5 Reasons Pop Culture is Run By Fanfiction

Well, I was going to write this article myself, but Cracked.com beat me to it, and did all of the more research, so instead I'm just going to link to it and point out that now you don't even have to wait until the authors are dead anymore to make money off pre-existing stories - you just have to change the names and a few details and add in badly portrayed BDSM relationships and call it erotica *coughcough50ShadesofGraycough*.

I should also point out that changing the names and a few details of a story to make money off of it isn't a new thing either; just look at almost every fantasy story written since Tolkien published LOTR.


Anyway, here's the article :D

5 Reasons Pop Culture Is Run By Fanfiction

Help Me Obi 1 Enoby ur mi only hop!!!!1

I'm not usually pro-flaming, but I just had to post this, if nothing else, as an example of how not to write. From what I understand, this is one of the best-known fanfics in the world. It is a Harry Potter Mary-Sue which takes place mostly at Hogwarts. From what I can tell, all of the main characters are Satanists and goths, except Snape (aka Snap), who is a pedophilic prep, who, despite the fact that he's gay frequently fantasizes about and spies on the female protaganist.

My favourite quotes include:

I’m not related to Gerard Way but I wish I was because he’s a major fucking hottie.

I was wearing red Satanist sings on my nails in red nail polish (AN: c doez dat sound lik a Maru Sue 2 u?).

And, my all-time personal favourite:

And then…………… suddenly just as I Draco kissed me passionately. Draco climbed on top of me and we started to make out keenly against a tree. He took of my top and I took of his clothes. I even took of my bra. Then he put his thingie into my you-know-what and we did it for the first time.

I really, really, almost hope that this was written by someone who was eleven or younger, because somehow that would make it better... I think. Maybe not.

Pride and Prejudice. Now with Zombies.

I discovered a book today. It's called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and - yes. It's Pride and Prejudice, only they have to fight the legions of the Walking Dead. Lady Catherine has ninjas. It's awesome.

The whole book is succinctly summarized on the back: "Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you'd actually want to read."

Now, I absolutely love the original Pride and Prejudice. In fact, of all of the Jane Austen books that I've read, I love it the most. I made the minor mistake of reading it before I tried Sense and Sensibility, and now can't read S&S, because there's no Mr. Darcy. So I console myself by reading P&P a couple of times a year and wallowing in my girlish squees, even though I know what's going to happen next. I also own two copies of the 2005 movie with Matthew McFayden as Mr. Darcy (who, in my own opinion, is a MUCH better Mr. Darcy than Colin Firth. But that's me).

Seth Grahame-Smith, who did all the zombie bits, actually made it work. He's managed to turn Elizabeth Bennett into a skilled fighting machine who, while being kind and witty and lively and all that, can also slaughter zombies with the best of them. And, it's funny. It's got zombies, and ninjas. About the only thing it doesn't have is pirates.

Of course, the whole thing makes one think.* How much can one get away with, with stories that are in Public Domain?

Because, really...zombies? In Hertfordshire? And there's ninjas involved?

Does this mean that, if I went and took, oh...the Arthurian Legends, and decided that as punishment for their adulterous ways, Lancelot and Guinevere were made into Zombies who then attacked and ate Sir Percival while he was mucking out his stable,** I could get away with that? Really? It's not...irreverent?

It's a tad worrying, because it also means that, if I ever have anything published, and my work were to fall into Public Domain, the new book with the amusing zombified book cover could be The Story That Rainbow Brite Spawned - And Zombies and people would buy it. Assuming, of course, that the original story was popular enough.

And, I think that's the rub. I don't think anyone would want to read War and Peace and Zombies, unless it was the abridged version. Hardly anyone wants to read the original of that now, and I'm fairly certain Whatshisname's already dead and that the book has long since been available in the Public Domain.

Duuuuuuude: I'm going to leave instructions with my kids for when J.K Rowling finally croaks, to tell my grandkids to write this down: Zombie Harry Potter. No really. Screw the Golden Snitch: they're playing for bodyparts, and the prized Jellied Brain, which, depending on who eats it, might just taste like bile. Or something. And there will be ninjas.

You know what Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is, though, right? It's fanfiction.*** 100%, pure, fanfiction. For nerds, who think zombies and ninjas make any story better. The fangirl in me wants to jump up and down and yell "See? See? It is a legitimate form of writing!" while the rest of me wants to hide in the shrubbery (with my book) until people stop looking.

I could, from here, segue into a rambling discussion of fanfiction and intellectual pornography, but I think I shall leave that for another day, considering the purpose of this was to point out that I found an awesome book. Seriously. It's actually good.

~~~

*It also makes me watch myself; I often catch myself, when I've been reading P&P, writing in Austenian prose. This can be rather annoying when writing something that doesn't fit in that sort of language.

** And by 'mucking out' I mean, 'having intimate relations with Bill the Stable Hand. Hur hur hur.

*** Actually, in the case of the Arthurian Legends, most of what's currently thought of as being part of the cycle (like Lancelot) was added in after, and is, therefore, fanfiction. Oddly enough, the same can be said about a great deal of what ended up in the cannonized version of the Bible. It's all fanfiction.