Is money ruining fan fiction?

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Everyday, companies make billions selling your personal info. Data brokers scrape your name, addresses, phone numbers, even details about your family, and sell it without your consent. Aura fights back. They remove your data from broker sites, keep it off, and alert you if your info shows up on the dark web. You also get VPN, antivirus, and a password manager. Start your free trial today and protect yourself now at aura.com/private.

That's aura.com/private.

SPEAKER_2 (0:30)

Hi, I'm Adam Grant, host of the podcast Rethinking, a show where I talk to some of today's greatest thinkers about the unconventional ways they see the world. On Rethinking, you'll get surprising insights from scientists, leaders, artists, and more. People like Reese Witherspoon, Malcolm Gladwell, and Yo-Yo Ma.

Hear lessons to help you find success at work, build better relationships, and more. Find Rethinking wherever you get your podcasts.

Reema Khrais (0:57)

If you're walking through a bookstore these days, chances are you'll pass by more than a few novels that started out as fan fiction. There's The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood, which began as Star Wars fan fiction. Rachel Reed's novel Game Changer was based on characters from Captain America. She's best known for another book in that hockey romance series, Heated Rivalry. Then of course, there's 50 Shades of Grey by EL. James, which famously began as Twilight fan fiction.

I'm Reema Grace, and you're listening to This Is Uncomfortable, the weekly show from Marketplace about life and how money messes with it. If you don't know much about fan fiction, what you need to know is that it's traditionally been a labor of love. People writing stories for free for other people who love the same fictional world. But lately, more of those stories, they're making the jump from online fandom to bookstore shelves. They're becoming best sellers and getting adapted into films. People are building whole careers from fan fiction. Which got us thinking, what happens when a world built around passion and community starts to become a business opportunity?

Joining me to talk about all of this is cultural commentator and writer of the popular substack, Tell the Bees, Josh Lora. Hey, Josh.

Josh Lora (2:11)

Hi, thank you for having me again.

Reema Khrais (2:13)

I'm also joined by Elizabeth Minkel. She's the editor-in-chief for Fansplaining, a site featuring reporting, analysis, and criticism of all things fandom. Welcome, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Minkel (2:22)

Hi, thanks for having me.

Reema Khrais (2:24)

Okay, so I just want to start by asking each of you to share your first memory of reading or maybe even writing fan fiction. Why don't you go first, Elizabeth?

Elizabeth Minkel (2:33)

Yeah, so my fan fiction origin story, I started writing fan fiction before I knew it was a thing, before I had the internet. It was just like an instinct I had.

This is back in the 90s, when I was a child. And this is a pretty common story for people who are my age and older, because for some people it's just a drive they have, and so they just feel like I want to spend more time with these characters, I'm just going to write stories about them. But when I was a little bit older in my early teens, I got really into Buffy, and finally I had an internet connection. And so, you know, and I don't know if you're on the web in the late 90s, but it was a bit of a free-for-all, you're just kind of randomly clicking on things and you're not sure where you're going to wind up.

And so, I was looking at all these Buffy sites and I found this story where Rupert Giles, my favorite character, became a vampire. And it got very dark. And I thought it was like a prediction of what was going to happen on the show. And I was so upset. And I was like...

Reema Khrais (3:32)

And you're like, is this a spoiler?

Elizabeth Minkel (3:35)

Yeah, because I didn't want him to become a vampire either. And so I called a friend and I was like, I don't know what I'm seeing. And she was like, oh no, that's fan fiction. And I was like, I don't know what that is.

SPEAKER_1 (3:44)

But you had been doing it all along.

Elizabeth Minkel (3:45)

Yeah, exactly. So then I got to put two and two together and kind of match up this thing that existed for decades, even centuries before me, with something that I just naturally wanted to do. And that opened the door. And by the time I got into the next fandom, it was all these platforms. It was really blossoming. Tons of people were online and there were just thousands and thousands, millions of stories to read and people writing them.