like, “Oh, then why don’t they just put it in a private bookmark,” or whatever. But, like—
FK: Eh…
ELM: You know?
FK: It’s fine. Yeah. There’s different levels.
ELM: Yeah. So, there’s, like—it’s complicated, because you have all the readers and writers in the same space, and what serves a reader may not serve a writer, or vice versa. And so, I don’t know. I think it’s tricky. But like I said, I think that this is such an established behavior now, in the last couple of years, that I think even if they change the functionality or somehow manage to enforce banning that, like, I don’t know how they would do that. So you have to have proof that you’re actually running an event to create a collection? Like, they’re not—that’s not possible.
FK: Yeah, no. Not gonna happen.
ELM: Right? So, like, I think that the only thing that people can do is they can decide personally whether they’re comfortable with their work showing up on someone’s playlist or not. And, like, honestly? Unless the playlist was like, “stories that suck but I read them anyway,” I’ll probably say yes. You know? Like, I don’t mind. You know? [both laugh]
FK: Totally.
ELM: Can you imagine? I’m sure people have weaponized collections. They’ve probably weaponized everything.
FK: Oh, no doubt. One of the first things I was thinking was that somebody is being an asshole using this, because someone is an asshole using every functionality on the internet.
ELM: Yes. Correct.
FK: It’s, like, the first thing that you discover, once somebody—like, someone created email, and then someone invented spam.
ELM: It’s true.
FK: And then someone stalked their girlfriend using email! You know? Like, it’s just—
ELM: Yes.
FK: Yeah. All right. Well, on that cheerful note, thanks, Beaky.
ELM: [laughs] Bringing us right down.
FK: All right, I’ll read the next one.
“Hi Flourish and Elizabeth,
“I’m a huge fan of the podcast, thanks for everything you do! I started listening relatively recently but I’ve been going through the podcast back catalog, and I really enjoy the in-depth discussions and diverse perspectives you provide on different aspects of fandom.
“My question is: which is the quote-unquote ‘best’ platform to engage with fandom at this point? I can imagine it varies by fandom, and maybe there isn’t just one. Basically, I’d like to participate in fandom more actively, but I’m not sure where to start. I had a Tumblr in high school, but that was over 10 years ago, and I never really engaged in discussions, just passively reblogged things others posted. I’ve been reading fanfiction for years and have a VERY extensive AO3 library going at this point, but I’ve always considered it kind of a ‘secret’ hobby—my partner is the only one who knows I read it. I’m starting to realize that being involved with fandom at my age is nothing to be embarrassed about and actually something to celebrate, and something that has the potential to bring about valuable discussions about the world around us and what it means to be human (along with obsessing over ships, et cetera). That is in large part thanks to your podcast! I would love to be in a space where I have more active discussions with others in my fandoms, and one of my goals is to start writing fic. Which platforms do you use, if any? I’m contemplating creating a Tumblr again, but I’m a little nervous about being dismissed as a fandom old (which I am, haha).
“Thanks again and stay gold, Elizabeth.”
ELM: An Other Other Elizabeth. Third Elizabeth.
FK: Yeah, I mean, I like that now whenever someone named Elizabeth writes in to us, they get a number.
ELM: Yeah, this is Elizabeth the Third.
FK: You’re Elizabeth One. [laughs]
ELM: Yeah, that’s right.
FK: Yeah. Elizabeth Prime, some might say.
ELM: That’s right, that’s right. Well, first of all, Other Other Elizabeth—I shouldn’t just do this to all Elizabeths—first of all, my friend Elizabeth, in high school 10 years ago does not make you a Fandom Old. [FK laughs] Unless over 10 years ago means, like, 30 years ago. [both laugh]
FK: Well, it doesn’t to us, but it does to some 15-year-olds, I’m pretty sure.
ELM: OK, well I don’t think anyone should care about their opinion. Sorry.
FK: [laughs] Telling the truth.
ELM: I wouldn’t be concerned about age at all, especially since, if I’m reading this correctly, Elizabeth, you are in your late 20s, maybe early 30s. Extremely normal time to be in fandom. I mean, whatever.
FK: Yeah!
ELM: Like, all sorts of ages are normal times, right? But, like, that is, like, the majority of people I see in fandom, are like around 30.
FK: A very normal time.
ELM: Which seems so youthful to me, a person of age. [FK laughs] But, so I wouldn’t worry about that at all. And I would say, if you are in a fandom right now, like, privately, if there is something fannish that you are into currently, that’s the place to start. Obviously, I think this gets a bit harder if you just want to, like, rejoin capital-F Fandom, because then I feel like, well, whatever. You could be into posts about fandom and discourse and [laughing] people complaining about making collections on the AO3, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: That’s, like, a thriving subculture of fandom is, like, you know, fandom fandom, right?
FK: Yeah yeah. Fans complain about fandom.
ELM: But I would say, I wouldn’t tie your entry—unless you’re already writing fic, I wouldn’t tether your entry into this to potentially writing fic, because then you could put off—do you know what I mean? Like—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: That’s how—you know, like, you can definitely—
FK: “I’m gonna write fic once I have friends in X space.”
ELM: Yeah. Right. Or, like, “I can join the fandom once I write a fic, but otherwise I don’t have anything to contribute.”
FK: Mmm.
ELM: I feel like that attitude happens a lot.
FK: Yeah. Either one.
ELM: Yeah. And I think that, you know, seeing some people come into my fandom in the last few years, a fair number of them don’t seem to write much fic at all. Maybe they write a little bit, or they write, like, kind of drabbles or ficlets on Tumblr. But for the most part, they’re very good participants, you know? So, they are reblogging a lot of stuff, they’re commenting, they’re making rec lists, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: They’re showing people what they like about the thing. And I think that’s definitely a way in, and if you want to write fic, too, absolutely do it. But I wouldn’t make that the only route in, unless you are already writing fic or are about to. Do you know what I mean?
FK: I absolutely know what you mean. And, you know, I think that also, like, really the thing is just to start interacting with people wherever they happen to be, right? Because, like, there are definitely some fandoms where I would say, like, go enjoy Reddit. Not most fanfic fandoms that we’re talking about, but there are some. And there’s others that you would find a group more on Twitter, or on Tumblr, and Discord, actually. You can search Discord and find Discords for a lot of, for instance, video game fandoms. So, it really depends on what the fandom is, and also what your vibe is. Because there are some people who are just never gonna want to, like, engage with a particular platform, and even if the people that are in the fandom you want are there, if you hate the platform, you’re not gonna do it, right?
ELM: Right. Right right.
FK: So, I guess what I would say is, like, you know, think about what platforms seem inviting to you, potentially. Or what platforms have people of the thing that you like. Where are they talking? And then commit to diving in there, and starting to comment and interact with people. Not just sort of passively reblogging, but actually reaching out. That would be my tip, in general.
ELM: Yeah, and I would say, you know, if you have this extensive AO3 library, I don’t know. It sounds like Elizabeth doesn’t comment on stuff, but that’s a really great way. You know, like, it’s definitely—if someone leaves me a really long and thoughtful comment, and then I happen to see them on Tumblr, I have a context for them, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And if they want to talk about stuff, they’re not—you know, that actually is kind of dual—like a—what do you call it? Two-factor verification, right? You know?
FK: [laughs] A dual—a pronged approach.
ELM: [laughs] Yeah. Right? You know, whatever. You don’t have to do either of those things, but, like, I don’t know. I absolutely agree with you, and I think that this is a theme that keeps coming up, um, in recent months, is, like, what do you want? You know, like, maybe you do want to have a bunch of debates and, like, if there’s a subreddit for the thing that you like, that’s probably—or Discord for the thing that you like? That’s probably the space to do it. Right?
FK: Definitely.
ELM: But if you want a place to still post GIFs, reblog GIFs, and share fic, and like—as a complement to AO3, that probably is Tumblr, depending on what fandom it is, right?
FK: Absolutely.
ELM: If you wanna see all the fanart, like, that’s gonna probably be Tumblr. Maybe Twitter, but don’t—no one should go to Twitter.
FK: [laughs] All right, well, one thing that I think that we can say to our friend Elizabeth—
ELM: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
FK: —is we fully endorse you doing this. Go forth! Make friends! Enjoy fandom. You are not too old. No one is too old. And we want you to have a wonderful time.
ELM: Yes! Strongly cosign.
FK: [laughs] All right. Will you read me the last letter?
ELM: We have one more letter. I would say this is more of a comment than a question, but wanted to include it, and it is from Anonymous.
“Hello Elizabeth and Flourish!
“I’ve been listening to your podcast since (I believe) your first year, and I’ve loved hearing your fandom lives evolve (along with all the awesome discussions). I specifically wanted to speak to Flourish’s recent feeling of fandom ambivalence.”
Sidenote, this letter came in I believe towards the end of last year, though, I don’t know. You’ve been ambivalent for a while. OK, continue.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: “I’m going through something like this myself right now. Right before the pandemic, I decided to quit my job and go back to school full time. As so much time and energy has been taken up focusing on my next career path, I’ve had very little left over for fannish feelings. This happened when I was in grad school years ago, too. However, this time around, I’ve still had to be active in fannish spaces, and it’s left me feeling like a bit of an imposter at times.
“I host a podcast that is focused around a specific group of creators, and while I love the discussions we have, I feel a bit removed from it. I don’t make fannish creations in this space (other than the podcast itself), nor do I seek out fan creations. I’m not invested in shipping, and sometimes am turned off by the way fans approach certain ‘top ships.’ I love these series, but not with the fervor I’ve felt for things in the past.
“I also spent the last six years working on a very long work of fanfiction, and finally started posting it about a year ago. It’s been wonderful to get reactions from people, and to finally put this large project out into the world. But my fannish feelings for the canon series have definitely cooled since I first envisioned the fic six years ago. Again, I love it and, and I keep up with what canon releases we do get, but I don’t feel obsessed and immersed the way I used to. Interacting with people reading my fic, I sometimes feel like an outsider looking in. They are so invested, and I’m just kind of going through the motions.
“All this is to say...I think it’s natural to have periods where you are more of an observer and appreciator of fandom than an active participant. Although it’s hard to imagine right now, I’m sure I’ll have those strong fannish feelings for something again, probably once my life is less focused and stressful. Fandom will be there waiting for us, when we’re ready.
“Thanks for the awesome podcast!”
FK: All right, well, I also wanted to include this, because it really spoke to me, and I…I don’t know. Probably it’ll speak to somebody else who’s listening to this podcast right now, but it made me feel good to hear somebody talking about basically exactly the way I feel, and um…yeah. It’s true. [laughing] Fandom will be waiting for us!
ELM: You say that. I mean, not to be, like, a Debby Downer, but, like, I think some people just…it could end. You know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And I don’t know. Maybe look back on the experiences you had fondly—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —but I think that there are a lot of different reasons why—I think this was around the time we had the “Fandom-Tinted Glasses” episode, and I’m always struck—oh, that was Ruth! Ruth of letter earlier. Ruth’s phrase about getting off the fandom merry-go-round, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: You know, like—and we talk a lot about how sometimes it feels like some of our nostalgia is actually for, like, being teenagers, you know? [FK laughs] And feeling really, really deeply.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And the way you feel about things as a teenager, like, fandom aside, your brain’s legit different [FK laughs] when you’re a teenager, right?
FK: Ain’t it the truth.
ELM: Yeah, no, literally, that’s true.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: So, I’m not saying that you or the letter writer here will not get caught by something in the future, but I also think that people—you know, it’s probably healthiest to acknowledge that pathway as well.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: To say that there’s a chance that you loved stuff in the past, but you just love stuff differently now.
FK: Yeah. And I mean, if that happens, that’s all right. I think it can be hard—like, for me, I have been worrying about that, or wondering about that. Maybe “worrying” is too strong a word, but fandom has been such a big part of my whole life—
ELM: Sure.
FK: —and then working on it, and then I think I had this fantasy that when I stopped working in the industry, that I would experience, like, a resurgence of fan feelings, you know? That I would be, like, “Well, I killed it for a while—”
ELM: Yeah.
FK: “—because I was working in it, and now I can give myself wholeheartedly again.” And I’m not saying that there aren’t things that I’m, like, watching obsessively. But it’s very different than it used to be. It’s much more, um, much more solo and much more just enjoying canon.
ELM: Mm-hmm.
FK: Like, to a strong degree, but, like, I don’t know. Even with Harry Styles, like, as much as I love Harry, I only went to one of his New York shows, and I did not stress about the fact that I didn’t see the others, and when I went, it wasn’t the same. So, I don’t know.
ELM: Because of the discourse? [laughs]
FK: No, not because of the discourse. Although, I will admit that I am fucking tired of the discourse. [ELM laughs] But, anyway. Some part of me just wonders, “Well, maybe that is over, and maybe it’s OK if it is,” but I don’t know yet. And it also could be over for now but, like, come back when I’m 50. I do know people who have had that journey, right? Don’t you?
ELM: Yeah, for sure.
FK: Like, people who are like, “I loved this stuff when I was younger, and then I did other stuff, and then I got hit with it again.” And that’s OK too, so…
ELM: I mean, I feel like you see this especially for women who had to be primary caregivers for children and say like—
FK: Oh, yeah.
ELM: “I just—my brain wasn’t even allowed to do anything else, [both laugh] and now I have some free time to think about stuff.” Right? Obviously, you know—
FK: Yeah. “The moment my child went into high school, [ELM laughs] all of the sudden, I felt feelings again.” [laughs]
ELM: As fraught as that is, it’s definitely something that I’ve heard people experience, or whatever. There’s a million different ways that your life could be—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —that your brain could be distracted. And so, yeah. I definitely hear what you’re saying.
FK: I’m still very happy to be, like, doing this and sort of talking about this from a more distanced perspective. Like, we were talking about this recently. I think it’s been working. And I’m happy to be doing it, so.
ELM: Well, that’s good. I mean, it’s not like this podcast was ever, like, about proving that you were in fandom right now and, like, feeling those feelings.
FK: [laughing] No.
ELM: Um, because, like, that’s also not how I—I mean, I’m thinking about this as, like, I—thinking about my own feelings, like, I don’t feel gripped by great passions for anything right now, like, fandomy, right? But, like, I feel—
FK: You are writing fanfic.
ELM: But I write a lot of fanfic, and it brings me a great deal of satisfaction and, like, that’s the activity that I love, but it’s not like, you know—I’m not in the, like, “I just need to see their faces more” mode.
FK: Yeah, the limerence.
ELM: Yeah, like, I haven’t been in that space for years in my current fandom. And definitely last year when I was really into Halt and Catch Fire, I definitely remembered what that felt like, because I was feeling it, and I was like, [gasps] [FK laughs] “This is everything, this is everything, this is everything, this is everything!” Right? And, but, like, no way to sustain that, because there wasn’t, like, a real place to put that.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And that feels so different than the way I feel about my main fandom, but I love the way I feel about my main fandom. Like, I love the things that I’m working on.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: You know, I love thinking about these characters. It’s interesting, because it’s like, even hearing Anon saying, like, “Oh—” First of all, six years working on a fic.
FK: Woo!
ELM: God bless. Like, that’s—I would—I can’t—[laughs] You know, I’m writing a longfic right now, like, a whatever. A novel-length fic, and—oh, I don’t know if I told you this, but I’m like, “I need to pause and write something shorter, just to like—” [FK laughs] Otherwise I won’t be able to see the forest through the trees.
FK: I kind of figured that that was why it was going this slow—
ELM: Yup.
FK: —was that you were like—yup.
ELM: And as you know—
FK: But also, every time you’re like, “Is it crazy to make it longer?” And I’m like, “No! [ELM laughs] Keep writing!” And you’re like, “It feels crazy to me.”
ELM: [laughs] But, as you know, I also have done this once before on this story. So, I’m just gonna keep coming back to it and doing it in more chunks. But, like, it’s interesting to read the, like, “Oh, I started six years ago, and I don’t really feel the same way about the canon anymore.” Like, I don’t, like, care about my source material that much, you know what I mean? [FK laughs] So, to me, it’s a purely about—
FK: Yeah, you care about what you’re writing.
ELM: It’s purely about the writing thing. And so it’s interesting to me to see, like—I definitely get what Anon is saying, but I also think that there’s a lot of different ways to be, and yeah, I get it. If most of the time when you were publishing fic before you felt really deeply and in the moment about the fandom, then that’s gonna feel weird and disconnected.
FK: Mmm.
ELM: But, like, I don’t know. That’s kind of how I feel about my stuff. And I really love it, so—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —it’s about different kinds of pleasures. And, like, frankly I like this a lot more than any feeling I ever had when it was, like, the white-hot heart of the fandom peaks and ideas are flying and people were squeeing, shouting at each other—I don’t like that. That’s not pleasant.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: That makes me feel agitated.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I don’t know. I’m just saying there’s, like—there’s multiple ways to go about it, and so you, like, just, like, downloading the canon into your eyeballs, there. [FK laughs] You know? Just letting it ensmoothen your brain. That’s a way to be, too, and I don’t think there’s anything, like, lesser or—you know what I mean? It’s not like it’s—
FK: Yeah. Totally.
ELM: —lower on the hierarchy of fandom reactions.
FK: Totally.
ELM: You know what I mean?
FK: I do, I do. All right. Well, I think that gets to the bottom of our letter bag, so thank you for reading all of these with me, Elizabeth.
ELM: I just got a really strong, uh, vision of, like, what was his name? Mr. McFeely?
FK: Yup. Looking at the bottom of the letter bag? “I guess we’re—” Yup.
ELM: Yeah yeah yeah.
FK: Yeah, that’s exactly what I was thinking about, was the Mister Rogers moment.
ELM: Why was that his name?
FK: Don’t know. Can’t help you.
ELM: I’m sure I’m not the first person to comment on this, but, odd choice.
FK: All right. Well, I think that it’s time for us to say goodbye, Elizabeth.
ELM: [laughing] OK, goodbye, Flourish. [FK laughs] Thanks for being my neighbor.
FK: Wow.
ELM: [laughs] Sort of. We live in different boroughs. OK, good bye!
FK: Bye. [both laugh]
[Outro music]