Vulture.com just posted an awesome roundup of fanfiction, what it is, why we write it and some basic history.

Did you know that the most popular fandom isn’t a movie or TV show? It’s the band One Direction. Obviously I’m in the wrong demographic because I’ve never heard anything by them (that I’m aware of). The band makes the most popular tv/movie fandoms look like wastelands. Here’s some interesting comparisons (most data taken from Wattpad):

Number of stories uploaded: One Direction-over 500,000. Supernatural (the only non-band fandom mentioned in the chart): 75,000 (or so–it was hard to read the graph). No need for Sam and Dean fans to despair. Your uploads grew by 171% while One Direction only grew by 27%.

How about popular ships, based on tags in Wattpad stories? LarryStylinson (One Direction again): 61,117. The next most popular was Kathniel (a couple of Filipino pop stars): 8,105. Wow! The difference is stark. How about Destiel (Dean/Castiel from Supernatural), my favorite ship? They at least made the chart, coming in at 4,840. Sigh.

I had to laugh at the graphic of “number of minutes reading Johnlock (Sherlock/Watson from Sherlock) in the winter of 2015.

fanfiction

That’s a lot of minutes! Err, yes, I might have contributed a few of them.

The article also talks about authors who got their start writing fanfiction, authors who don’t approve of fanfiction and more. Check it out. It’s a fun, geeky read.

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