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[fandom]

Soooooo…2020, huh?

This is it. It’s December. Only one more month until the year can climb right back into the dumpster fire whence it came. But before the sun sets on this shambolic year, there’s still one thing left to do. 

*clears throat*

In 2013, when we first introduced Tumblr’s Year in Review, there was no way to know we’d one day be reviewing a year that in no way, shape, or form deserves a formal assessment. Unless 2020 gave you the gift of prescience, you probably didn’t expect such a complete disaster of a year, either. Nevertheless, here we are! 

We all know what didn’t happen this year (life), but what did happen in 2020? We tried (and failed) to make sourdough bread, we loved then quickly got bored of a game we’ve waited eight years to play, we filled our time with fiction while the real world crumbled around us, and we collectively made binge watching a way of life. If nothing else, 2020 gave us time to explore new hobbies and rekindle forgotten ones. 

Just as the reality of quarantine began to set in, the world erupted in protest, responding to the killing of George Floyd and systemic issues of racial injustice.  Our community took to the streets in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and inspired voters across the United States to fight to have their voices heard. And we did it all while navigating the worst pandemic in over a century. No big deal, right?

This year’s YIR posts account for a full 365 days, from October 21, 2019 to October 20, 2020. We know the world imploded right after that window closed, and we’ll talk about that too, but that won’t be reflected in these lists (sorry, Castiel). What will be covered you ask? Take a deep dive into your favorite fandoms and find out as we look back at the highlights of 2020. 

Top 20 of 2020 100 Ships Destiel Live Action TV The Witcher Animated TV Avatar: The Last Airbender TV Characters Reality + Variety TV Personalities Movies Movie Characters The Twilight Renaissance Spoilers Actresses Actors Web Celebs Web Series, Webcomics, + Podcasts Incorrect Quotes Memes The Year in Memes Aesthetics Cottagecore Tumblr communities COVID-19 Black Lives Matter LGBTQIA+ Tech in 2020 Video Games Animal Crossing KK Slider Album Redraws Mobile Games Gaming Characters Animal Crossing Villagers Anime + Manga Anime + Manga Characters Music Genres Music Groups Solo Acts K-Pop Groups K-Pop Stars Songs Beauty + Fashion Books Authors Food + Drink Recipes Home + Interiors Art Styles Edits Astrology Athletes Pro Wrestlers Sports Top GIFs Cursed Images Soothing Stuff Tumblr Gets Deep Post of the Year

[adventurelandia]

Noir Princesses by Ástor Alexander

[saffronrisotto-deactivated20200]

[spanishlandia]

[lizzylaurie]

The girls always manage to convey how embarrassing they find me #catsofinstagram #cats https://www.instagram.com/p/BsByitSDdVm/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=ltzwymiimwhg

[lizzylaurie]

Favorite HP plus new mug #harrypotter #fanstudies #treeofgondor #lotr https://www.instagram.com/p/BrgLK7KDoh8/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1t8cgopb8rlzg

[mewtwowritesback]

marvel-disney: steve and bucky are Totally Heterosexual Friends dear god please stop asking

sony: eddie brock and this agender space alien are gay lovers buy it on bluray

[lizzylaurie]

#furfest #phdlife #cosplay #cosplayresearch #furryfandom https://www.instagram.com/p/Bq1HY-Znith/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=hhq7u7aza8s6

[dankmemeuniversity]

[fansplaining]

I love how frequently you guys talk about fan studies (and to people who, er, study fans), but I've noticed that so much of your fan studies discussion was just... you guys talking about the CONCEPT OF fan studies, rather than actual fan studies. I would love to hear you guys dive a little deeper. What are some of these studies? What do they study? The discussion currently feels stale and superficial, and it's frustrating for me as a listener.

Hi anon! Elizabeth here. So…Flourish and I are a bit confused by this, especially after the most recent episode, when I specifically talked about the work of a whole bunch of fan studies scholars at the FSN conference, including:

Tom Phillips on women’s wrestling fandom

Briony Hannell on SKAM and teenage female Muslim fans (I didn’t name Briony in the conversation, MY BAD, though we do in the show notes)

Kathy Larsen on “Bundy erotic fanfic,” the political as fandom and fandom as political (this paper, like many of them, is in progress, so I’m not finding anything on it online with a quick search)

Cecilia Almeida Rodrigues Lima on shipping/activism/representation re: Brazilian f/f telenovela couples (we’ll hopefully be having her on to talk about this further—as you know we’re very into this topic)

Emily Roach on antifandom and tinhatting

Obviously since this episode was meant to be an overview of the whole conference, we couldn’t go into any of these in great detail (though as we mentioned, the conference was heavily tweeted, so following the link in the show notes will give you a fuller sense of their presentations through the many, many tweets). 

But we’ve also had a number of scholars on who talked about their work in-depth, and that’s why I’m particularly confused about this ask. Some define themselves as a part of fan studies, and others do not, though all their work touches fandom in some way. Just for reference, that includes (and is possibly not limited to, if I’m forgetting anyone):

Ebony Elizabeth Thomas on race and children’s literature

Evan Hayles Gledhill on fans through history, in particular 19th century female fans

Casey Fiesler on fans mourning online (this was for a specific topic—we’d like to have Casey back for a full ep to talk about all her other work) 

Ludi Price on how fans organize and tag information

Rukmini Pande on race and fandom centering whiteness in shipping (Rukmini is another person we’ve had on to discuss specific topics and who we hope can join us again)

Rukmini Pande and Lori Morimoto on shipping and activism

Stephanie Burt on…a lot of things haha, but especially fan taste cultures and (how fans engage with) trans representation in media

Lori Morimoto on transcultural fandom

Whenever we talk about “fan studies” as a whole, it’s true, there’s likely to be a bit of discipline talk—this is the nature of academia, in my experience, and yeah, sometimes in grad school I got frustrated that we spent so much time defining our field (which I’m sure I’ve mentioned on the podcast was possibly more amorphous and big-tenty than fan studies). 

I think for the last episode in particular, you can understand why we’d be discussing the field itself, fresh from their annual conference. Our conversation with Lori also spent a good deal of time with the field itself, because Lori is doing a massive amount of work trying to get scholars and fans to talk to each other, which inherently is more about fan studies and fandom as whole units than any subset or focus. 

But taking stock of the field and what it encompasses matters as much as the content of these scholars’ work, in my opinion. Who gets to study fans? What work counts as “fan studies”? As you can see from the last ep, this has very real consequences: when a conference is overwhelmingly white, for example, or weighted towards male speakers, what sorts of fan experiences are likely to be overlooked and under-discussed? It’s analogous to discussing patterns in whole fandoms or across fandoms—we might see a racist incident in one place, but there’s a massive amount of value in looking at this in the context of “fandom at large,” as spurious as that term might be haha. 

If we misunderstood this ask, apologies! Please help us understand what you meant? But it’d be a shame to suggest that the scholars we’ve had on aren’t discussing their work…

[plantinghuman]

Funny way to find out which plant you might like to buy.

Source: apartmenttherapy.com

[herbwicc]

FOR MY FOLLOWERS THAT HAVE DIFFICULTY CARING FOR PLANTS AND ASK WHAT THEY SHOULD BUY, THIS IS REALLY GREAT!!