• San Diego Comic-Con appeared to be yet another opportunity for some members of the media to notice that female fans exist in large numbers. The Mary Sue discussed a study showing that women dominated conversations about Comic-Con. "Proving once again that women can in fact be nerds, Networked Insights has analyzed the social media discussion of Comic-Con, and has determined that women are in the majority when it comes to discussing the event. Based on 3.5 million social media conversations, it appears that 54% of the people talking about SDCC related T.V. shows, actors, movies, comics, and other relevant topics were women."
• Forbes provided anecdotal evidence of the same. "Heading to Comic-Con, I expected the massive convention crowd to be heavily male. After all, we’re told again and again that young male teens are the main demographic for these movies. Hollywood puts almost no effort into attracting women or young girls to their biggest blockbusters so why should very many girls make the expensive pilgrimage to San Diego? Instead, the place was swarming with women. It almost seemed like there were more women then men." The conclusion? "There’s a huge untapped market out there for female superheroes."
• Of course when commercial works are targeted at women, it isn't always what one would hope. Starmometer posted about The K-Pop Star and I, which is described as "fan fiction from Lifebooks...a romantic novel that involves two different cultures" and appears to be a self-insert story for music fangirls.

What sorts of things do you think the media misunderstands about fans? Write about them in Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. 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.

• Longtime fans are fairly familiar with the variety of judgments they're subject to for their hobbies, but these don't only come from outside their fandoms. A recent post on Hypable discussed congoing and how it seems a step too far for some. "All this time, I thought the people who went to Harry Potter conventions were weirdos or nerds who didn’t have much else to occupy themselves with. After the trip to the TVD Con in Chicago though, I’m almost in mourning that I missed out on all the early HP conventions. I’ve learned that at these events, you can be a giant nerd if you want to...I’m jealous that I missed the opportunity to go to some of the first conventions, or that I didn’t go to the midnight book release parties, even if I would have been the oldest person there."
• Unleash the Fanboy hosted a post criticizing anger at casting choices. "Predictably, even the hint of casting against type has lead to the repetition of a depressingly familiar conversation, the conversation that happens any time there is a chance of changing a character’s race or gender or sexual orientation or whatever...The more I hear people make this criticism, the more difficult it becomes for me to pretend as if there is anything to it besides an open sewer of raw bigotry." This is because the "characters we love are not solid objects: they are constellations of ideas."
• Of course sometimes assumptions do come from outside fandoms. The UK's Daily Mail discussed another study on gamer demographics which came to the unsurprising conclusion that women spend as much time on games as men, and that gamers are generally older, married, have children, and are socially engaged with others when they game. "A spokesman for Pixwoo.com added: 'This snapshot into the lives of ordinary gamers disputes many myths about the pastime, showing how integrated gaming is into our daily routine.'"
• Writing for Den of Geek Laura Akers examines an episode of Castle to highlight the media's changing approach to geeky pastimes. "Ironically, it is the actors, those who have traditionally profited from but sometimes cruelly patronized geek fans, who are portrayed [in the episode] as dysfunctional (and morally ugly)." She concludes that the Castle writers recognize that "geeks are no longer a marginal group who can be used and then mocked or dismissed. While Fillion is a bonafide geek, he and those like him are simply smart. They recognize that we are now legion—there are enough of us to build a substantial career on."

What points of dispute have you come across in fandom? Write about them in Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. 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.

• A thesis written about the AO3's tagging system "attempts to begin exploring the question of what kind of environment the site's particular blend of open social tagging and some behind-the-scenes vocabulary control, plus hierarchical linking, creates for the users who search through it for fiction." The study, conducted in 2012, had a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods and the survey was completed by 116 people. "The current online information glut calls for some sort of subject labeling to facilitate efficiency in searching, but the volume of information is well beyond a size that could ever be dealt with by information professionals. “Social tagging” is an approach to this problem that lets non-professionals attempt to organize online information via tagging, for their own and one another's use. But social tagging is a new and rapidly evolving field, and so no consensus has yet been reached on its overall usefulness, or on what best practices might be."
• Two rather different stories about fan video game makers were in the news recently. TechDirt summed things up in its post title: "Makers Of Firefly 'Fan-game' Abuse DMCA To Try To Silence Critic". "While I think that these kinds of games should be allowed...it appears that DarkCryo -- a company that is really skirting a pretty fine line concerning copyright -- decided to abuse the DMCA and file a takedown notice on [a critic's] posting of a DarkCryo logo image."
• The other story was a little more typical, discussing how "Hasbro halts production of unauthorized "My Little Pony" video game". "This isn't the first time Hasbro has issued successful takedown notices for clearly illegal uses of its product, or even the first time it's taken down an MLP-inspired game. Previous instances where Hasbro has stepped in include the illegal download website Ponyarchive and the popular, though short-lived,multiplayer game MLP Online. Hasbro also took down the abridged series Friendship is Witchcraft, which should have been protected under under the Fair Use copyright clause afforded to transformative works within the U.S. However, issues of copyright and trademark are separate concerns with separate legal justifications. While Hasbro has so far been tolerant of copyright-protected fanwork such as fanart and fanfiction, it seems to have a rigid policy forbidding reuse of its official images and trademarks."
• Some authors decided to challenge the claims of long dead creators' estates and, as the New York Times pointed out, highlighted a schism in the Sherlock Holmes fandom. "The suit, which stems from the estate’s efforts to collect a licensing fee for a planned collection of new Holmes-related stories by Sara Paretsky, Michael Connelly and other contemporary writers, makes a seemingly simple argument. Of the 60 Conan Doyle stories and novels...only the 10 stories first published in the United States after 1923 remain under copyright. Therefore, the suit asserts, many fees paid to the estate for the use of the character have been unnecessary. But it’s also shaping up to be something of what one blogger called 'a Sherlockian Civil War.'" The battle was laid out as being between the old guard (and, until recently, male only) Baker Street Irregulars versus the Baker Street Babes, "a group of young female Sherlockians who host a regular podcast."

What legal and technology fan stories do you have an interest in? Add them to Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. 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.

• In The birth of a fanboy, writer Larry Sukernik talks about the rationalization people use for their investments in something, as the seed that shifts them from consumer to fan. "[Once] you buy your first iPhone...you’re invested in Apple. Apple’s success is now your success, Apple’s failure is your failure. But why?" The reason is the continuation of the fandom product, because its loss will negatively impact your investment in it. "Not only does that leave you with an abandoned phone, but it also means that you made the incorrect phone choice. You made a bad decision, and you were wrong. Nobody wants to be wrong."
• A look at Girls' Generation fandom also discussed financial investment in a fandom. The group is "enjoyed by people of all walks of life. But within that is where we start to see sharp differences in fans: not in their love, but in their wealth. While there are individuals with high-paying jobs and disposable income, there are also students with nothing but a meager allowance attempting to import relatively expensive albums from halfway across the world. It’s situations like this that make us ask, 'Does merchandise and money spent on the group measure a person’s dedication?'"
• While the creation of fanworks has its costs, these days it increasingly has its rewards as well. Fanfiction contests are fairly common but one held by the Oklahoma City Metropolitan Library has a focus on fan crafts as well. "The contest was started seven years ago by an anime club that met at the library and has grown to more than 100 entries in the two categories" with fan art comprising any non-text entry. "[L]ibrarian John Hilbert said. 'Someone baked a cake in the shape of a cat. We had a tree skirt that ended up winning. It can be any medium as long as it can fit through the door.'"
• Of course these days a fanwork might make money for someone other than the creator. A review of Spank: The Musical, a parody of Fifty Shades of Grey, "pokes fun at James’ writing process and her roots in fan fiction. The musical centers on a woman named E.B. Janet (Suzanne Sole), who spends a weekend penning a steamy love story." The play caters to its "audience of mostly women" with fanservice, even if they don't know the term. "When Hugh performed a Batman-themed strip tease, and E.B. describes him as having the jaw line of, 'a pre-weight gain Val Kilmer,' the audience squawked and squealed. In another scene, Hugh and Tasha play out a 'Home Improvement' skit that E.B. writes as part of the show’s fan fiction while taking a break from her book."

What fanworks, financial issues and fan practices have caught your attention? Tell us about it in Fanlore. Contributions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. 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.