• Media studies professor Henry Jenkins posted a three part discussion of Chinese fan culture at his blog. He interviews Xiqing Zheng, a PhD candidate studying the topic, asking such questions as: "You suggest that Chinese fans often see themselves as belonging to an elite group. In some other parts of the world, fans are considered anything but because of the low cultural status of the materials they embrace. In what ways have Chinese Otaku sought to legitimate their interests and activities through appeals to elite cultural status?"
• NPR suggested that Netflix will change TV viewing because releasing a full season all at once will change "[t]he way we talk about what we watch, the way we share, the way reviewers critique shows, and even the ad model -- everything will have to change." The discussion focused largely on the commercial interests of ad sellers and critics. Left out of the discussion is how many fans around the world have binge watched seasons since the days of sharing shows through videotape, often cross-nationally when shows were not available in their viewing areas, and how this helped create wider communities around the shows.
• Writing at AfterEllen, Dana Piccoli discussed femslash ships in European shows. "One thing I’ve learned during my travels as a gay lady is that if there is lesbian content somewhere, lesbians will find it. If there were a show with a lesbian character being broadcast solely from the North Pole, there would be an Olivia cruise ship full of lesbians on its way there right now."
• AlJazeera's show The Stream aired an episode asking "Can online fandom make the world a better place?" Former board member Francesca Coppa was among the guests who discussed fan activism and online mobilization. Although no transcript is available, the episode has a Storify page.

What stories can you tell about fandom around the world? Post 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.

• After Ellen focused on femslash shipping. "The term femslash can be applied to really any female romantic/sexual pairing between characters, even OTPs, but its original purpose was as a reference to alternative lesbian romances based on subtext. Crackships, which is frankly just fun to say, are pairings that are very unlikely to ever occur. In a nutshell, it comes down to the difference between subtext and pure, fun fantasy."
• Meanwhile Neon Tommy talked about fan relationships when they gather into fandoms. "In spite of the differences, petty feuds, ship wars, emotional turmoil and cyclical upheaval, fandoms exist to fulfill the desire for a community of peers and equals who share similar passions. But like a man, no fandom is an island." Instead they grow, shrink, merge and cross over. "Tenuous connections between families are created—"Firefly" and "The Avengers" are connected through Joss Whedon; actors and writers and directors cross over and expand the fandoms, bringing in new ideas and new points of view. New fans should not be excluded; rather, it should be the opposite. New fans keep the fandom's population up; but also, it prevents stagnation." And always important to keep in mind: "Even if your fandom isn't as well-known or visible as another, it's still fantastic, and, more importantly, it's yours."
• Conversely Leverage actress Gina Bellman wrote in The Guardian about a fandom family from the celebrity side. "By seasons four and five, there was a constant flow of tweets, videos and photos posted from the set, trailers, writers' room, costume fittings and even the catering tent. Nowhere was out of bounds. We would gather in the studio to view the fan videos, made in homage to favourite characters or story lines. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of Leverage fan vids are posted on YouTube, some of them expertly edited little treasures in their own right and receiving up to 40,000 hits...At some point, we started referring to fans by their names and avatars."
• Instead of using the family metaphor, The Atlantic chose religion when discussing sports fandom. "Durkheim, a pioneering sociologist, began digging through accounts of 'primitive' cultures like the Arunta tribe of Australia, hoping to excavate the ancient source of ties that bind. His conclusion—as revealed in The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life—remains as profound and relevant today as it is elegantly simple: Whenever a society (or, here, sports subculture) worships a divine form, it is, in fact, also simultaneously worshipping itself." Fandom objects are totems and "totems, while 'officially' symbolizing deities, also implicitly offer vessels for fellowship; licenses to congregate together." An article released the same day on Deadspin showed how Facebook data could provide an NFL fandom map.

What femslash, OTP, shipping, ship war, or Jossverse story do you have to share? 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.

• While there have been a number of comedy troupes around the world doing shows based on fanfic readings, they have largely used fanfic written specifically for the shows by the performers themselves. A recent review of Black Swan Comedy in Toronto, a monthly comedy series focusing on fan fiction, made clear that the performers were reading material pulled from online sources instead. "'We find the best/worst fan fiction. We'll read it once to know that it's perfectly bad at the start, and then find out how horrible it is on stage together with the audience,' says Jeremy Woodcock of Rulers of the Universe." There was an aftershow by the Weaker Vessels which was labeled "a Harry Potter fan fic" making it unclear if it was simply a show based on Harry Potter or one which specialized in reading only from that fandom. Apparently the shortcut is doing well for Black Swan Comedy as the readings are a "sold-out event every month."
• A recent story at The Daily Dot on finding community through porn gives only passing mention to written material, which perhaps explains why there is an assumption that such communities are a recent development thanks to the mainstreaming of porn. "The shock value and taboo is dissipating, and the more it does, the more porn appears. But do we understand why the rise of the group mentality in porn? Why porn consumers no longer want to be alone, but rather want to belong—to other like-minded porn consumers, and to make small talk and chat about their interests?" While the article acknowledges that women have their own communities -- "Slate writer Amanda Hess points out that 'Women who engage effectively online can find resources for critically assessing [pornography’s] most sexist tropes, join communities that don’t share those norms, and benefit from a kind of increased sexual mobility they can’t always find in real life'" -- it doesn't explore their history.
• Another Daily Dot story instead focused on deliberate invisibility -- or at least an attempt to maintain a fourth wall. "In the world of theatre, the ‘fourth wall' refers to the invisible wall that divides the characters from the audience. In fanwork-based fandom, the fourth wall refers to the invisible 'wall' of silence, pseudonyms, and covert activity that shields fans from the judgment of the outside world." However, fandoms do not react in unison to outside observation, nor are the outsiders always negative about their discoveries, even when it's about themselves. "This isn't the first time Seguin and his fellow hockey players have found slash about themselves. In July, Toronto Marlies hockey player Jesse Blacker tweeted a link to adorable fanart of himself and Segs, calling it 'awesome.'" Cult film director Duncan Jones was delighted by finding fanfiction of his work. "'Wow! I did not know about this!' responded a delighted Jones. After sharing the link with his Twitter followers, Jones followed it to an AO3 fic with 'lots of robo-feels and some clone hugging.' After reading, he left a thoughtful and flattered review for the author, Wildgoosery."

What fandom invisibility problems have you encountered? What fan collaborations have you taken part in? 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.

• One of the most discussed problems in fandom recently has been the "fake nerd girl" meme and it's not just women who are getting fed up about it. In the past month a number of male columnists have taken to task fellow fans about their negative behavior, whether through outright condemnation, by teaching-through-sarcasm, or simply trying to change the options a woman has. In a recent post one columnist noted "My sister and I, despite both being very geeky, are very different in how we approach it. Both of us love Horror, Disney, and roleplaying. However she is not a comic book fan and I am not into fanfiction...Now a gatekeeper is going to say that she is wrong. She needs to appreciate the Avengers for its appeal to the comic fans and that legacy and enjoying stories about Tony and Steve adopting Peter Parker is wrong and should be shunned." He closes with a particularly incisive reminder about how this behavior is fostered by the very industries people are fans of, by featuring a copy of a prominent ad in a Batman issue which depicted a female fan as one of the "Greatest Villains of Nerd Culture."
• At SB Nation Cliff Corcoran wrote about a different way in which being too close to the industry of one's fandom can be a negative thing. "Along the way...[m]y Yankee fandom began to fade. The reasons for this were diverse...but they include [f]amiliarity breeds contempt...They say if you love something set it free. I went the opposite route and smothered it until it stopped breathing." In addition, "Would I feel different if the move to the new stadium hadn't cost me my bleacher ticket package? Would I feel different if I had been shown more respect by the team in my capacity as a blogger? Would I feel different if I hadn't heard horror stories from peers who worked for the team in non-media capacities? It's hard to say, but those things certainly helped to tip the balance."
• Gatekeeping behavior isn't just performed by the industry or copied from it however. While politics can be the playground for some people's fandom, in The Daily Dot, Aja Romano wrote about how "[t]he touchiest subject in fandom isn’t about creepy pairings, odd kinks, or terribly written erotica. It’s politics." She cited several points of contention beginning with "a LiveJournal community called Wizards for Bush. The community, which is still active, had only a small number of supporters, but even so, some members of fandom, astonished to find members of their communities joining the group, unleashed anger and mockery upon those who did so. “For those Americans in fandom who follow a different political leaning than liberal-democratic,” wrote sidewinder in a post about the incident on Fanhistory, “Fandom can become a rather unfriendly place for the months leading up to the actual election, as the common assumption seems to become ‘you’re either with us politically, or you’re not one of us at all.’”

If you have stories about gatekeeping in 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.