Theoryofficgate Clarification and Follow-Up

It's been over a month since fanfic writers, specifically user waldorph, discovered that a UC Berkeley class had required students to write reviews as part of a course on fanfiction. I initially wrote a bit to explore some of the issues being raised as tensions still ran high. Since then, tempers have simmered down and most of the problems have been resolved.

Now that most of the details have come out, I wanted to clarify some points from my previous post as well as add on to some of the discussion regarding fan aggression.

The class, "The Theory of Fanfiction", is not taught by professors. In case it was unclear, the course is student designed and run. By undergraduates for undergraduates. So, it's basically a glorified reading group with the added benefit of college credit. And as later uncovered profiles revealed, these undergrads had a personal interest in fandom and even participated in it. One of the teachers was found to go by the pseudonym of FiveMinutesTilBedtime on many sites, including ao3 and tumblr.

Unfortunately, fandoms tend to get rather prickly when disturbed. There were reports of targeted harassment and malicious posting on top of the general drama the course caused. It got so bad that the fan-turned-instructor has since deleted or deactivated these accounts, but traces can still be found on the wayback machine or through tumblr correspondences. Sure, they made a mistake, what young adult doesn't, but the responses were excessive and cruel.

Such behavior truly highlights the ugly and destructive sides of both fandom and internet culture in general. BNF copperbadge, for example, allegedly posted a spiteful response (that has since been deleted) to theoryofficgate:

If you’d like to share your thoughts with the “teachers” of the “Let’s go be dicks to fan authors” class, their emails are listed in this cached document.
You know, if you wanted to. Unsolicited criticism seems to be the order of the day, after all. 

And since the original poster has a large presence in online communities, the post gained a lot of views and traction. It revealed personal information about the instructors and called for further harassment. Such behavior cultivates a very negative space in fandom and encourages cruelty. At least one fan was run off as a result and felt pressured enough to destroy their fandom identity completely. After all, it can be easy to forget, but FiveMinutesTilBedtime was first and foremost a fan and content creator.

A few anonymous commenters weighed in on this incident while criticizing the phenomenon of BNFdom:

Original thread here.

The class has since edited the syllabus and stopped the reviews in favor of revising the assignments. Now aware of the close scrutiny, the teachers and students have been much more closed off about the course. But discussions like the above still continue.

The attempt to bridge fandom and academia was overly eager and ill-conceived, but it was still genuine. They are all fans. Both teachers and students are trying to respectfully study, analyze, and document a culture they love. This particular experiment may have failed horribly, but perhaps the lessons from their follies may create space for future success.

A syllabus? On fanfiction? It's more likely than you think.

When fandom and academics collide it typically isn’t pretty, as yesterday’s drama clearly shows us.

This year, the University of California Berkley decided to try something different in its curriculum. They went for a bold, new foray into a subculture that has only recently been gaining more visibility in the mainstream. A subculture that has often been framed by the news as an oddity or sideshow. A subculture that changes rapidly thanks to digital media, causing almost any new academic papers on it to seem outdated almost right as they are published. Yes, you guessed it. The university built a course for studying fandom. Specifically fanfiction.

And they're rather proud of it.

Called The Theory of Fanfiction, the class is dedicated to studying the phenomenon and tropes of fandom generated literature. Most of the structure rests on students reading a number of selected fanfictions, or assigned readings if you will. They are then tasked with reviewing said fics and discussing them in the classroom under the direction of a instructor (really a group of student-teachers). The fanfiction selection alone raises some eyebrows. There simply is little precedence for such a small list in academia and such an overwhelming amount of fanfic in general. What exactly determines what fic makes the cut? The popularity or infamy? Cross referencing a number of rec lists? The teacher’s personal favorites? And if that selection process is not bizarre enough, some of the readings are strangely enough paired with more classical readings. The discussion of the infamous badfic My Immortal, for instance, is paired with an excerpt from Dante’s Inferno. I cringe to think of what parallels the class might force. But I digress. The class setup sounds simple and harmless enough. Granted, the academic value of such a class is debatable, but their hearts are in the right place. Right?

If the class had continued on in its own little bubble, then sure. Probably. Few would probably have even known about the course’s existence. But more than a few feathers have been ruffled the past couple of days when the students started leaving the mandatory reviews. What really caught one fic author’s attention was the sudden influx of strangely formatted reviews. Instead of the typical more personal and informal reviews (like a standard “Great fic! I can’t wait for the next update! :D”), tumblr user waldorph noticed a bunch of oddly long and stilted reviews full of formal language and attempts at constructive criticism on their ao3 page, even though they did not ask for any.

The author and other non-student reviewers did not take kindly to the intrusion for a number of reasons. First and foremost, none of the fic authors were asked or notified about the course and the use of their works in said course. This was a huge mistake on the side of the professors, especially since 50% of the students grades rely on fandom interaction through reviewing. The authors likely did not want the sudden influx of attention from outsiders. The reviewers themselves were obviously not used to the understood but unstated etiquette of fanfic. Mostly, that the reviews aren’t really reviews in the way that most people tend to think of them. Unless the author specifically states that they want constructive criticism, most of the time people won’t leave any as it would be considered rude. Fanfiction, after all, is not meant to be rigorously scrutinized the way an academic paper might. It’s not made for publishing and should not be treated as such. It’s first and foremost for fun.

One anonymous user sums it up nicely when addressing the student-teacher (who was forced to explain when the comments turned to mudslinging and attacks on BOTH sides):

Full thread here.

Things have cooled down a bit, or as best as it can in a scant 24 hours, but the drama has stirred up a lot of important discussion on the intersection of academia and fandom culture and especially on how the former should respectfully approach the latter. Careful thought should definitely go into exploring these issues to prevent another incident from occurring in the future.

A full write-up of the drama can be found here. And more discussion on the topic can be found here, here, and here. Keep in mind that the fallout is still unfolding, so there may be a future update.