That would be pretty cruel right? So why is it okay to do that to fanfic authors? Imagine if a bunch of strangers came to your yoga class and started laughing at your attempts to master that new pose. It’s the same as joining an amateur sports league or gardening or knitting or whatever else you do in your spare time for fun. Although some fanfic authors write professionally as well, that doesn’t change the fact that the practice of writing fanfiction is essentially a hobby. I don’t mean that to suggest that they lack talent or knowledge, I just mean that is not for profit it’s purely for fun. Generally, the fanfic found online – the stuff that Chris Gore was planning on making fun of – is written by amateurs. They both involve outsiders taking fanfic out of context and judging it publicly. The problems with both the fanfic course and the WonderCon event are fairly obvious. The same contradiction can be found in the WonderCon controversy as the fangirls from defective Geeks* were involved in the event. Which is why it was so shocking to discover that a number of people taking the class were from the fanfic community. Not only is that bad academic practice – you don’t just jump into the community you’re studying and tell them what they’re doing wrong – but it also goes against everything fanfiction is about. The actual fanfiction course in itself is not really the issue, but asking a group of outsiders to directly critique the work of a bunch of hobbyists is genuinely awful. We could just wait for it to happen again, or we can ask ourselves why people keep talking about fanfiction like this, and how we can change the conversation.Ī few of weeks ago there was a similar controversy when a class about fanfic at the University of California, Berkeley asked students to leave a critical review on each of the fanfics they read. In fact, it seems to be happening more and more. The event has since been cancelled due to t he understandable uproar from the fanfiction community, but it’s not the first time fanfiction has been exploited in this way. An event called “Fanfic Theater with Chris Gore” was announced as part of WonderCon’s schedule and it’s as bad as it sounds basically the plan was for a bunch of comedians and TV personalities to do a live read of “the weirdest and wildest” fanfiction on the Internet, which is basically just public bullying under the guise of humor. There has been yet another disastrous attempt to capitalize on fanfiction’s increasing visibility because apparently it’s hilarious to make fun of someone’s hobby.
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