Here's a roundup of stories explaining fandom that might be of interest to fans:

• As awareness of fandoms and the fandom market grows in the commercial sector, the media has followed suit, offering posts that "explain fandom" to their users. In some cases the financial motivation is obvious, such as this CNBC article informing the public that Bieber is passe while Kpop may be the new cash cow. In others, the fan practices are explored as a form of community reporting, looking at those activities in isolation.
• More thoughtful discussions are rarer but exist, such as this patient exploration of fanfic in the Wall Street Journal which explains fanfic to a reader who apparently missed its recent three pronged feature on the topic. The Kansas City Star included commentary from the OTW's Francesca Coppa in its fanfic discussion, who summed things up nicely by saying "“We may have momentarily forgotten that this is how literature works, people telling stories over and over again and changing them,” Coppa said. “Fan fiction is where non-commercial storytelling lives.”"
• But the mass media isn't the only source of fandom explanations. There's always a more academic approach, such as this look at Olympic memes or the IDEA Channel's latest fanworks segment looking at fanfic activity through history. And nowadays there are entire academic courses to explain fanworks, such as the one at Yale which has students "writing their own fan fiction and analysing existing fan fiction."
• Then there are the introductions done on a more fan-to-fan level such as this introduction to Korean dramas on The Learned Fangirl, or this Q&A with a maker of fan films. Indeed, introductions and explanations can be a part of overall fannish discourse such as this series on fan practices.

If you've got your own fandom explanations to share, why not share them on Fanlore? Additions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, event, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent Links Roundup. Links are welcome in all languages! Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

Here's a roundup of fanworks making the news stories that might be of interest to fans:

• While there are still plenty of stories in the media that take the "weirdness" angle to discussing fanworks, as fan creativity become more and more visible online there are an increasing number of stories that take a more admiring approach. For example, Visual News looks at fan movie remixes, and Comics Alliance looks at the artistic range of Emily Partridge's fan art, while io9 focuses on the Sew Nerdy gallery show.
• Then there are the posts that take a second look past first impressions. In The London Evening Standard, a piece on fanfic takes a rather lazy look at fandom categories on Fanfiction.net but concludes, "On my visit, I found nothing that risked brilliance, even basic competence. As a glimpse into the recesses of the human imagination, however, it is awe-inspiring, like The Library of Babel in Borges’s story, which contains every single book imaginable...Suddenly, anything seems possible in publishing."
• Indeed some writers go farther in noticing the important sort of commentary that can be found in fanworks which is too often overlooked. This may range from simply highighting a fannish remix to taking to task its detractors, as blogger s.e. smith does in "What’s With the Fanfic to Book Hate?". "Many people involved in the discussion swirling around books like these seem unaware of the cultural and social attitudes underlying the way they frame these works. This refusal to interrogate the source of their attitudes means that they miss out on a much deeper conversation; if everyone’s fixated on the ‘ew, gross, trashy, for women’ factor, they can’t have an honest discussion about the actual content of the books. Refusing to acknowledge that fanfiction does have a place in the literary canon, and that it is creative, means missing out on a huge and fascinating community...Many of these critics haven’t read a single word of fanfic, and they’re letting the male literary establishment tell them how to react to it?"

If you're into fanworks for criticism to squee or anything in between, why not write about it in Fanlore? Additions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, event, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent Links Roundup at transformativeworks.org. Links are welcome in all languages! Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

Here's a roundup of stories on the stifling of fan production that might be of interest to fans:

• In "A ‘Trek’ Script Is Grounded in Cyberspace," The New York Times discusses the case of well known sci-fi writer Norman Spinrad's unproduced 1967 script for Star Trek being resurrected by the fan-produced Web series, “Star Trek New Voyages: Phase II.” Unfortunately CBS, the current rights-holder to Trek, barred the script from being produced, and is currently negotiating with Spinrad to sell licensed copies of the script. The article's author nicely sums up the core conflict for fans: "At issue is the extent to which fans can participate in a franchise that has yielded more than $4 billion in merchandising as well as 11 feature-length movies that have grossed some $1.5 billion."
• However, toymakers can apparently be more difficult to deal with than movie studios. In a rather bizarre case, an Australian hobbyist blogger was apparently tricked by an offer of free merch from Hasbro employees into giving up his street address, which the blogger believes the Hasbro legal team then used to send him a cease and desist about photos on his site of an unreleased Nerf gun, insisting that he reveal the photos' source. Though the blogger refused to give up his source and informed the Hasbro lawyer that said photos were easily accessible via a targeted Web search, Hasbro followed up with concerns about his access to other unreleased products, and then allegedly sent a private investigator or lawyer to confront him about the photos and products. Hasbro has also upset Transformers fans with their decision to restrict fan art being sold at BotCon 2012. As one fan commented, "It sounds to me like Botcon is eating itself. What was a fan con became a company convention and is now a corporate presentation that we are graciously allowed to pay to attend."
• For fans who have never profited from their fan works, the Transformers case may seem out-of-touch, but it isn't always rights-holders crushing fan spirits. A story that celebrates fan art, "Fan Fiction Meets Graphic Design in the Groovy Online Subculture of 'Alternative Movie Posters'" nonetheless distinguishes between alternative movie posters, "unimaginative commercial posters," and "the creepy/sad DIY fan art thriving on the Internet" of the Mary Sue variety.
• At least some artists not only recognize the value of remixing works, but also welcome what it says about their art. In this video, Gwen Seemel notes that not all art gets copied, and that which does is more likely to endure. What's more, no copy copies exactly, and copying isn't predictive of her own future work. (No transcript available).

If you are a Star Trek or Transformers fan or a creator of fan art, why not write about it in Fanlore? Additions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, event, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent Links Roundup — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. Links are welcome in all languages!

Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

Here's a roundup of stories on music fandom that might be of interest to fans:

• Beatles fan Scott Freiman created several presentations on the band, and the latest "Looking Through a Glass Onion: Deconstructing The Beatles' White Album" was recently shown in Schenectady, NY. Looking "is a multimedia exploration of the influential band's eponymous 1968 album" and the presentations began "for my friends, but I've since discovered there's a huge audience hungry to know about this stuff, from 5-year-old kids to 80-year-old grandparents."
• While Freiman's work focused on the band, Do It Again is a film about the fandom of the Beatles' contemporaries, The Kinks. The fan documentary explores the journey of Geoff Edgers, a major Kinks fan and the film’s screenwriter, and what fandom is about. Edgers funded the film from various sources including fans. David Plunkert, an award-winning illustrator and graphic designer, volunteered his services for the “Do It Again” poster wholly because he wanted to draw The Kinks. The film's focus was originally the band, but after the frontman, Ray Davies, avoided participation, the focus shifted to the band's fandom. "In the end, it became the great Kinks fan movie. Here’s my approach — Michael Moore might attack a resistant subject. I stepped away and have respect," Plunkert said. "Ambush Ray? No way. I’m a fan, not a stalker or Mike Wallace."
• The Korea Herald focused on fans as well, in this case classical music fandom. "Such fandom is changing the country’s classical music scene, creating a new audience base and also boosting CD sales" making Korea a draw for international artists. Classical music sales are largely in trouble "not only because of falling interests in the genre but also the rapidly growing online music market." Yet the reception in Korea is different. "This kind of fandom culture does not exist in other countries. And this is why they want to come back to Korea to feel the energy from the Korean audience."
• Lastly, crossover fans of comics and musicals have something to look forward to: Holy Musical Batman!, "a fan-made musical featuring everyone’s favorite Dark Knight".

If you are a music or comics fan, why not write about it in Fanlore? Additions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, event, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent Links Roundup — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. Links are welcome in all languages!

Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.