Yeah sure Tumblr is a hellsite but I know someone who wrote a fanfic in the 1990s that someone else didn’t like, so when she was selling printed copies of the zine with the story in it out of her hotel room at a convention, this other woman STOOD IN FRONT OF HER DOOR TO REFUSE PEOPLE ACCESS. Because the story featured a ship she disliked. And I feel like somehow, 10,000 Tumblrs still can’t compare to that level of Extra.
Your periodic reminder that the technology and the scale of distribution changes, the basic impulse to fandom wank does not
Yeahhhhh
… And, as for all the comments that it was better before the Internet because they were there in person so you could beat them up? Well, yeah…. but also? the fact that you knew each other’s real names and locations? in a time when there was NO legal precedent for fanfic being considered fair use under copyright law, and being homophobic and sex-negative was very much considered the norm?
When being exposed as someone who wrote or read ANY erotic fanfic– especially slash– even the most vanilla stuff by today’s standards – could both get you sued for everything you owned by the copyright holder, AND get your children taken away from you because the court ruled you’re a sex pervert?
…yeah, you could get in a fistfight over fanfic ship wars. But you’d probably not do that, or anything that could get law enforcement involved. The mutually assured destruction would probably be enough.