Entries on Special Interests: Internet Fandom History

I've been around online fan spaces for about ten years now, since late 2012 when I read The Outsiders for class and was so enthralled by the book and movie (for reasons I'm sure you can guess) that I was keeping up with it on Instagram, and by January of 2013, on Tumblr.  And I still am to this day, lol.  But that's my own personal experience; internet fandom history is its own rabbit hole, one I fell into during the pandemic.  

I think it was around mid-2020 that I first read the thrilling saga of Ms. Scribe.  As an avid Harry Potter fan, I've been watching the movies and reading the books and all that since I was a kid.  I witnessed firsthand some of the HP fandom's presence on the internet, mainly with stuff like Potter Puppet Pals' "The Mysterious Ticking Noise" and the channel's other videos, as well as some early-ish memes such as this gem that had my sister and I rolling:

But that really only scratches the surface.

The Ms. Scribe Story: An Unauthorized Fandom Biography (go read it, go read it right after you read this post, it is AMAZING) was only the beginning of my fandom history hyperfixation.  As someone who has been in fannish spaces for ten years, I've seen a lot - but there's a lot that came before I entered the scene in 2012 that I didn't even know about.  The Ms. Scribe Story is a tale of Harry Potter fandom gone wrong; of sockpuppet accounts and lies, of IP addresses and Big Name Fans, of smutty shipping and scandal.  And that is only the very tip of the iceberg when it comes to HP fandom drama: there's the Cassandra Claire Plagiarism Debacle (yes, the author of The Mortal Instruments, and that is another must-read write-up), Charitywank, the Snapewives, and much, much more.  And I cannot do each of those incidents justice, so you're just going to have to follow the links and read about them yourselves.  I promise, you're in for a treat.

Now, I'm using Harry Potter as an example because that's the media I'm most familiar with personally, and it was often the centerpiece of fandom drama in its heyday because of its size, but other pieces of media have had internet drama stretching back to the early internet days, too.  The place I learned the most about these incidents - what were called "wanks" - was through sites like Fanlore and the now-defunct Fandom Wank Wiki, which was the wiki for the JournalFen (also defunct) site Fandom Wank (also also defunct).  This was a site for people to bring their fandom drama and people would comment on the situation in snarky ways.  Sometimes for 76 pages.  And not always about fandom stuff, either - they had wank sites for non-fandom wank, too, which is just as wonderful to read through.

There's no way I can give you a rundown of all of this old drama in just this one post.  I have read through all of these, and they are often funny and weird in the way many things on the internet and in life are, but there's more to it than sifting through ancient gossip.  Reading these wank reports and dramatic threads on sites long-gone makes me feel like something of an internet archaeologist.  I have to go on the Wayback Machine to read these because the sites are dead or the posts and accounts deleted long ago.  I can only read about people arguing whether or not you can outwalk a hurricane because these sites have been preserved in much the same way as any other ancient text.  You open up that preserved browser tag and think,

"Oh...oh, something big transpired here."

People faking their deaths.  Passing off Photoshop filters as original art to make a quick buck.  Religions and cults built around fictional characters.  Users created memes and lingo will still use to this day, and reported and commented on events some still reference and remember fondly, such as "His 'wife?'  A horse."  They were pioneers of a sort, these early users of LJ and JournalFen and GeoCities and Yahoo message boards.  I talk about them like they're dead, and maybe the people behind the accounts aren't (some infamous users are still around on certain sites), but the accounts themselves are.  The sites are.  It is an internet graveyard of drama that I was not there to witness, but since discovering will not let die.  

It's fascinating to see how we have and have not changed in how we talk about media and engage with each other on the internet.  People were jerks back then, too, of course, but social media sites like Instagram and Twitter and Tumblr have changed how we do it, and I'm not sure for the better.  I often wonder if it would be better to return to a time of forums and comment chains, where maybe reactions couldn't be so instantaneous and widespread in a matter of moments; an online fandom experience that is more contained.  But, Pandora's Box has been opened, and I don't know if we can go back to a time where people can't just post their lukewarm hot takes in 240 words or less.

If any of this sounds interesting, I suggest you go check out the archived Fandom Wank Wiki.  Read the reports, follow the links, become a fellow internet archaeologist.  These people cared so much about preserving the mark they had left on their corner of the internet that they created an archive for it, to prove that all their stupid, petty fandom drama really had happened, and I, at least, am glad they did.