#fandom representation

Episode 8: Representation in Fandom is LIVE

Not a lot of Flerret, actually, and a whole lot of other voices in fandom. We’ll be hearing from @tehroserose​ on Jewish representation, from @deathsweetqueen​ about her process and headcanons around desi Tony, from Penndragon27 about demisexuality, and from avengersandco about neurodiversity. Then we’ll wrap it up with some Community Talks about how you’re celebrating Pride, an update on Trope-Off, and your Events Forecast.

Thanks to @beir​ for their GORGEOUS art and for letting us use it, and to the whole PotsCast staff for being themselves.

While we were collecting the names and numbers of ‘Other’ write-in fandoms for the Unlisted Fandom Challenge, we had a look at the way signups were going for the fandoms listed in the dropdown.

More than 100 contributors signed up to work with ANY fandom! Of those, nearly half are interested in providing beta services for your fics, including various levels of editing, medpicking, britpicking, and the like. A quarter are interested in drawing fanart, and the rest want to write fanfics, create fanvids, or record podfics.

Of the named fandoms in the FTH dropdown, MCU was the leader by a mile for most of the sign up period, but toward the end Good Omens started eating into their lead. And, for a good long while HP and Sherlock kept flip-flopping over which of them would have the third most signups. In the end, they tied. They’re followed by Star Wars, and then Supernatural, which finally pulled away and ahead of Teen Wolf, with whom things had been neck-and-neck for a while.

These seven fandoms made up nearly 40% of all signups for listed fandoms. The next eight - Star Trek, Yuri!!! On Ice, Doctor Who, Check Please!, The Witcher, and Hannibal - totaled roughly 12%. These THIRTEEN fandoms had just over half of all listed signups! One hundred four additional fandoms combined make up the other ~50% of listed fandom offers.

Actual percentage numbers are under the cut. Some of the fandoms with just a handful of signups are smaller, and the number of signups is fairly representative of their presence on tumblr - which has historically been FTH’s main channel for communicating. Others, though ... they’re fairly large, and appear to be under-represented based on signups. We’re thinking on ways to better reach those fandoms, and have another post in the works where we’re hoping you can help.

This is something that has been bothering me for a while now.

First of all, I am by all means no professional when it comes to ethical groups etc.

Everything that I’ll mention are just thoughts that I had and now have, thoughts that I’ll write down and you can do with that whatever you want to.

Again, I’m asking you all to be respectful and polite to me and everyone else with whom you’ll argue/discuss or won’t argue/discuss.

I won’t be answering to any comments and probably won’t even read them, but again: Be nice please.

This is just a way for me to let go of that frustration and I’ve been thinking about sharing my opinion with you for a while now and today I actually felt like quickly typing something. So here we are.

Disclaimer: I’m not here to teach you a lesson because you’ve been doing something wrong, but I’m here to tell you that we all can do better.

Let me just blatantly say: I am not happy with the “diversity” and “representation” in this Fandom.

I see so many posts and pictures of different fan casts and most of them make me growl in frustration. ( I literally look at my phone and growl)

And that has one simple reason - the person that was chosen as a fan cast.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I know we’re all trying and the main problem is the character, more like the facial features and skin colour etc. of a character, not being described “good enough” or detailed by the author.

It’s not your fault, because you have to use your own imagination to find the perfect fan cast for yourself.

It’s not your fault, because it is the way you imagined a certain character to be.

And it’s definitely not wrong to imagine a certain character the way you do.

Because you take the information you get and you yourself piece everything together in your own head and create a painting in your fantasies and you use that painting to find a human being that looks close to how you imagined the character to be.

That being said, I’m not telling you that you’re wrong and your imagination is false or whatever.

The thing is, there’s not only one way to do it right.

There’s not only one path in life that you can walk, there’s not only one way to do something right, there’s not only one country, there’s not only one ethical group, and so on.

There’s not only 1 way to get representation right.

Representation means more than black and asian people. (and with asian I mostly mean Chinese, Japanese or Korean people)

It’s more than black and white.

The world is split into so many more colours. We have so many mixed people. We have so many ethical groups that share similar facial features. People that are Asian e.g., but more tanned, darker.

As soon as someone is described as having more melanin than others or is more “tanned” people tend to come to the conclusion that this person is black.

I myself am at a point where I think that as long as it isn’t explicitly mentioned or implied that a character is black, you can’t just assume that that character is either white or black.

We have some colours in-between those two.

There are so many more groups out there.

The world is huge.

It’s great that you all are trying so hard to represent groups that indeed need to be represented.

But by trying to be more diverse, you forget about other ethnicities.

You forget about other people, that are also “brown” and have a different ethical background.

I know so many people that are for example brown, have wavy hair and glow in the sun.

They fit into so many character descriptions.

They can be from Turkey, they can be Kurds, Greek people, people from Syria, Italians or from Serbia.

Some people at my old work place btw thought that I’m Serbian and talked to me in their language until I told them that I don’t speak or understand what they’re saying. And they were like “But how? You look like my people.” And god knows (and the dna test I one day want to take) maybe my Ancestors were from there!

What I’m trying to say is, we may be diverse, but we’re also similar at some points, and we’re split into so many different ethical groups at the same time, that of course we cannot overview every single one of them perfectly, but we can at least try.

Of course it doesn’t mean that everyone in those countries I mentioned look the same. In the country itself they’re also split a bit into different groups.

I can speak from my own experience and say that Turkey for example has so many different people with different facial features, hair and eye colours or ethical backgrounds.

I know how those look that live or come from the part of Turkey my parents and family came from.

I know that some living more in the east and southern east are darker than some who live in the north, who tend to be more fair skinned, with lighter hair sometimes.

I know that next to the province my family came from there’s one were some people are known for having blue-ish eyes.

So, these characters, that are being described as being “tanned” with darker hair or glowy skin could e.g. also be Armenian, Berber, Turks, Greek, Georgian, Bahrain or Azeri.

When it comes to Asian characters, there aren’t only like I mentioned Chinese and Korean or Japanese.

Let’s split that up a bit by just mentioning some groups:

Nepalese, Shan, Karen, Burmese, Madurese, Qazaq, Lao Theung, Kyrgyz, Magar, Taiwanese, Javanese.

They could be from all those beautiful countries like Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Laos, Nepal, Cambodia, Myanmar and the Philippines.

Then we have beautifully dark skinned Fijian people that have different facial features. Gorgeous Melanesian people.

Then my beautiful Indian and Pakistani people with all of their own groups in their countries in the south, north etc. The gorgeous Indian people living in Sri Lanka.

Next, the gorgeous Mayan, indigenous non-Mayan and mixed individuals with Native American and Caucasian background.

My stunning mixed people: black and white, black and asian, asian and white, brown and white, caramel and black, caramel and white and all those beautifully tanned people in the shades coffee, peanut, tawny, cinnamon, chocolate, umber, ebony, obsidian, midnight and so on!

In conclusion:

You cannot be diverse by representing the same group of people always, imo.

Try to keep what I said in mind the next time you create a (because of the author) poorly described character in your head. The author didn't think of being diverse in a better way, but you can do better.