āLarge fandomsāthings like Doctor Who, or Supernatural, or Star Trek, or any superhero comicātend to have unique and separate sides to them: curative and transformative. Curative fandom is all about knowledge. Itās about making sure that everything is lined up and in order, knowing how it works, and finding out which one is the best. What is the Doctor Who canon? Who is the best Doctor? How do Weeping Angels work? Etc etc. Curative fandom is p. much the norm on reddit, especially r/gallifrey. Transformative fandom is about change. Letās write fic! Letās make art! Letās make a fan vid! Letās cosplay! Letās somehow change the text. Why is Three easier to ship, while Seven is more difficult? What would happen if ______? Transformative fandom is more or less the norm on tumblr. (And livejournal, and dreamwidth, and fanfiction websites, andā¦) Hereās the big thing: thereās a gender split. Find a random male fan, and theyāll probably be in curative fandom. Pick a random transformative fandom-er, and theyāll probably be female. Note that this is phrased in a very particular wayāobviously thereās guys who cosplay and write fic, obviously thereās women who donāt. But men tend to be in the curative fandom, while transformative fandom is predominately womenāand/or queer people, POC, etc. Why? Because the majority of professionally-made media is catered towards a straight white male demographic, leaving little room for āoutsiders.ā Outsiders who, if they want to see themselves in media, have to attack it and change itāhence slash fic, hence long essays claiming that Hermione Granger is black, hence canons about trans characters or genderqueer characters. And then curative/male fandom tends to view most things that transformative/female fandom does with disdain. Why? Because, in their eyes, it devalues canon. Who cares about knowing about Tony Starkās lovers if somebodyās gonna write a fic where Toni Stark is flying about? Their power is lessened. Scream of the Shalka is unambiguously not canonābut it doesnāt have to be in order for me to read and enjoy a 30k fic where the robotic Master was secretly in the TARDIS during Nine and Tenās time and they shagged behind the scenes. Canon? No, but who gives a shit? Also, as transformative fandom tends to be an outsider looking in, theyāre much more likely to analyze the work from a queer/PoC/neurodivergent/gender perspective. If I come to /r/gallifrey and start to talk about how āIn the Forest of the Nightā had a questionable portrayal of mental health/autism, I get blank stare. If I go on tumblr, I get a conversation. This is also where the 'overreacting, shrieking SJWā trope plays in, either because of a redditorās misunderstanding of terms and therefore assuming that a mild critique is a scathing one, or because the tumblr user in question is young/inexperienced and jumping the gun. So, there you have it: /r/gallifreyās bashing of reddit is part of a larger split in how men and women tend to enjoy fandom, and a lashing against how fanfiction/related things addresses fandom because itās not the right ākindā of fandom. And also because tumblr is popular with teenage girls, and thereās nothing reddit loves more than shitting on whatever teenage girls like.ā