A New History of Fandom Purges
On November 24th, 2018, I posted a list of major deletions of sites or of content on sites that stripped fandom of its history. A bunch of pro-shipper blogs had just been deleted, and people were nervous. I suppose I was thinking “All this has happened before…”
On December 3rd, 2018, Tumblr’s Department of Irony announced the NSFW ban. Thanks for providing this salutary lesson to The Youth and a billion reblogs to me, I guess.
Today, we have AO3 for writing. Audio, images, and video are in as much danger as ever, yet fans attack AO3 every donation drive. For those of you who forget our past…
HERE IS WHAT HISTORY HAS TAUGHT US!
1992 - Chelsea Quinn Yarbro forces a zine to be destroyed
1995 - Viacom/Paramount goes after fansites
1995 - Anne Rice gets IWTV fic deleted everywhere
1997 - Fox and Lucasfilm go after fansites
1998 - AOL goes after X-Files fansites
2000 - Warner Brothers goes after Harry Potter fansites
2000 - Anne Rice anne rices again
2001 - Anne Rice goes after IWTV fic on FFN
2001 - The Bronze shut down as Buffy changes networks
2003 - Gryffindor Tower implodes
2004 - FFN bans script format
2005 - FFN bans CYOA, Readerfic, 2nd person, Songfic
2005 - Sheezyart bans adult content; y!gallery founded
2005 - Viacom/Paramount goes after fansites again
2006 - Sakura Lemon Archive suddenly closes
2007 - Strikethrough, Boldthrough on Livejournal
2007 - Youtube institutes Content ID, deleting many fanvids
2008 - Slash Cotillion closes, taking much historical m/m with it
2009 - GeoCities shuts down, taking old fannish websites
2009 - Greatestjournal shuts down; RPGs deleted
2009 - Marvel gets scans_daily deleted
2009 - imeem, major vidding hub, closes suddenly
2010 - FFN forums purged for inactivity
2010 - DeviantArt purges adult fanfic
2010 - Literate Union goes after Twilight fandom on FFN
2011 - Delicious destroyed by Yahoo’s incompetence
2011 - China arrests women for writing m/m; destroys danmei.org
2012 - major FFN crackdown on porn
2012 - Megaupload deleted for piracy; also destroys vids, podfic
2013 - Max-Dan-Wiz.com purged of fan-generated content
2014 - Quizilla shuts down
2014 - China purges m/m story websites; arrests female authors
2014 - Blip.tv deletes vids
2014 - Viddler deletes vids
2015 - Journalfen’s servers become fully robust, deleting Fandom Wank
2016 - Elfwood goes offline
2016 - Audiofic Archive corrupted; major blow to podfic
2017 - Chinese author jailed after being ratted out over fandom drama
2017 - Parents get queer Warrior Cats fic purged from Wattpad
2018 - Tumblr deletes pro-shipper blogs
2018 - Tumblr announces NSFW ban
2018 - Wattpad deletes accounts/fics without warning
2019 - China purges weibo of m/m; more women jailed
This is only a small taste of the many times that:
Fannish moderators got bored, ran out of money, or had a falling out, deleting a site/list/forum along the way.
Sites got bought out and closed for being unprofitable.
Fandom got hit as governments targeted piracy or political dissidents.
Fans grudge reported each other.
Official forums got deleted when the canon finished.
It’s not always malicious. It’s not always about us. But we lose every time.
Some of these purges hit everyone. Many of them hit m/m content specifically or female gaze-y material in general. This is why antis are dead wrong. This is why anti-fujoshi policies end up being anti-m/m policies. This is why we need clear labeling, not content restrictions.
And it’s why we need a solution for audio, visuals, and video too.
