I'm Lena, an independent fan studies academic who has been around since the days of TWOP and LJ and loves a sad, broken down little blorbo. My community-funded newsletter covers all sorts of topics and thoughts around television, film, fandom history, and current culture.
A newsletter about fandom, film, tv, culture, history, and lots of slash.
My weekly Monday posts are shared here on Tuesdays. My site also has a more informal discussion post for paid members on Fridays.
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I've been a little silent but I wanted to share this podcast I was recently on where I talk all about my blorbos - quite a bit about hutch but also avon, illya, clark...
This week, we spoke with Lena Barkin, also known as The Fanthropologist, who loves her blorbos - the fictional characters that she finds uni
(you don't have to listen to it on spotify, the podcast is available everywhere, it's just the easiest to link)
whenever i find a good world heritage post i do my best to carefully remove unnecessary "why is this so funny!!" or "i cant believe i found the original" reblog comments. sometimes it takes a bit of work digging back through the reblog graph to accomplish this but fine art restoration is tedious but important work
Whoever approved this story at Out, I know a few people who'd like a word with you. Just for a minute.
All the wrong people are going to see this, so it might be a good time to consider locking down and closing or at least moderating comments on any hockey rpf. Because fuck is it gonna get nasty.
i do think we should popularise the term "fandom death spiral" for that thing where a fandom with no new content starts just shipping willy-nilly and flanderizing and woobifying and tropifying and fanonizing over and over and over again in an effort to Make New Things to the point where nothing in fandom is even related to the source material anymore. like this is an observable phenomenon
Obviously there's been...a lot going on this year 🙃, so if you don't work in the media industry, you may not have been paying attention the utter decimation of culture journalism in 2025. The industry at large has been hemorrhaging jobs for a while now, but this year, it truly felt like the nail in the coffin for cultural coverage: sections and even whole publications completely gutted, legendary critics and journalists laid off, newcomers and longtime writers alike left with almost nowhere to publish save individual newsletters and blogs.
Even if you didn't know this was happening, you're feeling it. There's simply very little culture coverage out there today—and with a niche like fan culture, there's almost nothing left in the mainstream, with what little that does get published often reverting to an older style of exploitation or just kind of...guessing? at things that have been well-researched and documented. It's bad out there!
That's why we were incredibly grateful for Fansplaining's patrons, whose continued support helped us publish a fandom-related longread every month in 2025. Some criticism, some reporting, some personal essays, these talented writers produced some incredible work for us this year. In case you missed any of them, you'll find links to all of them below the cut. As a reminder, all of our articles also have an audio version recorded by the writer, if you prefer listening to reading.
One final note: there are BIG PLANS brewing for Fansplaining in 2026. If you like the work we published this year, get ready!!! We should be announcing more about that in the early days of January.
And now, without further ado, Fansplaining's 2025 wrap-up:
Blake’s 7 fans and actors mixed regularly at cons and on the pages of zines—until an anonymous letter changed everything.
In January, Lena Barkin started us out strong with a deep dive into the Slash Wars, a formative fandom event centered around the Blake's 7 con and fic scene in the 1980s and 90s. Fan-creator interaction, RPF, commercial fandom vs the gift economy, a cult British sci-fi favorite—this piece has it all!
Marvel wants fans to care about lore without thinking too deeply about themes and emotions—the things that brought them to this fandom in th
February saw the latest installment of the Captain America branch of the MCU, with Sam Wilson stepping into the title role. @hellotailor returned to Fansplaining with an incisive piece of criticism about how the film failed both the character and fans—the latter of whom the franchise seems to be relying on for both nostalgic goodwill and an encyclopedic knowledge of their dozens of titles, while offering them little in return.
Complaints about historical accuracy and acting quality are often dog-whistles: some fans only want to see white actors—and white history—on
In March, one of the expert guests from our Race & Fandom series, Amanda-Rae Prescott, brought us a thorough history of racism in period drama fandom, from the almost wholly white casts of earlier decades to both racebent and racially conscious casting in the modern era (culminating, of course, with Bridgerton).
Amid blurry boundaries between fic, celebrity fandom, and conspiracy theories, how real person fiction evolved from forbidden to mainstream
Our April piece was another history: this time of RPF. Sacha Judd traces the shifting attitudes around the practice, and how social media has helped collapse boundaries that make it more exposed (and possibly more controversial) than ever. "We’ve seen a full life-cycle in the acceptance of RPF," she writes, "from something that was once seen as a completely taboo behavior to widespread tolerance and back again."
From photo cards to video art installations, a tour through a recent exhibition showcasing K-pop fans’ communal creativity and cross-cultura
In May, we published a new-to-us format: the virtual art exhibit! Toronto-based curators Rea McNamara and Bo Shin walked us through I came to ruin you: The Collecting Practices of K-pop Fandoms, which was on display at York University in the spring.
For the admins of the Starsky & Hutch Fiction Archive, preserving fanworks and fannish community go hand in hand.
As we headed into summer, we went back to old-school fandom. Jay Castello reported our June piece on the still-active Starsky & Hutch Fiction Archive, and how its mods found the onscreen friendship of the titular characters mirrored their decades-old friendships within the fandom.
Fansplaining’s panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2025, “The Fandom Advantage,” featuring creators of TV, comics, novels, and more.
In July, Fansplaining returned to the place where it was born ten years prior (!): San Diego Comic-Con. This year's panel, "The Fandom Advantage: How Fan Creativity Fuels Pro Entertainment Careers," featured insights from panelists who came up/are still in fandom, but have also worked on fan-favorite titles like SPN, IWTV, The Witcher, Percy Jackson, Star Wars, and much more. Here, you can watch the full video in addition to audio and a transcript.
Writing for Star Wars challenges me to interrogate fandom power dynamics—and figure out where I fall in a rapidly shifting landscape.
One of those SDCC panelists was Tessa Gratton, who's written Star Wars novels in addition to original work (and fic!). Our August piece was their thoughtful essay on navigating the complicated intersections between these spheres. "My most successful moments have come when I acknowledge not only the shifting dynamics between fan and pro writing, but how that shift relates to my queerness—and to fandom as queer space in opposition to power."
Netflix's KPop Demon Hunters has seen massive mainstream success in the U.S. What does that mean for real K-pop artists and their fans?
In September, @bookshop was one of those experienced writers who left a mainstream institution with dwindling culture coverage—so of course we immediately asked if they wanted to write for Fansplaining. The result was this deeply researched analysis of the ascendant Kpop Demon Hunters fandom, and its intersections (or lack thereof) with actual K-pop fandom.
Mary Sues are literary tools like any other. My new comic, Mary Sue, interrogates the continued bias against these characters—and brings one
Another of our SDCC 2025 panelists, @megfitz89, published the first issue of her fanfiction-oriented comic, Mary Sue, in early October. We were lucky enough to be able to feature a few panels from that issue—and get Meghan to write an accompanying essay about the term "Mary Sue" and the genesis of the series.
Aaaand Tumblr apparently has a cap of 10 with these expanded link-preview modules, so check out the reblog for the final pair of stories!
And since we hit Tumblr's link cap 😭 our final two:
Through fandom text-based roleplaying, I’ve lived so many other lives—and experienced so many other bodies.
Our November piece was another personal essay, a beautiful meditation from @honkifurlonely about fandom text-based roleplaying, and using the practice to explore gender. "We share an innate enthusiasm for twisting and shifting the already fictional lives of fictional people. They all know me by a different name—and no one thinks I’m the girl that my family thinks I am."
In an era of overtourism, South Korea’s Jeju Island and international BTS fans are building bridges of mutual respect.
And in December, Kayti Burt returned to Fansplaining to write about fan tourism: the good, the bad, and the vehicle for meaningful cross-cultural exploration. Centered on Purple Festa, a K-pop and K-drama themed event on South Korea's Jeju Island meant to connect pop-culture fans to traditional Korean culture, Kayti explored the ways fans can make fan tourism less extractive and more collaborative.
Thanks again to everyone who helped make these pieces possible—and of course to all our writers for their incredible work!
Lately my weekends have felt like this:
Thursday night: Critical Role - SLAP IN THE FACE
Midnight Friday: Heated Rivalry - SLAP IN THE FACE
Midnight Friday, Pt II: End of an Era - nice warm hug....then SLAP IN THE FACE
December isn't historically the best time of year for new shows but fandom as an entity is thriving right now. My 7+ hours of new media has me racing every weekend trying to keep up.
While CritRole is new-to-me and I'm doing a tough balancing act watching a new double feature length ep almost every week, the biggest surprise was Heated Rivalry (Australia's Crave, distributed by HBO). That it was even like...watchably good.
Listen, I can spot AO3 fic from miles away and when I watched the first two eps of this laudable but shaky translation of propub to screen I was not very impressed. The actors are hot and the tropes are doing their best to break through under (the presumable mountain of) network notes, but it just seemed like TV wasn't the right medium for fic queerness. Shows can be gay, some shows are queer, but historically queer media has an entirely different rhythm and bent than queer fic. The stories and sensibilities live in entirely different universes.
Uhhhh but then episode 4 happened. And my brain got t.A.T.u. worms.
READ THE REST --
Lately my weekends have felt like this:
Thursday night: Critical Role - SLAP IN THE FACE
Midnight Friday: Heated Rivalry - SLAP IN THE FACE
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The Fanthropologist is a newsletter by Lena Barkin. Friday discussion posts are exclusive to paid subscribers on Ghost. If you’d like to support the newsletter, tell your friends, consider leaving a tip, or sign up for a free subscription.
As is tradition in tumblr culture the locals unearth the corpse of a long deceased figure and drag it across the streets merrily, laughing at what is preserved of the person’s words. This custom, seen as morbid in other cultures, is instead done gleefully and with an unmatched enthusiasm
when were all these hockey romances first published because i feel we need to give credit to the og og check please fans please stand up. pretty sure jack zimmerman invented kissing your boyfriend on the ice after you win the stanley cup
