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Freaks and geeks

Tallulah Habib
By Tallulah Habib
Johannesburg, 23 May 2013

"If you're a freak, globally, there's a niche for you."

I looked up from my computer when I heard Wesley Lynch (of Snapplify fame) saying these words yesterday at ITWeb's Mobility Summit. He was speaking about niche communities online, how in publishing books (available on mobile devices) his company had found markets for nearly everything - including, apparently, robot erotica.

He was paraphrasing the core concept of the "long tail", made popular by Wired editor Chris Anderson - the notion that no matter how strange someone's taste is, out of all the people in the world, there's likely to be at least one other person who has similar tastes, and that the Internet can connect those two people to each other.

The idea of niches of "freaks" online was at the forefront of my mind, because I was busy reflecting on an intriguing piece of news that had come up on Twitter: Amazon has somehow received a licence from Warner Brothers to publish fan fiction.

Rebirth

Upon seeing this, my mind immediately cut to "Fifty Shades of Grey", which began life as "Twilight" fan fiction - as a rather colourful (pardon the pun) re-imagining of the relationship between main characters Bella and Edward. The new offering from Amazon, called "Kindle Worlds", gives fans of "Gossip Girl", "Pretty Little Liars", and "The Vampire Diaries" (with more to come) the opportunity to do something similar to what EL James did - re-imagine the stories they love and make those versions available to the public. Whereas James had to change names and alter plot points to ensure she didn't trample over copyright, Amazon has ensured fans of these particular series don't need to worry about jumping through legal hoops. In addition, these stories are then self-published (in e-book format) and the writers earn royalties on sales.

I've written in the past about how in my world - the social media world - cultivating fans is a key goal. What you want, more than anything else, is for people to love your business and your brand. I lamented how this attitude was not reflected in the entertainment world. Finally, it seems as if this has changed! Fans are not only being embraced, they're being rewarded for their contributions.

But, where there's money involved, there's usually a catch.

As pointed out by Lynch, and by many before him, the more people across the world hook up to the Net, the more niche communities are able to thrive. Mobile technology adds an extra dimension, bringing a personal and private browsing experience into the hands of the masses.

Fans are not only being embraced, they're being rewarded for their contributions.

There are communities for everything, from homosexual skinheads to knitting jerseys for puppies. There are political communities and creative communities, religious communities and entertainment communities. Among these is fandom - groups of people so passionate about the entertainment media they consume that they dedicate vast amounts of time to pouring their creative selves into expanding the fictional universes they love. One of the ways fans do this is through writing what is known as "fanfic".

Preconceived ideas

Fanfic has a bad rap. It's often associated with perversion. There are whole branches of fanfic that deal solely in bizarre pairings and taboo topics. There is indeed a "freakish" element to much of what is written. But there's another side too. There is also fanfic that interrogates societal norms, that digs into the psychological issues of the characters, that asks questions about the human condition, all using a platform that is guaranteed an audience. I have friends whose lives have been touched by fanfic, who've found support for real issues they'd never have spoken up about otherwise in the communities formed around characters they loved. Fan fiction communities can be safe spaces to explore oneself and one's creativity.

Bearing this in mind, the first question regarding Amazon's new venture becomes: what happens to those spaces now? Are those niches for freaks threatened?

Amazon is putting a price tag on what was up until now given freely. It remains to be seen what the implications are for the Web sites where fanfic communities currently reside. Fanfiction.net, for instance, is known to exclude fiction based on certain authors' works on request. Will it and other sites that currently host fanfic based on "Gossip Girl", "Pretty Little Liars", and "The Vampire Diaries" be asked to remove those works? It is not an unreasonable assumption, for who would pay for a story they could access elsewhere for free?

Adding that price tag also raises the barrier to entry. People are less likely to accidentally stumble upon a story that changes their lives when they have to pay to read it, especially if they do not have access to a Kindle or even a computer.

Then there's the book-like format that precludes the group reading experience that has come to define fanfic.

Finally, the fanfic will be bound by Amazon's extensive terms and conditions, which are sure to limit the creativity and possibly the subject matter that the fanfic can deal with.

It's great that Warner Brothers is open to the idea of fan fiction, finally. And it's not unreasonable for the corporation to want to make money out of the shows that it pours money into producing. We can only hope that it doesn't make the mistake, the same mistake that has been made so many times already, of assuming that fans don't have value unless there's money actively changing hands.

Last weekend, a new Star Trek movie premiered. It raked in $70.6 million at the US box office, coming in at number one. The previous offering from the franchise brought in even more than that on its opening weekend - $75.2 million. Not bad for a show that started in the 60s; especially not bad for a franchise which, before the 2009 film, had produced nothing for over a decade.

While the official channels were quiet, however, the fandom never was. In a universe otherwise devoid of activity, the fans continued seeking out new life and boldly going where no writer had gone before. Rather than dying, the franchise's following thrived and even expanded. Did the fans not deliver value in the end?

Riding fans' work straight to the bank is a great first step for the corporations, but they need to realise that those niches are incredibly precious in and of themselves. Freaks and all.

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