Wreading and Fanfiction
This is a blogpost written by the moderators of the guest lecture on Wreading and Fan fiction given by Maria Kraxenberger during the Digital Social Reading course.
Fanfiction
Author: Pema Frick
Fanfiction can be summarised as fictional, fan-made stories which include characters as well as certain plot elements of a specific source product – usually from popular culture. It falls under the category of fan culture practices or fan production (De Kosnik et al., 2015) and can be traced back into the 18th century (Birkhold, 2019). Today, fan fiction is a predominantly online-based phenomenon and can be seen as a form of ‘scenic communization’ (Stock & Nieland, 2019).
Due to the influence and widespread use of digital technology, fan fiction production as well as consumption has significantly grown, as have other components of fan culture and reading in general.
Fan fiction in the digital realm
Author: Pema Frick
There are dedicated websites for fan fiction, such as fanfiction.net, fanfiktion.de and archiveofourown.org, as well as OLPs (Online Literature Platforms) such as wattpad.com.
Taking the example of fanfiktion.de, one finds that it has mostly female users (66% female, 34% male of a total of >170'000 users) and currently contains around 178,500 free works and more than 404,000 fan fiction texts. These texts are a crossing of genres, a mixture of content from different media and (pop)cultural allusions. Top categories, in which texts have been published, are Anime & Manga (110,064 texts), Books (102,007 texts) and Celebrities (77,349). Inside the category of Anime & Manga, there are clear distributions of the amount of fan fiction written: by far the most publications are about One Piece (11,575 texts), followed by Fairy Tail (4995 texts) and Hetalia (3,876 texts). Most prominent within the category of books are the Harry Potter series (51,167 texts), the Twilight series (14,014 texts), as well as works by J.R.R. Tolkien (8,015 texts). There is also a growing number of fan fiction written about real-life celebrities (especially from pop music), namely, K-Pop (8,897 texts), One Direction (6,124 texts), and, because of the German based users, Tokio Hotel (4,335 texts). However, fan fiction especially in the latter category can not only be found on OLPs, but also on social media. There, it can appear in the form of a Twitter thread, a YouTube video, or sometimes in the form of online role-playing.
By now, there is an own vocabulary tied to fan fiction, which helps to search and navigate in genres and subgenres (Goldmann, 2022).
Wreading
Author: Pema Frick
George Landow, as early as the 1990s, introduced the term 'wreader' to describe the unique convergence of various literary activities in a single individual (Landow, 2006). This term, which encapsulates both the acts of writing (in both literary and commentary forms) and reading, appears fitting for users of today's OLPs. However, whether this theoretical framework accurately reflects real-life scenarios is still a matter for empirical investigation (Kraxenberger & Lauer, 2022). Arguably, with the shift towards digital social reading, more than these two categories of interaction with the text can be observed, such as commenting on OLPs and social media platforms or producing an infrastructural basis for writing activities in Webtoons. But most importantly, Kraxenberger highlighted how the wreader is breaking up the triad of author, audience, and text. Intertextuality in wreading and on OLPs is omnipresent.
So it comes to no surprise, that many of these wreading works are catering towards certain literary demands, such as erotica.
Who reads contemporary erotic novels and why?
Author: Valentyna Pavliv
Contemporary erotic novels are believed to be "cheap" literature, hence the target population for this kind of books is expected to fit in a very small box of characteristics, as uneducated (without a high education degree), working class, bored stay at home women. The outstanding success of Fifty shades of Gray not only was unanticipated, but also proved that actually a way larger spectrum of the population show interest for this specific type of literature. Maria Kraxenberger explored these phenomena, by conducting an online study, aiming to answer 1) Who reads these erotic novels? 2) What are the reasons underlying this preference?
The study sample has 427 female participants who like and read erotic novels. As the definition of "erotic novel" may vary for different individuals, the participants described it by citing typical representative books from this category. Accordingly, they primarily defined it by contemporary bestsellers.
It is also interesting to notice that the demographics differ a lot from the expectation: 52% of the participants had achieved a university degree, which means that this sample is slightly above the average level of education in the population. Also, the biggest part of the participants is working at least part-time.
The participants' reason to read erotic novels are separated into three categories: the main one being distraction, then having a say and finally guidance. Social Media could have a big role in the popularity of erotic novels, as they encourage sharing opinions (85% of participants exchange via Social Media), which can also explain the high position of “having a say” component. Also, it was noticed during the lecture that erotic novels, via the type of writing they use, are closer to poetry than to literature. As it uses a structure closer to the oral spoken language, it could be also easier to get into the story and facilitate the distraction.
The results of participant's opinions about erotic novels show that, although their education level, they consider erotic novels as progressive. There could be different explanations: one of them may be that it is a way to provide potentially stimulant content to women. Another hypothesis is that they perceive the abuse as exciting sexual practice, interpreting the female character as curious and open to the alternative methods of her partner.
Wreading on Online Literature Platforms
Author: Valentyna Pavliv
In order to understand online literature platforms (OLPs), Maria Kraxenberger conducted another survey within 315 participants.
The users mainly adopt English-speaking OLPs, where 66% of participants prefer reading and 33% writing. The usage is to be quite anonymous: 94% have a pseudonym and the close family/friends circles are not really part of this literature platforms worlds either, as roughly half reported that the parents don't know bout their activity, and slightly above half told that the friends are aware of it.
There is a strong interest into reading fan fiction: it is, in fact, the most popular category among the participants of the survey. Although OLPs may intensify creation and sharing of fan fiction, it is important to realize that it exists for way longer than internet itself.
As investigated in Birkhold's book Characters before copyright: the rose and regulation of fan fiction in eighteen-century Germany, the lack of common laws in between different localities that form today Germany, along with the increase of publishing permitted not only to write without any restrictions on the subject, but also sell these productions. Although there were no names for this phenomenon, it is well described by the term of "fan fiction": a fictional story that includes characters and/or elements of a specific already existent source.
To understand the attachment to the fan fiction style, participants of Maria Kraxenberger's study were also asked to note why are they looking for this category specifically. Contrary to the case of fan fiction in the context of 18th century when fan fictional creation had a huge commercial success, the creative ambition has only an anecdotal value to the writers: it is in fact at the very last place of motivations. The main reason being creative freedom, followed by reader feedback, the third place being shared by both contact through digital writing and difference to the analogue world through digital writing. Similarly, the readers' main motivations to use OLP are supply & demand at first place, followed by contact through digital reading and difference to the analogue world through digital reading. Those ratings have in common that sharing, discussing, commenting are actually what binds writers and readers on OLP platforms, and show again the huge role of Social Media in those writings' success.
References
Birkhold, M. H. (2019). Characters Before Copyright: The Rise and Regulation of Fan Fiction in Eighteenth-century Germany.
De Kosnik, A., Ghaoui, L. E., Cuntz-Leng, V., Godbehere, A. B., Horbinski, A., Hutz, A., Pastel, R., & Pham, V. V. H. (2015). Watching, creating, and archiving. Convergence, 21(1), 145–164. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856514560313
Goldmann, J. E. (2022). Fan fiction genres. In Critical studies in media and communication. https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839463147
Kraxenberger, M., Knoop, C. A., & Menninghaus, W. (2021). Who reads contemporary erotic novels and why?. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 8(1), 1-13.
Kraxenberger, M., & Lauer, G. (2022). Wreading on online literature platforms. Written Communication, 39(3), 462–496. https://doi.org/10.1177/07410883221092730
Landow, G. P. (2006). Hypertext 3.0. In Johns Hopkins University Press eBooks. https://doi.org/10.56021/9780801882562
Stock, M., & Nieland, J. (2019). Fan Fiction als szenische Vergemeinschaftung: Text- und Bedeutungsproduktionen und ihre Verhandlungen. In Springer eBooks (pp. 45–66). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-21661-0_3
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