Fansplaining

In Episode 97, "The Shipping Question," Elizabeth and Flourish unveil their brand-spanking-new survey, on shipping and what we mean when we say we're doing it. They discuss the inspiration for the survey, what's included (and what isn't), and their own shipping histories, practices, and preferences. They also read a trio of listener letters: on shipping and speculation, on fanfiction tastes, and a follow-up to the discussion on "creativity" vs. "originality."

In Episode 96, "Ask Fansplaining Anything: Part 4," Flourish and Elizabeth respond to a plethora of listener letters on a wide variety of topics, including genderbending, imagines, political leanings across fannish platforms, Fandom Wank, kink memes, and how to deal with a friend who has GENUINELY TERRIBLE IDEAS ABOUT FANFIC.

In Episode 95, "Back to the Fans," Flourish and Elizabeth discuss director Jason Reitman's recent comments—that the upcoming Ghostbusters film would give the franchise "back to the fans"—and contextualize them in both the morass that is online Ghostbusters discourse and the ways that people in the entertainment industry frame "fans." They also untangle the conflation of fan entitlement, critique, and transformative works, and they answer a listener question about queerbaiting, shipping, and TV writers.

In Episode 94, "Save Our Show (It's A Metaphor)," Elizabeth and Flourish talk fan petitions—to keep a show on the air, to get a ship together, to de-canonize a piece of content, and everything in between. On a recent trip to Los Angeles, Flourish gathered perspectives from a variety of entertainment industry professionals, asking the question: Are fan petitions ever effective?

In Episode 93, "User-Generated Content," Elizabeth and Flourish tackle the thorny intersections between making stuff you love and getting paid. They start with the recent round of layoffs at BuzzFeed—including the revelation that a good portion of their traffic comes from uncompensated "community" members—and segue into a conversation about the uncompensated things fans enjoy doing, and the complicated ways that the tech, media, and entertainment industries profit off fans' work. What is exploitative—and what is just fans having fun?

In Episode 92, "Ask Fansplaining Anything: Part 3," Elizabeth and Flourish read and play another batch of listener letters and voicemails. Topics covered include fandom's future platforms, TV revivals, the dehumanizing aspects of RPF, and a return to The Discourse Trilogy™, from parallels with American fundamentalist church culture to the relationship between purity discourse and happy endings.

In Episode 91, "Casey Fiesler," Flourish and Elizabeth welcome the information science professor back onto the podcast to discuss her research, especially her study on the way transformative fandom migrates across platforms. Topics covered include feminist HCI, if you can truly get a "representative" sample of fans for a survey, privacy concerns as fandom comes under more scrutiny from researchers, and what Tumblr could have done—and still could do—better regarding the Great Porn Crackdown of 2018.

In "The Year In Fandom 2018," Elizabeth and Flourish discuss the events of the year: What trends from 2017 continued, what was less important, and did anything new begin to emerge? Tumblr fell apart; #metoo did not save us from the way systems enable abusers; K-pop more fully entered mainstream Anglophone culture; moral panics around shipping only intensified; and capitalism shaped everything in fandom, forever and ever, amen.

In Episode 89, Elizabeth and Flourish welcome back Dr. Rukmini Pande, a fan studies scholar whose new book, Squee From the Margins, explores race in both the field as well as fandom at large. Topics discussed include defining the boundaries of "fandom," how queerness and gender structure fan studies while race typically does not, closed vs open digital platforms, how fandom discussions of racism are often relegated to "crisis points," and more.

In Episode 88, Flourish and Elizabeth interview Kenyatta Cheese, a founder of Know Your Meme and currently of Everybody At Once, the company behind the social media presences of Doctor Who, Orphan Black, and other shows. They discuss EA1's philosophies of community and fandom, the way the entertainment industry understands fan culture, and how official accounts navigate fannish spaces—plus a good ol' critique of 20th-century Marxist frameworks.

In Episode 87, Elizabeth and Flourish offer up an extra (and possibly unwanted) fourth installment of THE DISCOURSE TRILOGY, entitled, "What We Discourse About When We Discourse About the Discourse." Brace yourselves. They read and play responses from five listeners, on topics including the connections between broader cultural conversations and fandom's purity debates, the Feminist Porn Wars of the 1980s, the ways that fandom fosters cross-generation connections as well as divisions, and Flourish's deep and abiding love for Twilight.

In Episode 86, "The Money Question," Flourish and Elizabeth complete their inadvertent DISCOURSE TRILOGY with a conversation about the monetization of fanfiction. The first half focuses on the Archive of our Own, a nonprofit fanfic archive that strongly discourages authors from monetizing their work. The second half focuses on Wattcon, a recent conference run by Wattpad, a reading-and-writing app that welcomes fanfic—and, as a for-profit company, both makes money from fanfic and encourages fic writers to think of themselves as entrepreneurs.

In Episode 85, Flourish and Elizabeth talk about the ever-contentious topic of age in fandom. They start with childhood—are there aspects of childhood that are naturally fannish?—and continue on through later stages of life, including the way mainstream society pits fannishness against maturity (unless you're a sports fan!). Topics covered include ageism, the empathy gap online, Ann M. Martin, and the glory that was the mall in the 1990s.

In Episode 84, "Purity Culture," Elizabeth and Flourish brace themselves and dive into a topic they've been asked about many times before. They define and deconstruct the term, along with the related "antis" and "stans"—who they are, how they behave, and what impact they have on fandom as a whole. They also address listener letters about the monetization of fanfic, new EU copyright law, and their interview with Javier Grillo-Marxuach.

In Episode 83, "Ask Fansplaining Anything: Part 2," Flourish and Elizabeth answer a pile of listener letters from the past few months. Topics covered include responses to the recent episode on real person fiction, whether crossovers are underappreciated, why there is a culture of paying for fanart but not fanfic, what "fuck canon" really means, queer representation in fan-favorite shows, and whether fandom is rife with internalized misogyny.

In Episode 82, Elizabeth and Flourish interview writer, producer, and former TV executive Javier Grillo-Marxuach about his long career both as a fan and as a member of the "powers that be." Topics covered include some of the earliest fan/creator clashes on the web, Latinx representation in Hollywood, the legacy of Lost and the idea of "solving" a show, when it's time to give up on a fandom, and the decision to kill Lexa on The 100—and the fallout from it.

As they do every August, Flourish and Elizabeth welcome the past year's guests to talk about what's changed in fandom, on a global level, a personal level, or both. Topics include the increase in fandom's visibility, fans attacking creators, purity culture, and the dangers of treating politics like a television show. Flourish and Elizabeth then share their own perspectives on the past year, exploring how corporate structures underpin our fannishness, and developing new perspectives on what fanfiction is and what it can do.

In Episode 80, "Real Person Fiction," Elizabeth and Flourish are joined by Aja Romano, internet culture writer at Vox, to discuss RPF: writing fiction about celebrities and other real, living people. Topics covered include stigma towards RPF within fandom and in the broader culture; the many ways real people turn up in all sorts of art; and what happens when a celebrity encounters online discourse about themselves. They also discuss a listener message about one of Fansplaining's favorite topics: fandom, capitalism, and the monetization of fanworks.

In Episode 79, Elizabeth and Flourish try to answer the question "Who Is Comic-Con For?" They talk about their experience at San Diego Comic-Con 2018, the third time they've attended the event together after meeting on a panel there in 2015, and consider the con from different angles. How has the arrival of film and TV franchise attention changed SDCC? And from consumer behavior to celebrity-watching culture, how does SDCC construct an idea of "fandom" for entertainment industry execs?

In Episode 78, "The Fan Studies Network," Elizabeth attends the Fan Studies Network's annual academic conference in Cardiff, Wales, and interviews the founders of the FSN, Lucy Bennett and Tom Phillips. Back in the U.S., she and Flourish discuss some of the most exciting things she heard at the conference, the intersections and tensions between academics and non-academic fans, and the ways in which diversity is still a challenge for fan studies.

In Episode 77, "The Truth About Toxic Fandom," Elizabeth and Flourish examine a few widely-held conceptions about "toxic fandom," also known as "broken" or "entitled" fandom. They explore whether these behaviors are inherent to being a fan, the culpability of both social media platforms and the producers and creators of source material, and how abusive fan behavior looks depending on the demographics of a fan community.

In episode 76, "Camp Austen," Flourish and Elizabeth talk to with Ted Scheinman, the author of Camp Austen, a book about his experiences at an Austen con attended by academics and fans (and academic/fans, too!). They also read a trio of listener letters: two on redemption and antiheroes and one on AUs and reading fanfiction by trope.

In Episode 75, "Bad Fans," Elizabeth and Flourish discuss Emily Nussbaum's concept of the "bad fan": people who read against the expectations of the source material to celebrate the bad behavior of characters, from anti-heroes to villains. They then discuss a listener letter about the concept of redemption: what makes a character redeemable? Do all characters deserve to be redeemed? How does fandom grant redemption? Finally, they discuss alternate universes—yes, again.

In Episode 74, "Ask Fansplaining Anything: Part 1," Flourish and Elizabeth answer a pile of listener letters from the past few months. Some touch on recent episodes, from more observations about fan tourism to critique of the discussion on alternate universe fic. Others pose new questions, on topics including the Society for Creative Anachronism, aging into or out of fandom, fic-searching and tagging methods, how to make fandom friends, and ways to help your family understand why fandom is so important to you.

In Episode 73, "Ship It," Flourish and Elizabeth welcome back Britta Lundin, writer on the CW's Riverdale, to discuss her debut YA novel, Ship It. Topics covered include writing craft, fannish interpretations versus production realities, drawing lines on RPF, how much fans should care about canon, and how to explain shipping to someone who doesn't understand it—whether that's your mother or the editor of your book.

In Episode 72, Flourish always knew that someday she'd hear the words written on her wrist— In Episode 72, Elizabeth is a florist. Every day Flourish walks past her flower shop and— In Episode 72, "Alternate Universes," Elizabeth and Flourish are joined by Morgan Leigh Davies, co-host of the "Overinvested" podcast, to discuss alternate universe fanfiction. Topics covered include the relationship between canon and fanon, the "any two guys" trope, how AUs can raise or lower stakes, and the true nature of teens.

In Episode 71, Elizabeth and Flourish welcome back fan-scholar Dr. Lori Morimoto, who was last on the podcast in 2016 to talk about shipping and activism with Rukmini Pande. This time, she digs into transcultural fandom, including concepts like "contact zones" and "ontological security," and how fan communities define themselves by what they include—and what they exclude. They also discuss the current state of fan studies, from its boundaries as a discipline to advice for current students interested in the field.

In Episode 70, "Our Most Passionate Fans," Elizabeth and Flourish discuss the ways that corporate America interacts with fandom—especially when fandom behaves badly—through the lens of the Rick and Morty/McDonalds Szechuan Sauce debacle. (Spoiler: corporate America does not do well.) They also continue to discuss fan tourism and read a listener letter about what happens when your own fandom descends on your town.

In Episode 69, "Fan Tourism," Elizabeth and Flourish consider the different ways that people travel to experience their fandom, settling on a spectrum of fan tourism, spanning immersion into a fictional place to craft-focused television set visits. They also discuss being a fan of a source material set in a culture or time period other than your own, the differences between Disney and Universal Studios, breaking the (traditional theater sense of) the fourth wall, and whether Elizabeth is a teaboo.

In Episode 68, "Stephanie Burt: Part 2," Elizabeth and Flourish wrap up their conversation with poet, professor, and X-fan Stephanie Burt, covering topics from transitioning in public view to allegorical versus literal representation to queer themes in superhero comics. They also discuss a pair of listener letters: one on fandom, capitalism, and ethical behavior, and one on fanfiction's prominence on both the podcast and within the sphere of fandom commentary at large.

Episode 67, "Stephanie Burt: Part 1," is the first half of a conversation with Stephanie Burt, a Harvard poetry professor and comics fangirl. In this segment, they discuss poetry criticism, the similarities between fanfic and hardcore punk, taste and quality, situating your critical perspective, and the way various academic fields—from fan studies to the English department—treat feeeeeeeeeelings.

In Episode 66, "The Humanizing Turn," Elizabeth and Flourish use a Star Wars meta that Flourish recently published as a jumping-off point to discuss tropes, characterization, and what we want from stories, in both canon and fanfiction. When do we grant stories complexity—and when do we simplify them, slotting characters into archetypes? They round out the discussion by responding to a listener question about "anti culture" and how both the methods and the content of anti-shipping have changed in recent years.

In Episode 65, "Fandom and Capitalism," Elizabeth and Flourish discuss exactly what it says on the tin: fandom and capitalism, from a variety of different angles. First they read a thought-provoking listener letter about how market pressures spur more diversity on our screens—and whether fans' own "corrective" ecosystems might be doing harm by cutting off that feedback loop. Then they consider the case of Marvel's recently-announced "Create Your Own," a comics creator platform with an equal-parts hilarious and worrying terms of service.

In Episode 64, "The Year In Fandom 2017," Elizabeth and Flourish talk about...the year in fandom! Sticking to tradition, they start by recapping their 2016 list and seeing how those trends have evolved over the past year; then they dive into a new list of trends and themes from 2017. Topics covered include the limits of fandom mainstreaming, shipping and social justice activism, and fandom and the #MeToo movement. And they wrap up with a discussion of their personal years in fandom, which means, unsurprisingly, sad pirates and Flourish's perpetual mission to connect all things to Star Trek.

In Episode 63, "Fanworks and Counterfeits," Elizabeth and Flourish discuss a recent brouhaha in the Outlander fandom involving fan group closures, counterfeit merchandise, what counts as acceptable fanart to The Powers That Be, and more. Topics covered include historical knitting drama, the bounds of fair use, Scottish tourism woes, and the centralization of Facebook as a corporate power. They also read and discuss a listener letter about the appeal of YA fiction and talk frankly about the recent fee structure changes at Patreon.

In Episode 62, Elizabeth and Flourish talk with Adrian Hon, co-founder and CEO of the independent game developer Six to Start and one of the creators of their most popular game, "Zombies, Run!" Topics covered include ARGs, moderating forums, POV in games, fan/creator interaction, accessibility in gaming, and more. Plus Flourish pitches him what will surely be the next big hit in fitness games, "Zombies, Lift!"

In Episode 61, "Episodic," Elizabeth and Flourish read a wide range of recent listener responses: on the purpose of fandom history, why adults read YA fiction, the difference between privacy and secrecy, and how happy endings and reader expectations vary across time and place. Then they discuss Elizabeth's recent presentation at "Episodic," a conference that brought episodic storytellers from different media together. Topics covered include why fandom is drawn to episodic content, different modes of episodic storytelling, and the one comedy Flourish has ever watched, M*A*S*H.

Elizabeth and Flourish have a wide-ranging chat with (you guessed it) Orlando Jones, of American Gods, Sleepy Hollow and those 7up commercials. Topics covered include the differing definitions of "fanboy" and "fangirl," Orlando's secret passion for R2D2/C3PO slash, race and racism in TV production, Rashomon's applicability to fandom wank, and which Batman is the best Batman.

In Episode 59, "Fandom Histories," Elizabeth and Flourish discuss common narratives of fandom history and lay out their approaches to thinking about the antecedents of modern fan culture. Topics discussed include 19th century amateur press associations, early science fiction fandom, gatekeeping, the concept of "feral fandoms," and myths about people in the past. They also respond to a listener question about romantic relationships in fanfiction, and discuss where fic and romance overlap—and where they don't.

Episode 58, "Flourish Attends A Concert, Or, Elizabeth Agrees To Talk About Harry Styles For Half An Hour," does exactly what it says on the tin. The morning after Flourish attends a Harry Styles concert in Boston, they discuss the concert itself, differences and similarities between music, sports, and media fandoms, how the fans you interact with affect your behavior in fandom, and the experience of being in a crowd totally focused on one thing. They also discuss a listener voicemail about, amongst other things, clashes around age in fandom.

In Episode 57, "Nerf Herder," Elizabeth and Flourish start things off with the Fansplaining Patreon Pledge Drive before they talk to Parry Gripp, the lead singer of the band that wrote and performed the Buffy The Vampire Slayer theme song. They discuss the evolution of nerd culture, how music gets into television shows, and different types of band fandoms. Elizabeth and Flourish later discuss Joss Whedon and fans' reactions and moral obligations when the creator of their favorite thing turns out to not be a very good person.

In Episode 56, "Ships and Showrunners," Elizabeth and Flourish talk to Lilah Vandenburgh, a long-time fan who is now a writer, director, and showrunner for film and television. They discuss how shipping culture has evolved in recent years, the pressures on showrunners and other entertainment pros to interact, and the ways that structural inequality shapes fan behavior. Also Elizabeth reports back with her review of Sean Stewart's narrative game, "Sherlock Holmes: The Last Breath."

In Episode 55, "Happy Anniversary #2," Flourish and Elizabeth once again welcome back the guests from the past year to talk about what's changed in fandom, on a global level, a personal level, or both. Global topics included the recent crop of Hugo winners, Marvel's Secret Empire storyline, and the intersections between fandom and U.S. politics. The more personal included the intersections of fannish and professional identities and the experience of aging in fandom. To round things out, Flourish and Elizabeth share their own perspectives, discussing whether fandom ever really changes—or whether it simply repeats the same patterns over and over again.

Elizabeth and Flourish interview Sean Stewart, ARG (alternate reality game) writer, Star Wars tie-in novelist, and Sherlock Holmes narrative video game creator. Topics covered include definitions of a variety of gaming terms, the collective intelligence of fans, and fannish conspiracy theories and their messy intersections with conspiracy theories around real-world events. (A note to listeners: we discuss several of these, including 9/11, the Boston Marathon bombing, and Sandy Hook.)

In Episode 53, Elizabeth and Flourish discuss what could be called "stealth fandom": subtle cosplay, non-narrative ways that people feel close to their favorite topic or story-world, all the tiny things that remind people of their fandoms (even if they don't make sense to anyone else)—and how that differs from official merchandise. They also answer a pair of listener questions: one about whether one should seek permission to write fanfic of someone else's fanfic, and one about monetizing fanart—but not fanfic.

In Episode 52, Fanfic v. FANtasies, Elizabeth and Flourish discuss the new Fullscreen webseries FANtasies, in which YouTubers act out scenarios loosely based on Wattpad fic. They discuss the show in concept and in practice, changing ideas around fan/creator interaction, rethinking conceptions of the fan-to-pro path, and more. They also read a letter from a listener who loves female original characters in fanfiction and reflect on feedback about the discussion around comics in the previous episode, meditating on why some people feel like "real fans" and some people don't.

In Episode 51, "Desi Geek Girls," Flourish and Elizabeth talk to another pair of podcast hosts, Preeti Chhibber and Swapna Krishna of the eponymous pop culture podcast. Topics covered balancing joy with critique in pop culture conversations, Star Trek and Star Wars (and the experience of being brown at Star Wars Celebration), traveling cross-country to see "Monsoon Wedding" onstage, the ways that fandom affects a career path, and how a novice can get started reading comics in the year 2017.

In Episode 50, "Bookcon(s)," Flourish grills Elizabeth about the book publishing industry and book fandom following Elizabeth's visit to BookCon, the consumer-facing wing of industry trade show Book Expo America. Topics covered include how books get from publishers to readers, the evolving relationships publishers, booksellers, and authors have with their customers, the way authors talk to fans, peers, and some combination of the two, and how certain spaces give authors—and other creators—license to share their fannishness.

In Episode 49, "Defining Fanfiction: The Results," Elizabeth and Flourish discuss the results of the Fansplaining Definitions Survey, in which more than 3,500 respondents offered a variety of perspectives on what fanfiction is—and isn't—to them. They explore a variety of themes: is fanfiction derivative? Is it written by and for fans? Must it include shipping and fannish tropes? And they talk about other trends in the survey data, from different ways to use the word "fandom" to fannish perceptions of fiction, nonfiction, and canon.

In Episode 48, "Con or Bust," Elizabeth and Flourish talk to Diana Pho, a Tor editor who runs "Beyond Victoriana," and Mark Oshiro of "Mark Reads" and "Mark Watches." They're both board members of Con or Bust, an organization that raised money to help fans of color attend conventions. Topics covered include the philosophy and the practice behind Con or Bust, Diana and Mark's congoing experiences, racism in both physical and digital fandom spaces, and why why cons should care about appealing to a broader group of attendees. They also discover the one show that Flourish's very liberal parents and Mark's very conservative ones would allow them both to watch.