• Although there's been a lot of talk recently regarding fanfic authors going pro, there's been less focus on fan video makers. Tessa Stuart wrote in L.A. Weekly about Machinima's overreaching contracts with fan producers on YouTube. "Over the last two years, YouTube has quietly transformed from the province of amateurs to an increasingly cutthroat ecosystem where everyone — stars, networks, advertisers — is competing for views, viewers and view time." As a result "Internet and intellectual-property lawyers say that a rash of public disputes between networks and their talent suggests a serious problem in the emerging industry." The article talks about the origins of the machinima community and how the practice was co-opted by for-profit entities. One of the latest is a new organization called Union for Gamers. "Everyone in Union for Gamers, Duncan says, would be entitled to the same CPM, which would be raised every year. Gamers no longer would be forced into restrictive contracts — union members would have the right to leave whenever they saw fit. He promises 'resources to help people create better videos,' adding, 'and we'll do the labor, the administration and ad-serving side, allowing them to monetize their content.'"
• An AP article on Nerdist described the site as "the purest expression of fanboy-ism" following "a kind of manifesto...of an 'artful nerd' — one whose fandom isn't merely critical and passive, but is passionately proactive." The analogy to a growing empire seems apt, "As Hardwick says, there's something of 'a land grab with nerd culture right now'" and they are following it with podcasts, a YouTube channel, book, talk show, etc. "Nerds can be out about the stuff that they love without as much as the stigma against it as when I was growing up," says Hardwick. "I just want people to feel OK about what they love. Unless that thing is murder and you're a Murder Nerd."
• Writing for New Republic, Marc Tracy talks about the effect of gambling on sports fandom. "I am a football obsessive. I’m also something of a purist. Not counting fantasy football and March Madness pools, I had made maybe four sports bets in my life until last month, when I decided to bet throughout the NFL playoffs. I wanted to see if, as I’d long believed, betting distorts one’s appreciation of the game; if the psychic benefits outweighed the costs, literal or otherwise; and if I could balance one type of entertainment (elite competition) with another (risking money)." He found "Nothing is as bewitching as money. When it’s at risk, your mind can think of nothing else...There was great football being played, and here I was thinking about money—not even money that I had risked, but rather money that I had not risked." His conclusion? "Our pastimes, whatever they may be, should be sacrosanct. They are part of why we go to work, save money, and take time for ourselves."

What commercialization of fandom stories do you have to tell? 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.

• Hollywood.com recently decided to look more deeply at the different strains of Twilight fandom and identified people who were fans of the books, fans of the movies, fans of the genre, and fans of the fandom. "Speaking with fans, it’s clear that their interest in this franchise is not always as reductive as oiled young abs and sinful enjoyment of B-cinema. Their passionate, earnest reasons for counting themselves a part of this fanbase may not sway you to either Team Edward or Team Jacob, but at least the fandom no longer seems as frighteningly foreign."
• A similar look at the competing strains of a fandom appeared in a much more indirect way at Criminal Element, with Lyndsay Faye writing about the Clear Distinction Between Fandom and the Baker Street Irregulars. "I trust that this article clears up any remaining confusion regarding the word fandom, and its woeful inexactitude when characterizing the Baker Street Irregulars. I likewise hope I have assured the reader the BSI cannot be both a respected literary society and a fandom, any more than Australia can be both a continent and an island. One earnestly hopes that this will settle the matter for good and all, and we can move on to other, better topics."
• The Learned Fangirl looked at a movie about K-pop fandom because "there aren’t nearly enough pop culture examples that are from the perspective of fangirls. Fortunately, there is Answer Me 1997 (2012), a Korean drama, half-set in 1997, the starting point for K-pop’s unending hallyu wave of manufactured groups. This is a show for present or former fangirls of music — from Beatlemaniacs through the Metallica/Megadeth fan battles to those with Bieber fever."
• Meanwhile in China, a look at the fandom of textbook characters is to see a new generation at play. "Such a large scale of nostalgia probably can only happen in China – if the post-80s generation was not the first only-child generation, if they haven’t lived through China’s sea changes in the past 20 years, if they are perfectly happy with their adult life now...Like the lyrics in song “Li Lei and Han Meimei” go, “The happiness and sorrows in textbooks, the right and wrongs outside of textbooks…like Li Lei and Han Meimei, we all live in a future that we would never have thought of before.”"

If you have stories exploring fans and fandom, why not share them 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.

• The media has apparently decided that there are women in fandom -- a lot of them even! One of the latest features to announce this information appeared in Time Magazine, which unfortunately focused more on how their presence is controversial rather than how their contributions are awesome. But it did counter the idea that female fandom is a novel occurrence. "Karen Healey suggests that “many fandoms have been primarily female (often white, middle-class, straight, cisgendered women — but again, not exclusively) spaces for a very long time, often co-existing beside primary male fandoms for the exact same media. Women in the ’80s were trading stories and arguing about the plot arcs of Star Trek and Dr. Who, much as they do now.” That’s a point that writer and editor Rachel Edidin agrees with. “Modern fan culture has always been female-driven,” she says. “The ferocity with which people engage and identify with fictional media and build subcultures around it seems to develop in inverse proportion to their social power. There’s a case to be made for the intensity of women and girls’ engagement in fandom — especially narrative and/or direct-engagement fandom like fan fiction or cosplay — as a cultural underclass co-opting a dominant narrative in which they’re overwhelmingly underrepresented as both creators and characters.”
• Features about female majority fandoms do seem to be multiplying. Writing for Grantland, reporter Sam Lansky discussed his experiences with K-Pop fandom. "The term “idol” correlates with the tendency toward celebrity apotheosis worldwide, but in the States, it’s rare to find anyone other than Ryan Seacrest use it to describe a pop star, since I don’t know that American fans care as much about idolatry so much as they care about themselves. Consider the instances of stalking, hacking, and B&Es targeting celebrities in the Western world...All of these aims are ultimately selfish ones, crassly commercial or materialistic. For the sasaeng fans, the business of deifying K-pop stars serves no indirect function: The lawless obsession isn’t a means to an end, it’s an end itself."
• Meanwhile at The Awl, Rachel Monroe takes a look from the inside rather than the outside at celebrity fandoms. "The crush was a private thing that happened in my room, but it was also a shared activity between friends...Our crushes weren't about anything as simple as attainability, or kissing. You couldn't take Paul McCartney to the homecoming dance; the very idea was absurd, because the homecoming dance was an absurd nothing, especially when compared with the immensity and violence of our feelings. My mom should've understood. At the Beatles' 1966 concert in Chicago, she'd had to slap my Aunt Martha hard to get her to stop from screaming herself into a faint. From the teenyboppers to the Beliebers, teenage girls have been mocked for their crushes, but that scorn is just a shoddy mask for the anxiety these crushes inspire."
• In writing about the strategy of promoting fantasy sports to its fans, FOXSports writer Reid Forgrave suggests women respond to fandoms differently. "The NFL knows what it’s doing here. Its embrace of fantasy football...gives fans a sense of control over this sport where many of us are priced out of attending more than a game or two a year." And “[o]nce you were able to create a competition within a competition, you brought those niche audiences to your television to watch your product,” said Ryan Fowler, the FOXSports.com fantasy editor. “That’s where it changed, where you were able to get women to see what the guys liked about it.”"
• Women are also making gains in being recognized on the professional side. The Mary Sue noticed that half the Hugo Award winners were women this past year, including the winners for best fan artist and best fancast.

If you have things to say about female fandom, why not write something for 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.

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

• Following the shootings at a Batman screening in the U.S., various commentators used the incident to express concern with fannish extremes. The conversation of two journalists in The Sacramento Press took a look at how changing factors in entertainment news has made cult project fandom closer to that of sports fandom. "[N]ow if you’re a big fan of a project for whatever reason, it’s not just about how well it’s produced, it’s about how it stacks up against other projects as measured at the box office. After all, the deep, quality dramas have their awards shows to separate out the wheat from the chaff, but the giant effect-laden comic book and action movies are rated by their fans in the box office competition – and it’s just like a sport with home teams and rivalries." This means that "[n]ow a bad review might put somebody off seeing a movie and actually hurt your favorite project in terms of long term box office performance, rankings, and subsequently its perceived success and status in the pantheon of movies. And god forbid a bad “The Dark Knight Rises” review helps “The Amazing Spider-man” or “Avengers” look like better movies as a result. Suddenly it’s personal and people care unduly what others think."
• In some cases it seems that it's Hollywood creators who don't consider what people might think. Author Cassandra Clare cared rather a lot that the film version of her Mortal Instruments series might be whitewashed. "I have gotten many letters over the years from readers who are happy that Magnus is not white, that Jem is not white, that Maia is not white, that Aline is not white. The fact is that most parts in books are for straight white folks and even more so in films. There are not that many parts for actors who are not white — even less substantive ones. Taking those things away by casting Magnus as white and talking about him as white does cause actual pain to actual people — and to what end? Why? Why send the message you only want to read about white people and only want to see white people on your screens?" A recent incident involving Teen Wolf creator Jeff Davis suggests this doesn't need to be an intentional message.
• A different Teen Wolf controversy revolved around media choices of who constitutes a couple, leading site After Elton to host its own favorite slash couples contest with the caveat that they could only be fanon couples. An article on what they termed slashwink made it clear that they know their audience.

If you're a slasher, concerned about fannish extremes, or have something to say about whitewashing, share your experiences on Fanlore! Contributions 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.