Fanfiction Ruins Everything??
Okay. I have quite a few thoughts and a couple questions for The Second Story (HilaryLayne on YouTube) about her video, "Fanfiction Has Destroyed Writing (And Everything Else)".
I don't think many people would consider all writing to be "literature", not even all published books. And most people definitely wouldn't classify all fanfiction as literature, so it seems odd to be comparing amateur writing with literary classics.
You're basically comparing the amateur and popular writing of today with the creme de la creme of historical writing. Amateur creativity has always existed. In fact, for most of human history, most people primarily encountered amateur stories as told by others in their community. The stories that were preserved over generations were the ones that reached something more than self indulgence. But that doesn't mean the self-indulgent ones haven't existed all along. Even after printing became widespread, a huge amount of published works were always what you'd consider low quality and self indulgent.
You're blaming amateur writers and casual readers simply for having greater access to each other.
Okay, even disregarding all of that, it seems that a primary concern you have is that this tendency has bled into critically acclaimed published works as well.
But publishing has always followed the money. You must know that much of what was published five hundred or even one hundred years ago is lost because no one cared enough to preserve it because it didn't go further than self indulgence! But it was still published and still commercially successful!
It seems weird to be angry that people can find specific material through tags easier than ever before as well. People did this before, but it was just called "your friend recommended something they knew had the things you liked". And it was far less efficient.
Why should a writer's therapy session not be published for others to read when it's very clear that it's also providing benefits to the readers? Even if that benefit is simply entertainment? This would be the opposite of self indulgence on the writer's part: they are literally providing something for others' benefit.
You keep flipping between talking about all writing and literature specifically.
All writing does not serve the same purpose. While literature's purpose is an important one, reading also fills the need for entertainment.
People whose entertainment desires are easily satisfied by mainstream culture (young straight men for instance), can easily find unlimited versions of something they enjoy just by watching another movie.
A queer person of color could waste ages and ages looking for a movie, tv show or published book that fits what they want to see. Why should they do that when they could find exactly what they want in fanfiction and satisfy the same need?
It's not the same need that literature fulfills but I don't see anyone making a serious argument that it is. I don't see anyone saying that "self-indulgent, self-representing fanfiction" is literature. But proposing that it, therefore, has no value to anyone but the author is a wild escalation.
It's entertainment. It can be self improving and horizon broadening, sure, but it can also just be trashy and fun!
Saying that wanting to see yourself is "not the function of a story" is bizarrely limiting all the possible reasons people read and write stories down to match exactly what is valuable to you. Why are no one else's reasons for reading and writing valid?
It seems like your point might be that the relative percentages of "entertainment" writing vs "literary" writing has shifted toward "entertainment" or that little to no new writing meets some standard of literary, and I would be interested to see any research to support this.
Even if this were provable, I personally would wager that it's more of a cultural pendulum swing where we're currently seeing a big uptick in "popular" style writing but that, like any trend, it's very likely to swing back in the other direction after not too long.
Literature itself has never been free from self-insert characters, including some very brazen ones. Dante and Tolstoy immediately come to mind.
I personally find obvious self inserts equally grating in literature, modern original fiction, and in fanfiction alike. But while I don't understand the value in reading about someone else's self insert, obviously other people do find value in it, so I would never tell them they're enjoying things wrong. They just like different things than I do. I feel the same about reader inserts.
Writers are not "expected to put self-insert characters in one form or another into their stories". A huge amount of fanfiction is devoted to exploring the original characters in situations that have no deviations from canon.
The idea that there's some sort of "unwritten, soft rule that you can't write what you aren't" is very out of touch with the reality in most fandom communities.
One of the most popular forms of fanfiction focuses on queer male characters and the primary demographic both reading and writing this is women.
Most fandoms also encourage all authors to explore writing queer, disabled, POC, trans, etc. characters, as long as the author is approaching it from a place of respect (i.e., not punching down or relying on stereotypes—which is unfortunately still all too common in mainstream media, which is one of the reasons many people do turn to fanfiction.)
And make no mistake, this is frequently about wanting to explore an emotional fantasy through a potentially quite unrealistic interpretation of a relationship between two men, rather than a serious literary look at such a relationship (however, it can also be this). I just don't think that is without value.
Suggested reasons (among many) for the appeal of male–male pairings to women include that popular mainstream media is dominated by well-developed male characters; that it circumvents the problem of female sexual guilt about having desires; that it allows a reader to explore both parts of the relationship equally; and that women just like more of what they're attracted to in the same way that men like lesbian porn.
Mainstream publishing is far more sensitive to the "who should be allowed to write what" problem than fanfiction is. This is helped in part by the fact that you often don't know who a fanfiction author is unless they voluntarily divulge personal information.
Are there parts of fandom that foster these types of unhealthy attitudes? Certainly. But they're not the norm or the majority, even though they can be the loudest part, in the same way that they're not the majority of the mainstream book market, but they can sometimes make an outsized fuss.
Statistically, the percentage of fics rated General or Teen on AO3 is generally above 50%, indicating that the majority of works are not smut (1).That withstanding, I actually don't disagree that fanfiction has a reputation for smut and that fanfiction smut has influenced published books.
I just don't agree that that's a bad thing.
Taboo topics have always been present and popular with readers.
I would recommend some of the videos others have posted about why people seek out and enjoy problematic romances:
People do not read problematic romances because they idealise them, they read them to make existing in a world that already has problems more enjoyable. It's a safe interaction with something that would be traumatic in real life. It's the same reason people watch horror movies and enjoy tragedies and sad songs.
"It's very similar to horror in many ways, and sometimes directly so. It gives the viewer the power to interact with something on their own terms, identify with the monstrous or socially damned, explore feelings and thoughts that are socially unacceptable or straight up unsafe in real life in a controlled and safe way."
Saying "those trends started in fanfiction" when talking about Morning Glory Milking Farm is is so ridiculously obtuse to the greater history of what stories appeal to people. This modern book is about a minotaur, and this monster comes to us from the Minotaur in Greek mythology, which a creature that was canonically conceived in a story about bestiality!
This interest is not new to the human race.
Female and male fans have stalked all types of celebrities, this is not a problem specific to BL, which I would wager is a very small percentage of celebrity stalking overall.
The AO3 community is willing to die on the hill of non-censorship for very important reasons, not the least of which is that there is no evidence that fiction leads to real-world harm.
You have made a lot of dangerous, unfounded statements here that are not backed up in the scientific literature.
The assumption that reading about something must lead to pursuing that thing in real life is absolutely not backed by evidence. Studies have not found this to be true.
"The fantasy–behavior association held only for those high in self-reported psychopathy. In addition, the association between pornography use and deviant sexual behavior held only for participants high in psychopathy." (2)
"Contrary to recent news media claims, increases in sexual behaviors were not found for the Experimental group [who read sexually-explicit literature]." (3)
"found no evidence . . . that exposure to explicit sexual material plays a significant role in the causation of criminal behavior.” - The U.S. Commission on Obscenity and Pornography (1970, p. 27)
"Sex criminals have had less experience with explicit sexual materials than have normal people." (5)
"Results also suggest that sexual arousal following exposure to erotica does not set off any specific pattern of sexual action." (6)
Poplar storytellers of the past also came up reading the popular fiction of their day. We just don't have copies of a lot of it anymore!
Quality of storytelling is absolutely important for many fanfiction readers. Many fanfiction writers do care about improvement and growth because the popular success of their stories is not the only thing that matters to them. They care about producing good writing that readers, including sophisticated readers, will appreciate. Assuming that there are no fans of critically acclaimed literature among the readers and writers of AO3 is absurd and easily disproven.
Why would you assume that fanfiction authors aren't improving over time? This is visible all the time with authors who have been posting works over years and decades.
I agree that the most successful and popular stories are not examples of the best fanfiction. They typically skew to long, multi-chapter fics where the audience has time to grow invested in regular updates, rather than the inherent quality of the story. These are, however, often slow burn or gen and not focused on sex.
And many of what we now consider classics were also released weekly by chapter to build engagement so this is not a new technique either.
"True literary betterment" is not everyone's goal in reading and writing, nor should it be the only goal.
The market for books is moreso a market for entertainment than for literature, and that's always been true, and likely always will be true. When good literature is thriving, that's wonderful, but the existence and popularity of writing that exists solely to be entertaining does not mean that quality literature is not also being written.
It might mean that literary-style books are not currently as marketable as they have been at certain times, but you could also look at many of what we now consider literary classics that were unpopular when they were released.
The current rise in smut popularity is likely due to many factors, including the overall increase in the cultural acceptance of sex, and fanfiction is more likely a product of this cultural trend than an inciting factor. Fanfiction is more of a barometer of general cultural interest as it has no barrier to entry and no delay in output, than it is a driver.
Most popular fiction is lost to time because it is simply disposable entertainment. Just because we have access to more of it than ever before doesn't mean our culture has worse writers. Bad writers are just more visible than ever before!
Fanfiction doesn't have to be self indulgent and just because the most obvious examples are not high-quality writing does not mean that it leads to bad-quality writing—fanfiction communities simply make bad-quality writing more accessible! But it was always out there.
If you look at the writing from amateur writers who never touch fanfiction, you will find the exact same problems!
Before I ever knew what fanfiction was, all of my original stories featured what was an unknowing self insert (finding fanfiction actually stopped me from doing that because I discovered how much I disliked reading other people's obvious self inserts.)
I know you've mentioned in another video how you feel the declining quality of modern education, especially in America (I'm not American, but I can also see problems), is leading to a generation that can't read effectively.
I could see this being a much more likely cause of bad writing in both literary publishing and in fanfiction.
People have always written and shared their own stories (much of it "fanfiction" of mythological figures, or of famous or historical people (RPF isn't new either), or established characters from other stories), back from oral traditions right up to sending letters between friends. For most of human history, the primary exposure to stories was to the ones invented and told by others in your community, not by critically acclaimed professional authors. The desire for that kind of easy and fun story is very hard wired into us.
Publishers are in the business of selling entertainment. People enjoy easy derivative stories. They always have. Most of it will fade into obscurity and the works of true quality will rise to the top, as they always do over time.
