Do you ever think you'll stop drawing fanart? No offense it just seems like the kind of thing you're supposed to grow out of. I'm just curious what your plans/goals are since it isn't exactly an art form that people take seriously.
Ah, fanart. Also known as the art that girls make.
Sad, immature girls no one takes seriously. Girls who are taught that itâs shameful to be excited or passionate about anything, that itâs pathetic to gush about what attracts them, that itâs wrong to be a geek, that they should feel embarrassed about having a crush, that theyâre not allowed to gaze or stare or wish or desire. Girls who need to grow out of it.
Thatâs the art you mean, right?
Because in my experience, when grown men make it, nobody calls it fanart. They just call it art. And everyone takes it very seriously.
Itâs interesting though â the culture of shame surrounding adult women and fandom. Even within fandom itâs heavily internalized: unsurprisingly, mind, given that fandom is largely comprised by young girls and, unfortunately, our culture runs on ensuring young girls internalize *all* messages no matter how toxic. But hereâs another way of thinking about it.
Sports is a fandom. It requires zealous attention to âseasons,â knowledge of details considered obscure to those not involved in that fandom, unbelievable amounts of merchandise, and even âfanficâ in the form of fantasy teams. But this is a masculine-coded fandom. And as such, itâs encouraged - built into our economy! Have you *seen* Dish networkâs âultimate fanâ advertisements, which literally base selling of a product around the normalization of all consuming (male) obsession? Or the very existence of sports bars, built around the link between fans and community enjoyment and analysis. Sport fandom is so ingrained in our culture that major events are treated like holidays (my gym closes for the Super Bowl) â and can you imagine being laughed at for admitting you didnât know the difference between Supernatural and The X Files the way you might if you admit you donât know the rules of football vs baseball, or basketball?
âFandomâ is not childish but we live in a culture that commodified womenâs time in such away that their hobbies have to be âfrivolous,â because âmatureâ womenâs interests are supposed to be marriage, family, and overall care taking: things that allow others to continue their own special interests, while leaving women without a space of their own.
So think about what youâre actually saying when you call someone âtoo oldâ for fandom. Because youâre suggesting they are âtoo oldâ for a consuming hobby, and I challenge you to answer â what do you think they should be doing instead?
#I love the fact Iâm âweirdâ for writing fic but some guy painting a team logo on his beer belly is normal
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This whole modern approach is also seriously undermining just how important fanfiction is - from a historical standpoint.
The concept of fanfiction formed and forged the earliest stages of literature in Europe. Because the majority of authors in France, Germany and Great Britain looked at that funky little Celtic dude Arthur and thought âhey, heâs neat. I wanna write about himâ.
The entire concept of a book outside of religious purposes was born out of fanfiction in my country.
There is no âfirst canonâ for Arthur where he came as the prince of Camelot, with his sidekicks Lancelot and Merlin and his endgame love interest Gwen.
Arthur was some random hunter when he started out.
Someoneâs fanfiction made him a prince.
Someone elseâs fanfiction gave him a round table.
Someone elseâs fanfiction gave him Merlin at his side.
Someone elseâs fanfiction gave him Morgana, gave him Gwen, gave him his swords.
And, to this day, we still write Arthurian fanfiction. Literally last year there was a movie adaptation that is, by all intends and purposes, fanfiction, because it wasnât even close to a literal adaptation of the source material (The Kid Who Would Be King). Heck, BBCâs Merlin, itself an Arthurian fanfiction, remains one of the biggest fandoms that people today write for on AO3.
You were a joke in the middle ages if you tried to write your own stuff. Whoâs interested in your stuff? You were only a respected author if you wrote fanfiction. The most famous medieval German authors are famous because they wrote fanfiction about some knightly OCs they created who served on Arthurâs court. That is the literary legacy of the middle ages. Arthurian fanfiction.
Yet somewhere along the way, this concept of âI find x story/element cool and want to elaborate on it more, shift the focus onto an aspect of this original source materialâ has gotten this âeh, itâs fanfictionâ connotation and lost respect.
Even though this very concept is still being used - even outside of the actual medium of fanfiction - and it is still being used for the very same purpose it was used for in medieval times. Original movies often donât get as much recognition as adaptations of existing source material that the audience is familiar with. People see a movie about a character theyâre familiar with and seem more inclined to buy a ticket to see the 10th new interpretation of Batman or Superman or Snow White. How are these new interpretations of familiar source material that usually add to the lore, reinterpret characterizations and dynamics, any different from fanfiction?
But heaven forbid we call The Dark Knight Nolanâs Batman fanfiction. No, fanfiction is that silly thing that we canât take seriously, but that new Joker movie, that however is high-end art.
SO IMPORTANT
This. Fanfiction is variations on an existing theme, simultaneously making use of and satisfying peopleâs existing love for a story that theyâre happy to consume more of, and cultivating the synergy between an existing story/mythos and a new author who, in interacting with characters theyâd never have created themselves, creates something that neither they nor any of the storyâs previous tellers could have made all by themselves.
Fanfiction is the new whole being greater than the sum of its parts, and fanfiction is the story being made limitless, retelling by retelling, and it is wonderful.
Itâs also worth noting that Batman himself only came into being because of The Scarlet Pimpernel, a series of books about an extravagantly rich foppish playboy by day, daring hero in disguise by night (I mean, loosely. He also fopped by night and heroed by day, but you get my drift). Written by a woman no less.
Batman is a transformative work with a modernised crime-fighting SP but also borrowing strongly from earlier comic books, and yet it is seen as definitive.
Coming back here to say that I think the derision for fanart also has some of its roots in our capitalist hellscape.
Itâs the age old âIf thing not make you money, why you care about thing?â thatâs so prevalent in the system. Of course some people do make money with their fanart, but I think that is still part of the scorn.Â
Itâs supposed to be something you do not just for fun, but for practice, people like this think. Once youâre good at it, you can drop it and make money by focusing on your OCs and original work!
