• In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, producer Jeff Eastin discussed fanfiction ships and their influence on his work. "White Collar still wins in terms of fan fiction, but I've seen quite a bit of fan fiction directed at Graceland. The Mike-Charlie 'ship seems to be very popular and after that it shifted pretty quickly to Mike and Paige, which was nice to see...I had heard of fan fiction but I never saw the extent that people went to. (Laughs.) Somebody on Twitter sent me a link to some of the better White Collar fan fiction, and once in a while, I'll check it out and see what people are saying. It's really fascinating to me and it's an interesting subculture that arises on a lot of these shows. In my opinion, if you have people who are [taking part], you've made it."
• Britt Julious of WBEZ wrote about engaging in Scandal fandom through Twitter. "According to a 2009 study from the Pew Research Center’s Pew Internet and American Life Project, Twitter users are more likely to be African-American women. As well, according to a report from the New York Times of Nielsen ratings, 'Scandal is the highest rated scripted drama among African-Americans, with 10.1 percent of black households, or an average of 1.8 million viewers, tuning in during the first half of the season.'" Thus while the fandom can be seen among different generations in a household "My timeline explodes with chatter about the show, its characters, the clothing, and the music as it airs."
• Julious also mentions Sleepy Hollow, whose fandom is growing quickly. "For a show that has only been on the air for four weeks—the fifth episode airs tonight—Sleepy Hollow's fan base is loud. That's, at least, what you would assume from the decibel level during the show's New York Comic Con panel." Actor Orlando Jones has been particularly engaged with the fandom, saying during the panel "'Fan art rocks! Who ships Ichabbie?' to rich crowd approval...The importance of shipping to the fan base was confirmed further when the next question came from someone who began, 'So if you’ve been paying attention at all to the Tumblr phenomenon of Sleepy Hollow, Icabbie is a huge deal.'"
• Meanwhile the Harry Potter fandom continues to make news with its lobbying of Warner Brothers. Bustle wrote about the chocolate campaign. "There's always been an oft-spoken of symbiotic relationship between fans and the studios responsible for creating the work those fans love. There's also been an underlying tension. They create the work (or at least bring it to us), yes; but they're also the ones responsible for messing them up. And there are many scenarios that can carry the weight of this tension: The blundering of a book's canon, the mistreatment of a character, the failure of a studio to fully grasp the thematic elements that first made the source material so special, the list goes on and on. Each error can isolate the fan communities huddled around these works, particularly when that bungling of philosophy extends past the films themselves and into the marketing products sold and used in the real world."

What examples have you seen of fandoms making themselves heard? Write about it on 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.

• Entertainment Weekly kicked off a new pop-culture-related column with a look at TV show finales and cited former OTW board member Francesca Coppa. "Mentally, it is difficult to imagine someone from the 50s declaring themselves a 'fan' of a TV show the way someone self-identifies as a 'Fan' of Walking Dead or Vampire Diaries or Firefly or, hell, NCIS: LA. This is partly because we inaccurately agree that TV wasn’t as good in the ’50s and partly because we assume people in the ’50s had better things to do...But modern fandom has roots in that time period. Francesca Coppa’s fascinating essay 'A Brief History of Media Fandom' (available in the Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet) traces our contemporary idea of media fandom — fan clubs, fanfiction, fan conventions — to a pair of TV shows from the 1960s: Star Trek and The Man from U.N.C.L.E."
• As a possible example of the fan complaints cited in the EW piece, Hypable jumped on the criticism by Once Upon a Time fandom about poor marketing efforts by its network. "ABC has had to pull back the Once Upon a Time season 3 cast photos due to unexpected fandom backlash. Once Upon a Time fans love their show and its characters, and have reportedly responded so negatively to the season 3 cast photoset that ABC has pulled the photographs from their press site."
• The EW piece was not flattering to fandom, but writing in Flavor Wire Jason Diamond dismisses Jillian Cantor’s Margot as fanfiction, as if that were equivalent with poor taste. "Shalom Auslander, in 2012′s Hope: A Tragedy, wrote a book that I consider in even poorer taste, placing a still-alive Anne Frank in the modern-day attic of somebody’s house, trying to squeeze humor from this Philip Rothian plot device. Like Cantor, and unlike Mangum’s album or Quentin Tarantino’s fictional Jewish revenge film Inglourious Basterds, his book upset me because it trivialized, rather than made moving art in tribute to, the real lives of Holocaust victims."
• Perhaps this negativity explains why, in this ABC piece Cafe Tacvba Fans Downplay Their Fandom, though the reporter concludes otherwise. "Eager to collect fandom statements on what makes a Cafeta fan a real, super, ultimate fan, I flew into New York City from Miami to attend its Monday night concert. Being a fan for the past 15 years and this probably being my 25th time going to a Cafe Tacvba show, I thought I was a super fan. But after talking to folks, I wonder if I'm committed enough to call myself one. There, I was not able to find anyone who would even self-identify as a "super fan"...Turns out Cafe Tacvba fans are so devoted to them, they believe they are not worthy of their fandom. They downplay their devotion, because proclaiming they are Cafe Tacvba super fans would entail great responsibility."

What fandom criticisms have you seen? Write about it on 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.

Welcome to our Events Calendar roundup for the month of October! The Events Calendar can be found on the OTW website and is open to submissions by anyone with news of an event. These can be viewed by event type, such as Academic Events, Fan Gatherings, Legal Events, OTW Events, or Technology Events taking place around the world.

• Festivids is a yearly small-fandom giftvid exchange. It's modeled on Yuletide; every vidder signs up with fandoms they request, and fandoms they can offer. Each vidder receives a secret assignment and makes a giftvid for their recipient. The vids are posted anonymously in January, and after two weeks, the identities of the vidders are revealed.
  Signups to participate run from October 10 through October 20.

  More about Festivids on Fanlore

We have six calls for papers this month.

• Loncon 3 is looking for academic papers to reflect the history and population of London, the host city. The theme of the academic programme is ‘Diversity’. We will be exploring science fiction, fantasy, horror, and all forms of speculative fiction, whether in novels, comics, television, and movies or in fanworks, art, radio plays, games, advertising, and music. Submissions are due 1 October 2013 with notification by 31 December 2013. A 300 word abstract should be sent to emma.england[at]loncon3.org.
• International Journal of Audience Research: “Masters of the Universe: World-Building and World-Exploring is interested in a mapping of specific communities and their rich relationships with world-building. Any medium (or combination thereof) that engages with story-worlds and world-building: examples include prose fiction, comic books, TV, film, theme parks. Proposals will be considered depending upon their validity for audience studies. Abstracts of 350 words are to be forwarded by October 31st, 2013.
• In the contemporary media landscape the fan is an active player who participates, creates and collaborates in the construction of any type of media content. Through a multidisciplinary approach to Fandom Studies,V Congreso Internacional Latina de Comuncación Social in Tenerife, Spain aims to explore questions such as: What is the role of fans in the commercial communication of brands? In which ways can the fandom of a particular fictional work contribute to the expansion of the original text? What types of works and sources are used by fans in order to construct their own messages? The deadline for the submission of abstracts is the 31st October, 2013. If you are interested, please send a 300-word abstract with your name and university affiliation to jlozano@uloyola.es.
• This special issue of Journal of Fandom Studies responds to the well-established and global subculture of fans of Korean popular music (K-pop) and Korean television drama (K-drama) and seeks to examine the uniqueness of K-pop and K-drama fandoms and their contribution to global fandom scholarship. Deadline for submission of Abstracts is 31 October 2013. For more information see the Call for Papers.
• SW Popular Culture and American Culture Association Conference is looking for papers on any aspect of stardom or fandom and also, specifically on topics related to Doctor Who and Torchwood. Deadline for 250 word proposals is November 1st.

The OTW encourages anyone to submit an event that's not already listed, and to check out the events calendar throughout the year!

• The Oxford Student wrote about the boom in Night Vale fandom. "Radio drama is more than just a lost art, a piece of nostalgia left behind from days before television and the internet...With the low budget, there are no necessary expectations that the project will bring home the bacon. This leaves a wide open field for the industry to take risks with new, even first-time writers...co-creator, Joseph Fink...says in an interview...that it is the best time in history to be an artist of any kind...Monetary satisfaction aside, it has never been easier to have your creations seen, read, or heard by other people."
• While the availability of porn within fanfiction often prevented its open discussion, its existence reveals what mainstream media hasn't provided. "The overwhelming popularity of women's erotic literature, illustrated by the recent worldwide best seller 'Fifty Shades of Grey' by EL James and the flourishing women's fan fiction community from which it emerged, proves that there is great demand among women for explicit sexual representations. Millions of female readers embraced the 'Fifty Shades of Grey' trilogy...not for its depiction of oppression, but for its exploration of erotic freedom. Female-authored erotica and pornography speaks to fantasies women actually have, fantasies that are located in a world where women must negotiate power constantly, including in their imaginations and desires."
• Fandom gatherings have become the new way to market content that lacks visibility in the media. Writing about an author's fan con for NPR, Petra Mayer talked to Random House's PR reps about why this is. "Though Macomber sells millions, it's mostly through word of mouth. You won't find her in The New York Review of Books. Instead, women like Banas devour the books and then share them with friends and family — which is why Macomber's publisher thought a weekend-long party might be a good way to attract some mainstream media attention. 'For certain authors who have large fanbases and write certain kinds of books, maybe books that tend to be more commercial, the review coverage — or some of the space in traditional media — isn't always there.'"
• While being "non-commercial" means that certain works will never be mainstream, it doesn't mean that mainstream outlets aren't getting a clue about how to find an audience.

What formerly non-commercial works have you seen enter mass media? Write 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.