#the fandom fandom

Ok I have a stupid idea

i’m reading an academic article about fandom (‘A Crowd at Your Back’: Fantasy Fandom and Small Press by Kim Wilkins) which mentions fan-creators having been called “textual poachers”

i’ve been reading/skimming some academic articles about fandom which you may be interested to check out—these can be found on databases like proquest if you have university or library access:

In the end, perhaps that is what the old fandom denizens currently on Tumblr are bemoaning when they note the shift from wank to discourse or squick to trigger. This cultural shift to becoming more serious about one's hobby has thrown people who have been in fandom before Strikethrough slightly off-kilter. Ship wars and other fandom wank are now being treated with the same lexicon and seriousness as academic discourse; squicks are given the same amount of weight as psychological triggers in therapy. But perhaps this shift is also indicative of a growing acceptance of fandom as an aspect of cultural and media studies by the mainstream. Fandom itself is becoming more and more acknowledged by mainstream media; the rise of social media has also contributed to a lowering of the boundary between content creators and their fans. With the emergence of fandom out of the fringes of culture, it comes as no surprise that new entrants to fandom will change the existing lexicon. In its current iteration on Tumblr, fandom's shift from wank to discourse and squick to trigger indicates its growing acceptance of critical analysis of media, especially in regards to increasing representation for marginalized populations. I can only speculate on what fandom on a new platform years into the future will change in terms of its lexicon. Perhaps it will follow the advice of the survivors of LiveJournal fandom, and "bring back the squick.