Fangirl

“Fandom” is a term for a community of fans of a particular thing. The suffix “-dom” “denote[s] a rank or an area controlled by a person of that rank,” making fandom “a region controlled by fans […] a space where fans create their own language and communities, and where they reimagine characters and worlds into something that is uniquely theirs” (Rutherford-Morrison, Lara. “Where Did the Word ‘Fandom’ Come From?” Bustle, 26 Feb. 2016). Colloquially, the term “fandom” is most often used to refer to fans of media such as TV shows, movies, or comic books. The most influential early fan community was the Star Trek fandom, often nicknamed “Trekkies.” A fictional news story in Fangirl reports on a true phenomenon: “If you wanted to meet other Star Trek fans in 1983, you'd have to join fan clubs by mail or meet up with other Trekkies at conventions” (141). Before the internet age, Trekkies connected with other fans through fan-produced magazines and newsletters, in which they often shared their Star Trek-related hobbies. One of these fan hobbies was writing fanfiction, or “fanfic” for short: stories written by fans that take their favorite fictional settings and characters and put them in new situations and plotlines. With the advent of the internet in the late 1990s and early 2000s, fanfiction communities became more easily accessible, and the popularity of fanfiction exploded.

Rowell’s fictional Simon Snow series is a clear correlative to the real-world Harry Potter series, and the Simon Snow fanfiction community depicted in the book reflects the real-world Harry Potter fandom. Like Harry Potter, Simon Snow is an orphaned 11-year-old wizard sometimes called the “Chosen One” who attends a magical school to train and defeat an evil force. The Simon Snow books experience both international popularity and Christian backlash, just as the Harry Potter books did, and both the real and fictional properties have popular film adaptations. Furthermore, like Simon Snow, the Harry Potter fandom exploded online. On fanfiction sites, there are more fanfics about Harry Potter than any other fandom. As of early 2024, on the popular fanfiction site Archive of Our Own, or AO3, there are almost 447,000 Harry Potter stories. The next most popular series, Star Wars, has just over half that many stories. On another popular fanfiction site, fanfiction.net, there are 847,000 Harry Potter stories, compared to the second most popular series, Twilight, at 222,000.

One of the characteristics of fandom culture and fanfiction communities is the use of community-specific jargon, much of which is used in Fangirl. “Canon” refers to the events, characters, and plot of a fictional universe that are considered official or authoritative. In the context of fanfiction, what the original author of a book series publishes or states is considered “canon.” Cath’s fanfiction is about a “non-canon” romantic pairing, Simon and Baz. Romantic pairings are often called “ships,” short for “relationships”; thus, Cath’s ship is Simon/Baz. Fanfiction that ships two characters of the same gender is called “slash,” referring to the slash mark between the two character’s names. Since Simon and Baz both identify as men, fanfictions about their relationship are called “slash fics.” The popularity of Simon/Baz in the Simon Snow fandom is another allusion to Harry Potter. One of the most popular Harry Potter ships is the non-canon slash pairing Draco/Harry, also referred to by the portmanteau “Drarry,” which puts the protagonist with one of his antagonists. As of early 2024, on AO3, there are over 62,400 Drarry fics, while the second most popular ship is another non-canon slash pairing, Sirius/Remus, with over 45,300.

The origin of slash fics goes “back to 1960s fanfic writers, specifically those interested in Star Trek, who wrote ‘Kirk/Spock’ fiction” (“Slash Fic.” TV Tropes). A 2022 survey of 5,000 readers on AO3 found that roughly 54% of the readers of slash fics were cisgender women. One explanation for the predominance of slash pairings over straight pairings in fandom is the often-times “lopsided […] male-to-female ratio” of characters in media (“Slash Fic”). In the original Star Trek, for instance, there was only one woman among the eight main recurring characters. Fanfiction authors put together characters whose dynamics they find interesting, and the lopsided gender ratios of shows like Star Trek allow them to imagine a diverse set of sexualities and sexual and gender dynamics among their favorite characters. Fan studies professor Dr. Mel Stanfill, who ran the study, explains that “slash allows women to explore sexuality without the baggage of identification and the gender norms they're subjected to” in the real world (Sadhbh, O-Sullivan. “Why Women Love Making Fictional Men Have Sex.” Refinery29, 22 Aug. 2023). Fandoms, particularly slash fandoms, are communities where women do not experience the patriarchal pressures they often face in their everyday lives.

Of Dr. Stanfill’s respondents, only 14% self-identified as heterosexual, suggesting that slash fiction provides people belonging to the LGBTQ+ community a safe space to explore their identities and sexualities safely. Such safety may not exist in the real world that fanfiction writers and readers live in. For instance, even though Wren and Cath’s father approves of their fanfiction hobby, as does Levi, Wren says that her boyfriend, Jandro, is “squicked by the slash” (401). “Squicked,” in fandom terminology, means that someone finds something gross or experiences disgust toward it. This prompts Cath to ask whether Jandro is “squicked by gay people” (401). In other words, does his prejudice against slash fiction translate into a real-life prejudice against gay people? Wren is not sure whether Jandro is “squicked” by gay people but says that he thinks it is “deviant” that a straight girl like Cath would write slash fiction. Jandro’s attitude demonstrates how even a straight person experimenting with identity and sexuality via slash fiction can experience prejudice and judgment.