Not a New Trend

While researching the topic of fan fiction this week, the name Henry Jenkins kept popping up. Jenkins is a professor at MIT and is seemingly an expert in this area. In a 1998 radio interview with Todd Mundt of the University of Michigan, Jenkins says that "the practice is similar to the way that folk tales evolved. For hundreds of years, people based their own stories on popular characters, like Bre'r Rabbit and King Arthur, each person adding details or making changes as the story is passed along. Jenkins further states that it wasn't until the Industrial Revolution that popular characters were seen as the intellectual property of large corporations". Furthermore, in his 2000 article Digital Land Grab Jenkins remarks that between 1869 and 1930, some 200 writers (including Frances Hodgson Burnett and Christina Rossetti) imitated, revised or parodied Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and it is believed that these early versions of "fanfic" positively contributed to the longevity of Carroll's popularity. Contributors to Wikipedia's page on Fan Fiction trace such writings back as far as the 17th century, citing unauthorized published sequels to works such as Don Quixote.

During more recent history, fanfic seemed to gain recognition in the mid-1960's, especially in the sci-fi genre. Spocknalia, a Star Trek "fanzine" is referred to by Wikipedia as the "first known contemporary form of any type of fan-written stories". In fact, to this day, Star Trek and other sci-fi and fantasy stories and characters remain popular targets today for resulting fanfic, although currently, Harry Potter has emerged as the leader. Potter author J.K. Rowling has given these spin-offs her blessing--that is, as long as they are noncommerical and nonpornographic (Young, 2007). Young also feels that Rowling's endorsement has added some legitimacy to the fanfic genre, although there are plenty of authors that would disagree (such as Anne Rice).

So, if fanfic has been around for hundreds of years, why is it such a hot topic today? Thanks to the Internet, fanfic is available for ready, free access on many different sites. Take for instance fanfiction.net where there are nearly 48,000 fanfic stories under Yu Gi Oh (anime) alone! In my limited exploration of this site, there don't seem to be too many posting requirements or any sort of pre-screening process serving as barriers to self-publication. While this plentiful supply of fanfic results in unlimited reading choices for fans of the genre, the Internet also makes it more visible to the original authors--and their lawyers.