something thats makes me a tiny bity salty is the emphasis of juggernaut fandoms like Star Trek and Harry Potter on sites like Fanlore. Yeah, those kinds of fandoms are what created a lot of what fandom is today, but fandom is now so, so much more than them that in most cases people don’t even know the roots of terminology they’re using like ‘lemon’ and ‘slash’.
fandoms like Overwatch, Tokyo Ghoul and Teen Wolf are kind of from a different era - the rules have been set, the jargon’s all there, and the audience is only growing as time goes on. So how come half the OW ships don’t have a page on Fanlore, and the other half were put there by me?
heres what id like to see in ALL fandoms in a perfect world:
- An at least SOMEWHAT centralised fandom, even on a site-by-site basis (e.g this is where you get news, this is where you find zines, this is where you get fic reccommendations etc.)
- Well maintained and informative pages on Fanlore.org
- Their own wiki with relevant information
And on an inter-fandom level:
- an organised effort to preserve fandom terminology, and to make sure relevant explanations are easy to find (have y’all ever seen a 100 word drabble bc i sure haven’t)
- A push towards centralised fanfiction on one site (hopefully ao3 bc its the easiest to use by a long shot)
and how can this be achieved on a personal level?
- contribution to Fanlore.org (honestly this website is a godsend)
- fanfiction/fanart/fanwork rec lists that are comprehensive and easy to find
- just… makin fanworks is gud
The reason that fanlore lacks content in some areas is because none of the fans in that fandom have started participating. Fanlore is user driven which means if fans aren’t working on the content it doesn’t get added. The good news, is that because many of the smaller fandoms have enthusiastic participants, that only one or two people can make a huge difference in terms of both the quality and quantity on Fanlore. So spread the word, ask people to create a free account and cheer them onwards.