Wait, what?

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Wait, what?

I’m currently thinking a lot about fan fiction, and the numbers, audience and ‘market’ etc, and earlier this week I saw something that made me go “Wait, what?” Some estimates put the total number of words of fan fiction written a year at 100 billion words. Wattpad alone, one of many platforms, has has something like 90 million monthly users.

Now, on the one hand, this perhaps shouldn’t be surprising. People love reading stories, and some people like writing them, and the Internet as we all know is a place for people to do things that they love.

But it did make me pause. Here’s this colossal outpouring of creativity happening online, a genuine cultural phenomenon by any reasonable measure, and yet it largely ticks along in a parallel dimension to what we’d typically define as ‘mainstream culture’.

You have wonder why that is. Is it because it’s seen as ‘derivative’, building on someone else’s worlds? Is it because of peoples funny obsession with ‘originality’, and canon? Or maybe it’s the lack of traditional gatekeepers, it’s all just people, writing and sharing.

There’s also a more recent cultural tendency to not take things as seriously if they’re primarily driven by passion rather than profit, or if the creators are seen as ‘amateurs’. And, of course cultural products strongly associated with younger audiences and female creators have often had a tougher time getting a serious cultural nod. Copyright is probably a factor somewhere in the background too, but luckily thats been completely broken open by AI.

But it also makes me think about what ‘mainstream’ even signifies now. I talked about this years ago in my solarpunk talk at unsound. The internet has so thoroughly fragmented everything. Perhaps the ‘mainstream’ is now more about the incumbents, the brands, still clinging on to the prime channels on the TV, radio etc. Meanwhile there’s these massive, participatory cultures playing in a vast, dynamic commons.

Billions of words, millions of people, it’s a significant expression of how things are going to continue to go in future. People making, creating, and playing inside shared/intricate worlds of their own. It’s my default position on how culture actually works in this networked age.

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In IRL news, I went to my friend from school and house mate of 8 years’ 40th birthday at the weekend. Feeling old. Mine soon.

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On The Blog:

Accessions | 290525

I’m not supposed to be buying books, but Cameron Kunzelman over at Game Studies Study Buddies podcast said that Gameworld Interfaces by Kristine Jørgensen is “one of the greatest books of game studies ever written”.

Sold!!! And then I paid some eye watering international shipping 🙁

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Photo 365

The Ministry Of My Own Labour

• More project close out of RED TEAM with funder. Had a few bits left to do to submit final invoicing etc. One call left
• Project LORE calls
• Casual call with the sybil.gg team
• Had a really nice catch up call with ADH

Terminal Access

James Bridle was interviewed by Karl Ove as part of a massive long read in Harpers on The Reenchanted World and finding mystery in the digital age. This whole piece is absolutely fantastic. Not only because of the it’s content, but also because I feel like it’s the recent best of what remains of the new journalism form:

The first time I saw a computer was in 1984. I was fifteen years old and living in a sparsely populated area near a river, miles away from the closest town, in a far-northern country at the very edge of the world. A sign lit up above the convenience store that closed at four o’clock every day; otherwise, the visual stimuli were limited to fields and trees, trees and fields, and to the cars driving along the roads. In autumn and spring it rained so much that the river overflowed its banks—I remember standing in front of the living-room window watching the water cover the field where we played football, the goalposts rising up from it. There was one TV channel, two radio stations, and the newspapers were printed in black and white. The news from Iran and Israel, Egypt and South Africa, England and Northern Ireland, the United States and India, Lebanon and the Soviet Union all took place far away, as if on another planet.

Reading

I’ve nearly finished New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton. I can see why people cite this book as kicking off the New Age movement.

I’m also reading / trying to finish The Pathless Path by Paul Millerd for a Discord book club. As yet, I have absolutely no idea why all the hustle bros online cite this book as having changed their lives. Unless your a complete normie/square who’ve never had an independent thought before, I’m struggling to find much little value in it.

As I said in my podcast this week. I’ve listened to no ‘real’ music this week, just AI slop. When I’ve finally generated all 42 Odes to Solomon to my taste tho, I’ll think I’ll share a link to them.

In the meantime you should blast this mix by NYC DJ Tinzo who plays Jazz and light house sets. Track selection is impeccable!

Remember Kids:

What would happen if we left our heart on stage every time we created anything. It’s a bust your ass to shine, honest to a fault, no bullshit, zero apology performance. If you look at the work of some of the most successful people in the world you’ll see it as the undertone. It isn’t just something they do, it’s who they are. It’s the kind of performance where your heart and soul bleed.

The Art of Being Unmistakable by Srinivas Rao