The Immersive Joy of Fan Fiction

Culture Study Podcast

Anne Helen Petersen

Fashion & Beauty, Society & Culture, Arts

4.6 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 16 April 2025

⏱️ 74 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Whether you’ve been deep in the fanfic world for years or have only heard others talk about it — we’ve worked really hard to make this episode for all of you. Yes, you might have to hear someone define what slash is (very useful for newbies!) but then we go deep on how fanfic is influencing genres, general fanfic mainstreamification, how and why AU (alternative universe) fics work more or less effectively with different texts, and, best of all, WHERE TO FIND THE GOOD STUFF.

This is a classic case of the Culture Study Pod making the argument that even if you’re not super into a cultural object/phenomenon (and especially if you are) there is so much interesting stuff to talk about — you just have to the find the right people, like our brilliant cohosts Emily and Vee, avid fanfic writers (and theorists) and cohosts of Mind the Tags.

Join the ranks of paid subscribers and get bonus content, access to the discussion threads, ad-free episodes, and the knowledge that you're supporting an indie pod trying to make its way in the world. If you're already a subscriber-- thank you! Join us in the discussion thread for this episode! Got a question or idea for a future episode? Visit culturestudypod.substack.com

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To hear more, visit culturestudypod.substack.com

Transcript

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0:00.0	It was in the basement of my best friend's house on her parents' computer when we were,
0:07.0	must have been 12 or 13. We were both really into Star Wars, and we discovered a website
0:13.1	that was full of stories about Star Wars. And we just sat next to each other in the dark
0:18.2	looking at them. Do you remember what any of the stories were
0:21.8	specifically about? It was right around the time that the Phantom Menace came out, which is the first
0:26.4	prequel, and they were about Obi-Wan Kenobi from that era. Emily, what was yours?
0:34.7	I was on Live Journal, and I found some kind of like Harry Potter story and I didn't
0:44.0	really know what fan fiction was. So I thought I was like, did somebody like, what is this?
0:48.4	This is it like a project that somebody did? And it was this huge like multi thousand word
0:54.0	AU for Harry Potter. And I just could not believe
0:58.1	what I was reading. I was like, this is the best thing that's ever happened to me in my life.
1:01.2	And I was, I also was on my family computer on dial-up. And I'm sure my parents were yelling
1:07.5	at me to get off the computer so they could use the phone. You know what I mean? Yes. So excellent.
1:11.6	Excellent.
1:11.9	100%.
1:13.0	This is the Culture Study podcast and I'm Anna Helen Peterson.
1:23.9	I'm Emily.
1:25.0	I go by Fervent Rabbit under the various fan fiction places and I'm a fan fiction writer and co-host of Mind the Tags podcast.
1:32.3	And I'm V. I go by V-Again-The-Against or V against the day, depending on how many characters I'm allowed in my screen name.
1:40.4	And I am the other co-host of the Mind the Tags podcast.
1:45.0	You know, one of the things that I want to even like to take steps back from part of the thrill when you are a big fan of something and discover fan fiction is like you love this thing so much, you just want more of it, right? And there are these
2:01.6	constraints of the text as it exists. And then when you find out that there's more, not just a little
	...

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