Are you there OP? It's me, Anon.

Out there, in the wide reaches of internet fandom, exists communities where all communication is anonymous. All of the original posts are anonymous, and all of the subsequent comments are anonymous. I’m talking about anon memes.

The anon memes typically exist as discussion boards on sites like livejournal or dreamwidth. Even though tumblr now exists as the general hub of most fandom activity, the design of the site makes it a poor host for anon memes. Tumblr, after all, does not support forum-like postings and threads. Comments on any original post are drowned out by reblogs and likes, making a thread of discussion extremely difficult to follow, if not impossible. I would know. I’ve tried. And I don’t recommend it.

Livejournal and dreamwidth, however, still support such functions and nest comments, making them much easier to track. More importantly, however, both sites make it incredibly easy for any person to make an anonymous contribution, regardless of whether or not they have an account.

Anon memes vary according to subject and may all have different rules or community guidelines that the mods enforce. Some are very general and discuss almost anything. They may be fandom specific or stretch across all fandoms in general (like Fail-Fandomanon). A few of the memes are known as hate memes and can definitely be as vicious as the name implies. But, they may also act as areas where users can safely vent about issues they might otherwise be uncomfortable linking back to them.

Other anon memes may even focus on the more creative aspect of fandoms and encourage short commentfics. The most notorious incarnation of this style is the kink meme. Like the name suggests, these memes tend to be more sexually explicit in nature, but not all are graphic in content. A poster leaves a prompt for a fic (often with a desired pairing and kink) that any anon can fill. The fills themselves may range anywhere from very short drabbles to long multi-chaptered fics. The anonymous nature of the memes tends to lower inhibitions, making users much more likely to make prompts and fulfill them. It’s sort of like being drunk or participating in an improve skit. You just do it, without thinking much about how “valid” or “artistic” a fill is. You just let the ideas freely flow and post it before you have any chance for regret. And it is precisely in those moments where the most unexpected creativity may sprout up.

Full post here.

Anons may later choose to de-anon themselves by collecting and editing their fics before posting them on a site like AO3.  But some authors may choose to never “out” themselves for a variety of reasons that I have touched on previously.

 Full post here.

The method of archiving generally becomes an important question for kink memes. Some memes, after all, can become very active and spawn hundreds if not thousands of fics. They may easily become lost, however, with each new addition. To track anon fills, many kink memes have a separate post where users can post links to both finished and ongoing fics. Many times, these links are then reposted onto sites like delicious where they can be tagged and organized while still keeping all of the authors anonymous. AO3 provides another alternative, but only users comfortable with de-anoning transfer their fills there. The site, however, also has the added benefit of making the fics much easier to read than on the original meme, where they are split into multiple short parts because of the word count limit for each post.

Anon memes may seem very odd and off putting at first, especially the kink variety. But they serve as an important gathering place for fans where they may post without any of the fears associated with having an identifiable pseudonym. They encourage and augment fandom participation. And they are where many, many fics and fic writers first get their start.