Except the Melbourne Fringe Festival isn't quite as 'fringy' as it sounds.

 

Most of the people I go to uni with know that I read fanfiction. A few take it upon themselves to joke about it, but I'm sure that if they didn't know about it they'd joke about something else instead. My overall social position has not lowered since I came out of the closet, so to speak. Instead I found out that about 10-15% of my regular acquaintances and friends read fanfiction, and another even writes it.

To be fair, we're really, really nerdy where I come from, so it may not count.

 

Completely off-topic, but for the love of God, why was 'snugly' the only word you capitalized? English, motherfucker.

 

:facepalm I think I might have been high when I posted that, because I seriously don't remember posting it....
That's probably not good is it?

 

Actually it is. See if you post while high there is a higher chance of you fucking up and getting banned by the mods. So please continue.

 

All trippin' aside...has anyone actually seen/experienced fanfiction leading to ostracism? It looks like it is a common impression that readers have, although I've mentioned it to my mates and it's been a non-issue.

A colleague of mine is also focusing her PhD around fanfiction, so it's in the education system too...

 

I think it's sorta like Pokemon... which is considered "for kids" until it's actually for college students too. Not quite the same, of course, but neither are considered a usual pastime for people between the ages of 16-30 either.

 

Gotta Read Em All Fanficitlion!

 

Most people I explain it too just think it's regular books online or an e-reader. I'm to lazy to correct most of them but even those I do just think of them on e-books.

 

The HP fandom seems to be winding down a bit now that the series is finished, but as others have already mentioned, there will probably be a short spike of interest after the last movie comes out. How long will that last I wonder. Eventually though people are going to move on to other things and other series and HP will suffer the same downturn as lots of other fandoms.

I'm still sad about Ranma. I started reading Ranma fanfiction 11 years ago (pretty much its hayday), and today the fandom is pretty much dead. Man those were some good times.

 

Meh, I've been meaning to break out of my 3.5 year lurking period and start posting, I guess this thread is as good as any to start.

I feel like certain nerdy things are becoming more and more accepted (and even mainstream). Most guys game, and are proud of it. Saying that you're into anime in a university environment isn't really considered that weird, and there's a good chance the random you mention it to is into it at as well.

Fanfiction, on the other hand, hasn't followed those other two examples. It's not that I get ostracized or anything because of it, but more the funny look, or a "Why the fuck would you read fanfiction when you can read a proper book?". I generally don't 'hide' the fact I read it, but while I'm quite open about watching anime, I tend to be a bit more shy about fanfiction - especially when dealing people outside of my friendship groups (work colleagues, etc).

I think people generally think of fanfiction as being poorly written, and by amateurs. They seem to think it'll be self-insertions by 14 year olds, or if they're a bit more aware of pop culture, yaoi/slash by fangirls. So with that in mind I guess it's not surprisingly they think it's something you'd "outgrow".

I've only ever met 4 other people in real life who have read fanfiction. 2 of them are yaoi fangirls, and 1 reads purely Twilight fics, so go figure.

One of my mates who loves reading books was heavily anti-fanfiction until I managed to force him to read Joe's "Wastelands of Time", which caused him to concede that there were some brilliantly written pieces of fanfiction out there. But I guess it just shows that *some* of the stigma of fanfiction comes from that assumption that it's low quality writing by immature people.

 

I'm too sexy to be ostracized.

 

I have to say, I can never take claims of being getting shit for reading fanfiction seriously. Writing maybe, but reading?

Maybe it's because of the type of guy I am, and everyone knows I'm not really fucking bothered with their opinion on my life as long as it has no direct effect on them but I've never gotten any shit about it. Sure I've had some odd looks thrown at me when I'm on the DLP homescreen before I switched to the ProjectDLP screen but that's where it ended.

Who are these people who get on somebody's ass for reading fanfics?

Well, back on topic: The HP fandom does seem to be winding down. As is the case another running series will soon take it's place. Twilight will see gains as long as there are movies and maybe longer . I doubt there will be another mega-fandom (=<100K fics) that I will be interested in since they are all gonna be mainstream, cross-media productions of the type that I hate.

 

Not exactly, though when one of my friends found out that I read fanfiction, her response was, "Wait, are you gay?" Apparently she was a slash fangirl and never even knew that straight fanfiction existed...

 

This is one of the saddest things I have ever heard. :facepalm

 

That's fucked up.

 

What fandom did she read? I find it strange that she could say, read HP, and not see *any* non-slash fics...

Though I guess maybe she could have just hung out on a purely slash fansite.

 

You might be right as far as the downturn of the HP fandom. As much as we would like to think the HP fandom will last, I think it's going to be a real toss-up. From what I heard, and in my opinion, JKR's doing a real piss-poor job at following up the end of the series like we hoped.

As far as the actual FF fanbase, look at Star Wars. I don't see near as many SW fanfics being churned out like I used to. Perhaps HP is doomed to the same fate?

 

I think the future of Harry Potter Fanfiction is just fine. sure there will in a few months after the movie bump be a slow down, but the following is just too large to slide to far. HP Fiction is a self containing body, it feeds off it self.

Fans instead of pulling inspiration from the books and movies, will pull it from other Fanfiction.

 

You only have to look at the Supernatural FF genre to see how it will all end. The weight of slash fic spam killed any potential for real stories as nobody sane tries to read it anymore.