The premise: you can, with a snap of your fingers, delete all bad fanfic from the internet.

Do you do it?

Because I know you lot are pedantic motherfuckers, "bad fanfic" for this purpose is defined as the set of fics which (i) you have read and subjectively dislike, and (ii) which you have not read but, if you did read them, you would subjectively dislike.

 

No need to thank me.

 

Yes, without hesitation.

Hopefully with there being only fics of a certain quality left, it will motivate current writers to try harder.

 

No? They're harmless entertainment for kinds/teens, and they often lead people to seek better quality things.

Without 99% of fanfics, the last 1% would probably never be discovered.

 

In other words, literally every remaining fanfic in existence would, without question, be one that I would like?

They say the hardest choices require the strongest wills... but this is as easy as it gets.

Snap.

 

Fandoms would still be a thing though, so it's not like they would fall into obscurity.

 

I think that would be awfully cruel to whoever wrote them and those that enjoy them.

I really would like to have an optional reality filter though!

 

Voted no. As Republic said, it's all pretty harmless stuff meant to entertain a generally young audience.

Anyways, my thoughts on "bad" entertainment comes down to... you need the bad in order to have the good. Good is only "good" because there's bad stuff to compare it to. Get rid of the bad and the good becomes the bad, and the great becomes the good. Take the bad with the good and all that.

 

Seems like there's much easier ways of deleting my own fics. I vote no.

 

No way, what would I have to read then?

 

No.

I need the shitty ones to exist so that I can read the decent ones without hating myself.

 

Memes aside, I have to go with no. Bad fanfic serves a purpose for the author, the reader, and the broader community. For authors, bad fanfics can sometimes have specific elements that serve as inspiration for other authors and activate latent authorial potential within the userbase. How many people here have seen something and thought "I could do that better" and proceeded to follow through with it?

They serve a market maker function in increasing and preserving liquidity within the fandom by keeping authors and readers engaged long enough to find and make good stories. This also makes the community self sustaining.


They serve as a whetstone, a forge by which authors who have the potential to be good someday™ to take concrete steps toward eventual quality. While some of our authors on DLP have deleted their earlier works, there are those of us still who remember your shame.


It is tempting to say yes, but the problem is one of discovery/matching, not their existence itself being problematic. With sufficient tools to bring authors readers who enjoy their work, and bring readers fics they'll enjoy, it becomes a non issue. Killing bad fanfic becomes, in the long run, killing all fanfic. Not to mention it's rather selfish for me to deprive those authors a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment, or their readers the joy they would find in consuming that content.

 

Blasphemy!

 

This, especially if everybody gets a snap. I'm pretty sure not a single story would survive that purge.

Plus, what would happen to all the discord addicts here without bad fanfics to mock?

 

Yes.

Because bad fanfic involves Harry getting raped and impregnated by Snape.

it’s worth the loss of the benefits of bad fanfic to remove such horrors from the world.

 

No. I'm not one to remove other people's work even if I don't like it.

 

Voted no for reasons a few people have already said, but primarily because it doesn't fix anything. New bad fanfics are generated every day and those authors will never receive any criticism if their works are just deleted, not that I'm that optimistic they will receive criticism if they stay up.

 

Additionally, while there are some things that I believe 99% of us would agree are objectively bad, I wouldn't trust any of you assholes not to snap some of my guilty pleasures.

And I probably wouldn't want to snap some of the stuff I know some of you like (because you have shit taste) even if they're objectively a blight on the earth. Live and let live, etc.

 

Imagine if all of Megamatt's writing disappeared. How long do you think he would take because getting out a new million words of the same sex scene?

Nah, snapping would only be a momentary satisfaction. Though if i could make some tropes invisible to me, I wouldn't say no.