Sorry I'm writing another damn essay here but I just can't stop turning around in my head the similarities & differences between tinglers and erotic fanfiction.
Right now, specifically the perception of sincerity or lack thereof.
When "The State Of California Stalks My Gay Butthole" came out in 2015, I was in Hetalia fandom. I even remember retweeting the cover and going "lol look Chuck Tingle is one of us!!" Very few people thought Chuck Tingle was serious about his work back then. But, none of my friends, nobody else in the nsfw side of the fandom who wasn't writing intentionally comedic work, ever had anyone doubt that we had sincere interest when we wrote about personified countries having gay sex. Others may have laughed, and had criticisms (some very legitimate) but never "why are you still making this joke?". When people make jokes ABOUT shipping culture, part of the "comedy" is that the people doing it are 100% sincere!
I could go on AO3 right now, and post a story about a character with a goofy-ass name like Foo Fighters, a sentient colony of plankton piloting a human body, making tender love to a woman named after a Dolly Parton song in the swamp behind a women's prison in Florida. If I did not write this story in a comedic style or tag it as crack, I KNOW that the majority of folks who read or even scrolled past it would see this as a sincere expression of my desire for these two characters to know each other carnally. Even if they laughed, I would be the butt of the joke, they would not see me as "in on the joke".
So, I know that in my example, part of this is that the absurd and fantastical elements came from a popular manga/anime. People already accept the premise before they even go looking for fic of it. However, there's also furry fandom which is centered on original characters. Furries who draw/write yiff get a pretty similar treatment to erotic/romantic fic writers. Furries have our own relationship with humor that I could make a whole other post on, but suffice to say, even when some do make some of their porn as a bit, rarely does anyone think someone IS a furry As A Joke.
So, back to the Chuck Tingle of it all... Like I keep saying, as someone who's spent time in these subcultures, I've never been 100% satisfied with the explanation of "people always insisted tinglers were a joke because they're fantastical and queer and sexual". To me it has always felt like part of the story but not the entire one. What's the explanation when that attitude also comes from people who create and make communities around art like that?
I think the difference is that it's presented confidently as literature, as a worthy part of the culture. In fandom, even when we are so sincere in our creations, we're viewing what we make as niche, as subculture, not as much no-prefix Culture. It isn't interesting to me that none of this- tinglers, fanfic, furries, etc- is taken seriously by a mainstream media viewpoint. However, it IS interesting to me that people who create art outside the mainstream can view THEMSELVES and the way they make their OWN creations with joy as something so separate from "legitimate" art, so different, that they can see someone so similar to themselves and think it must be a joke if they insist that their art is art. I think it's really a sign that we need to be more confident that our culture is culture regardless of whether it's advertiser-friendly and marketable.
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