The above are the first half of the slides I presented at GeekGirlCon (along with some annotations to explain things I only said out loud :) ) – for the second half, read more below the cut. I’ll also be sharing the slides from the other presenters here, too, as they’re posted!
The gender representation work is part of a longer analysis that I will be posting in full soon!
Beneath the cut are also a few additional slides that I would have presented with a bit more time – several of which address things that came up in the question session.
My takeaway from this is that fanfic is overwhelmingly written by queer women and that makes me so fucking happy.
And that last graph makes me so fucking sad, PLEASE COMMENT ON FICS. Even if it’s just “I read this and I liked it.” Please, please, please comment.
because AO3 just wrapped up their annual fundraiser, you’re likely to see anti-fanfic (specifically anti-AO3) posts going around. this is your annual reminder that the organization that runs the site is the fan’s greatest ally and makes zero profit
AO3 is completely transparent in their finances - they’re the most important archive of transformative works (fanfic, fanart, etc) in the world, and they’re a nonprofit. here’s their most-current financial info:
https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/22123
they do annual fundraisers to ensure they can run the servers necessary to keep all the archived work online, and have a legion of volunteers (including lawyers who protect against claims by Disney and other DCMA-happy corporations) who keep everything free of advertising and data-collectors
from Naomi Novik’s acceptance speech when the Organization for Transformative Works (@transformativeworks which runs AO3) won the Hugo Award:
AO3 won the 2019 Hugo Award for Best Related Work!
Here’s the speech given by Naomi Novik when the award was accepted:
All fanwork, from fan
“All fanwork, from fanfic to vids to fanart to podfic, centers the idea that art happens not in isolation but in community. And that is true of the AO3 itself. We’re up here accepting, but only on behalf of literally thousands of volunteers and millions of users, all of whom have come together and built this thriving home for fandom, a nonprofit and non-commercial community space built entirely by volunteer labor and user donations, on the principle that we needed a place of our own that was not out to exploit its users but to serve them.”
so when you see antis badmouthing AO3 and calling the volunteers who run it greedy or whatever, remember that antis are largely the same TERFs and puritans who have been trying to silence all progressive and LGBTQ voices online
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