Some thoughts about media consumption, fanwork and fandom issues that came about while pondering the Welcome Home situation.
I want to think out loud about how wild and complicated this situation seems to have gotten due to the way in which online fandom has normalized media-consuming practices, to the point in which it's become automatic and homogenizes art and media, regardless of where it comes from.
Fanwork hasn't only become an expected part of fandom activity, fans these days know how to monetize content before learning about intellectual property or developing any nuance on the origins of art, perceived in a depersonalized way as just "content".
In the past decade, it became customary on tumblr for Fandom Elders and Not So Elders to receive hate whenever they pointed out that, for example, adding self-profiting links on fics in AO3 is not allowed for legal reasons.
There was a very famous tumblr take that went as far as to suggest that fic writers "couldn't charge for and successfully sell" their fics because "writing is dismissed" in fandom, in comparison to fan art. This take didn't acknowledge that both forms of profit are actually illegal (added note: public domain in some countries still is legally bound to a tax payment), or that fanfic was historically more attacked by mainstream authors, which reinforced the culture of copyright understanding, or that fan art tends to be more easily separated from canon due to visual likeness differences, etc.
The general perception became that profiting from fanwork is "a safe thing to do" even if, in reality, profiting from copyrighted material without the legal authorization of the copyright holder is a decision fans should make knowingly of the legal consequences it carries for themselves and the fanwork community and platforms.
There was a fandom push and pull with this reality because of moral grounds and a popular perception of unequal footing between the fan part and the canon part.
It was perceived, in general, that fan content comes from an independent creator and canon comes from a Company or a Professional Author with Company Backing (publisher, studio, etc.) who wouldn't miss the few coins an indie artist can take from a piece of art.
This idea was reinforced by the fact that there were times in which big corporations shut down fan projects (even non profit ones) to later copy those projects themselves and profit from the idea. It happened with Lionsgate in the Hunger Games days, it happened with Disney and Etsy sellers, it happened in many places with many things.
The idea that, even if illegal, the practice of profiting from copyrighted material from corporations or certain authors could be seen as justified grew to a point of normalization.
So, the era in which the fanfiction battle that established the concept of non profit as a condition for allowing fan content to exist, had ended. It gave way to an increasingly normalized perception of it being allowed.
This also happened at the time in which online monetization of content became more accessible.
Sites like ko-fi or patreon could be used to pay for content creators "in general" rather than tying them to the profit of sales of specific content that contained copyrighted material. These loopholes allowed creators to successfully profit through fan content that was otherwise illegal to be monetized.
The problematic repercussions of this normalization, like I said, was that people learned to monetize before they learned what they could monetize. Or what they should.
Around 2018 there was a situation in which some rpdr queens got into arguments with fan artists who were selling their fan art as unauthorized merch.
These artists were doing what they were accustomed to do in the past years in fandom, do art of media they enjoyed and sell it online.
They didn't stop to think that they were actually selling products of indie artists whose primary source of income after performing is merch, nor did they think about the fact that drag performers are real people and not blorbos from shows. They didn't think that they were reproducing the likeness of a person (as curated as a drag persona can be) and selling it, feeling a sense of entitlement to the art that carried said likeness.
Normalization of media consumption in which you produce work and then sell it was so ingrained that the source didn't matter anymore. A mainstream Big Company like Disney was seen in the same way that an indie drag performer who asked fanwork creators not to profit from their identity.
Media is exchangeable and fanwork is created in the same way for anything, no matter what it is. Everything is a blorbo we feel automatically entitled to the moment it hits our orbit.
And I say this as a person who has been in fandom for ages and who values fanwork immensely. This doesn't come from a place of judgement, it comes from a place of care and of questioning the space around me.
In any case, cue 2023 sudden sensation Welcome Home.
It isn't just that Welcome Home is an independently created piece of transmedia, run by one single individual. It's also that said piece of media is, as of the moment of this situation, mostly developed via artwork.
Contrary to drag performers, webseries or podcasts, which can also be independently produced and become subject of massive fandoms, Welcome Home's source material is, at the beginning stage, mostly non-contextualized artwork and breadcrumbs of lore.
So, it skyrocketing to fandom fame and getting massive crowds of people from different walks of fandom life (the kids from the lost media reddits, the creepypasta youtubers, the fnaf kids, the tumblr puppet lovers, the puzzle enthusiasts, etc., etc.) while being a meta media piece (a transmedia piece about a made-up lost media piece) blurred the lines of source and fandom like nothing I've ever seen before.
How do you establish which art is canon when there are fan artists posting fan content that looks exactly like the real thing? And when you, as an indie creator, use the same platforms to showcase your work as they do to share their fan art?
How do you establish canon products (like puppets or dioramas) if you can't show yet the ones you made and fans are posting theirs already in the same platforms?
How can you put boundaries on what is or isn't part of the puzzle when overnight you have millions of people hungrily looking through your professional portfolio for clues that aren't meant to be there? Making you part of the puzzle because they single-handedly decided that your passion project is an ARG?
How do you stop the people who are profiting from cosplaying your characters for personal donations, selling fan art of your work in merch or using your characters and universe for commissions?
People who are, again, posting their photos and art and links on the same social medias you do and using for their monetization the same platforms as you do?
How do you set yourself apart from people impersonating you in social media, sometimes even unknowingly, because they're using your artwork for their profiles without permission or clarification?
How do you establish your ownership and identity without compromising personal information that you weren't thinking of sharing at all?
How do you keep your canon clear of outside influence if people are posting fanfics and roleplays faster than you are meant to tell your story? In the same platforms you use for work and enjoyment?
You know how, in Disney Parks, adults aren't allowed to cosplay out of special ticketed events because they want to avoid little kids from confusing a random person with a character performer, who is trained to accommodate and be accessible to little kids? Because they're responsible for how kids are treated in the parks by their employees and character performers?
Imagine fan art that is so much like the canon art, which didn't even get time to be set into clear boundaries and context yet, depicting things you didn't intend to depict for the audience you're aiming for, in a way in which it looks exactly like yours, posted in platforms that you use for your work.
How can you establish the boundaries of what is or isn't your canon content or your responsibility? If you're just one person? And this thing exploded overnight?
The normalization of fan content practices and, in tow, of profit from it, went faster than the story could be told.
Even outside of the very serious issue of people profiting from the work of an indie creator, from characters they've worked on for years and were excited to share with the world, there's also the fact that this exploded so much and so fast and with something in such an early stage of development that it's insane to think of how you can even start to draw lines of what is and isn't your work, as a singular person trying to put your idea out there.
Not just for the sake of storytelling, the sake of your art, the sake of your integrity as an author and the sake of your creative process, but also as the one responsible for the thing itself with a clear idea of what you're presenting and to whom.
It's overwhelming just to think about it.
I don't have answers, and even if I have opinions, I'm not trying to tell anyone what to do or how to behave, you're all responsible for your own actions. Objective information is out there, each fandom platform has its own rules and regulations, fandom has its sources of legal advice, and there are official guidelines from the WH author that are clear as to what they would like you not to do (1, 2, 3). Each piece of media is different, each person's way of interacting with it is different, I'm not your mom, there's the info, do whatever you want.
All I have is mad respect to an author whose work I'm enjoying immensely, my best wishes as someone who wants to be a storyteller, and my support.
Still, I just had to stop and think in some length about this because it's A LOT. It's wild. It's a situation I've personally never seen before in this extent.
And it's disorienting how fast we got here and where we're going. So I needed a space to think out loud to the void.
