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[jgwhiteus]

I saw this popular reddit post floating around about "curative" vs. "transformative" fandoms, and it got me thinking about the way I engage with the stuff I like, as well as discussions I sometimes see in this forum (like the current thread on LGBT characters in the MCU).

The TL; DR version: "curative" fans tend to be interested in defining and detailing factual knowledge about a franchise ("What happened in Season 2 Episode 5?", "Who is canonically more powerful and would win in a fight?"), and "transformative" fans tend to be interested in tweaking and "being inspired" by franchises to make new things, some of which contradict the source material ("Here's my mod that switches the gender of the playable characters", "What if Spider-Man were gay?") And the author proposes that these types of fans tend to be split by gender as well as minority status.

As the author admits, he uses generalizations which aren't going to line up neatly, but do you agree with his general description of fandoms, and whether there's a gender split? Are you maybe a "curative" fan for some franchises, and a "transformative" one for others? Have you noticed this kind of divide in any of the fan communities for the games / movies / comics you follow? Full text below; some parts bolded:

http://www.reddit.com/r/gallifrey/comments/2u73cg/tumblrbashing_why_or_why_not/

Note: The following has hella generalization. If you feel like this doesn't apply to you, congratulations, let me slow clap it out.

Large fandoms--things like Doctor Who, or Supernatural, or Star Trek, or any superhero comic--tend to have unique and separate sides to them: curative and transformative.

Curative fandom is all about knowledge. It's about making sure that everything is lined up and in order, knowing how it works, and finding out which one is the best. What is the Doctor Who canon? Who is the best Doctor? How do Weeping Angels work? Etc etc. Curative fandom is p. much the norm on reddit, especially r/gallifrey.

Transformative fandom is about change. Let's write fic! Let's make art! Let's make a fan vid! Let's cosplay! Let's somehow change the text. Why is Three easier to ship, while Seven is more difficult? What would happen if ______? Transformative fandom is more or less the norm on tumblr. (And livejournal, and dreamwidth, and fanfiction websites, and...)

Here's the big thing: there's a gender split. Find a random male fan, and they'll probably be in curative fandom. Pick a random transformative fandom-er, and they'll probably be female. Note that this is phrased in a very particular way--obviously there's guys who cosplay and write fic, obviously there's women who don't. But men tend to be in the curative fandom, while transformative fandom is predominately women--and/or queer people, POC, etc. Why? Because the majority of professionally-made media is catered towards a straight white male demographic, leaving little room for 'outsiders.' Outsiders who, if they want to see themselves in media, have to attack it and change it--hence slash fic, hence long essays claiming that Hermione Granger is black, hence canons (edit: slipped up, sorry. meant headcanons) about trans characters or genderqueer characters.

And then curative/male fandom tends to view most things that transformative/female fandom does with disdain. Why? Because, in their eyes, it devalues canon. Who cares about knowing about Tony Stark's lovers if somebody's gonna write a fic where Toni Stark is flying about? Their power is lessened. Scream of the Shalka is unambiguously not canon--but it doesn't have to be in order for me to read and enjoy a 30k fic where the robotic Master was secretly in the TARDIS during Nine and Ten's time and they shagged behind the scenes. Canon? No, but who gives a shit?

Also, as transformative fandom tends to be an outsider looking in, they're much more likely to analyze the work from a queer/PoC/neurodivergent/gender perspective. If I come to /r/gallifrey and start to talk about how 'In the Forest of the Night' had a questionable portrayal of mental health/autism, I get blank stare. If I go on tumblr, I get a conversation. This is also where the 'overreacting, shrieking SJW' trope plays in, either because of a redditor's misunderstanding of terms and therefore assuming that a mild critique is a scathing one, or because the tumblr user in question is young/inexperienced and jumping the gun.

So, there you have it: /r/gallifrey's bashing of reddit is part of a larger split in how men and women tend to enjoy fandom, and a lashing against how fanfiction/related things addresses fandom because it's not the right "kind" of fandom. And also because tumblr is popular with teenage girls, and there's nothing reddit loves more than shitting on whatever teenage girls like.

EDIT: I was not expecting that an enormous conversation would come from this, and certainly not that I'd be gilded, sent to /r/bestof, and /r/goldredditsays. So, uh, thanks! I was originally going to edit and respond to some comments I saw, but I ran out of room, so I wound up doing it over here. Thanks for all of your interest!

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

Uh... transformative I guess?

.... Do we have to choose sides? Is it a war I like wars! YAY

#TeamTransformative

DOWN WITH THOSE FILTHY CURATIVES >:O

 

[Platy]

Both.

We know that Gay Batman is canonicaly more powerfull than Hetero Batman because all of his villains that are based on seduction are woman

 

[Messofanego]

Curatives are conservatives/traditionalists, transformatives are liberals, sounds like. I'm transformative, except I don't change much, I'm just usually happy with change.

 

[Orbis Tabula]

This doesn't sound like it's really a dichotomy, to me. It seems like every person could very much be varying degrees of either.

 

[jgwhiteus]

Uh... transformative I guess?

.... Do we have to choose sides? Is it a war I like wars! YAY

#TeamTransformative

DOWN WITH THOSE FILTHY CURATIVES >:O

Nah, I don't think you have to be one or the other, and honestly I think people can act as one type of fan for some franchises and differently for another. Like, I can quote lines verbatim from some of my favorite movies or tell you which song was playing in the background for certain scenes, and funnily enough I've never been interested in seeking out fanart / vids or anything transformative for those - or I'm actively turned off from seeking it out.

But there are other movies or TV shows where I've definitely spent more time in the transformative fan portion of the community, to the point of ignoring the actual show altogether (I'm thinking of Teen Wolf here). Sometimes I think it has to do with how satisfied I am with the franchise, which can be related to whether I see myself represented in it, but not always.

I also think there are franchises which just inspire creativity due to the way they're structured - like, there's so much Pokemon fanart out there and people dream up their own Pokemon and detail what they'd like to see in future games - which I'd consider transformative - but these are often the same fans who can engage in lengthy debates about the best Pokemon teams or give you an extensive rundown of stats for every creature.

 

[FUME5]

Uh, neither.

I can enjoy things without being an arsehole about it.

Uh... transformative I guess?

.... Do we have to choose sides? Is it a war I like wars! YAY

#TeamTransformative

DOWN WITH THOSE FILTHY CURATIVES >:O

You're cruisin for a bruisin, sister.

 

[ImpalingNarwhal]

This is a fascinating argument. I would largely say I am curative, for the most part. I like digging into fictional universes and don't really feel the need to alter anything.

 

[SolicitorPirate]

The way I interact with fandom tends towards curative; I tend to absorb large amounts of information on shit I like. However, my general feelings about how fandoms should progress tend towards transformative. I enjoy seeing new interpretations of old canon and tend to be supportive of change to established canon.

 

[Slayven]

Depends if it is good or not. Some shit is garbage from jump and some shit gets turned into garbage.

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

Nah, I don't think you have to be one or the other, and honestly I think people can act as one type of fan for some franchises and differently for another. Like, I can quote lines verbatim from some of my favorite movies or tell you which song was playing in the background for certain scenes, and funnily enough I've never been interested in seeking out fanart / vids or anything transformative for those - or I'm actively turned off from seeking it out.

But there are other movies or TV shows where I've definitely spent more time in the transformative fan portion of the community, to the point of ignoring the actual show altogether (I'm thinking of Teen Wolf here). Sometimes I think it has to do with how satisfied I am with the franchise, which can be related to whether I see myself represented in it, but not always.

I also think there are franchises which just inspire creativity due to the way they're structured - like, there's so much Pokemon fanart out there and people dream up their own Pokemon and detail what they'd like to see in future games - which I'd consider transformative - but these are often the same fans who can engage in lengthy debates about the best Pokemon teams or give you an extensive rundown of stats for every creature.

Yeah, to be honest im both, too. Well, not both, per se. More like a slider between the two. A lot depends on the content's delivery for me. Like, I would forgive a lot for excellent execution.

But to be honest, I've never abandoned source material if I can help it. So in a way I'm quite faithful to canon (curative). But I do like making fanarts (transformative).

But I dont like over-analysing contents (so not very curative).

So yeah, a slider




FUME5, A-a-are you talking to me? Well, are you? >:O

 

[Ganzlinger]

I guess I'm totally curative. Game of Thrones series made me realize this. Can't stand the unecessary changes they made.

 

[SolicitorPirate]

I think the author was prescient in identifying the gender divide for curative and transformative fans and connecting that with the fact that nerd media is often targeted towards men, forcing women and minorities to adept and transform the work.

The one largely male fandom I can think of that is primarily transformative are the Bronies, whose source material is one of the few works loved by nerd culture that is not aimed primarily towards men.

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

I guess I'm totally curative. Game of Thrones series made me realize this. Can't stand the unecessary changes they made.

TV series > the books.

COME AT ME BRO

 

[The Scollard]

I would say I'm a mixture of both, but lean towards the curative side.

I cosplay and enjoy writing fanfiction, yes, but I always try to make any stories fit into canon, and never make characters act differently to their canon selves unless there is a very good justification, and they usually go back to their canon selves at the end. I lean towards curative as I like figuring out the chronology of events, trying to figure what Doctor Who's canon (it has one, despite what Mr. Steven 'I don't even follow my own rules of time travel in the same episode I introduce them in" Moffat may claim).

Also, I hate shipping, shipping wars, and non-canon couples being shipped, especially if it involves breaking up a canon couple in order to do so.

That being said, most curatives don't hate change, in fact, I'd say a lot of them welcome it. They just don't like when something breaks previously established rules in order to change.

Curatives are conservatives/traditionalists, transformatives are liberals, sounds like. I'm transformative, except I don't change much, I'm just usually happy with change.

That's a way of thinking about it, but I personally wouldn't recommend using political lables. Things like that... they just a lot of stigma. Neither curative nor transformative parts of fandom are bad, they just have different views that are equally valid.

The way I like to think about it is to refer to the Lego Movie. The curative parts of Fandom are like Lord Business, they want everything in order, and when change comes, they want to be prepared to take it into account, and make the correct fixes in order to keep everything else in its proper place.

The transformative side of the fandom is like the Master Builders, both in good and bad. They're creative, but often very messy. I've definitely cringed a few times while reading fanfiction when the writer took a hacksaw to an especially important piece of canon, and twisted established characters in such ways that made me go "What? This isn't in character".

 

[George Oscar Bluth II]

Curative.

 

[FUME5]

FUME5, A-a-are you talking to me? Well, are you? >:O

Well I'm the only one here, who the fuck do you think you're talking to?

 

[Bloomers]

I think I'm curative more often than not, but if I'm particularly inspired by a fictional piece of work, and it has interesting lore/story, I'd say I'm more likely to be transformative.
i.e. draw fanart, write expansion and alternate stories, imagine a new soundtrack for, imagine it as a different form of media, etc

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

Well I'm the only one here, who the fuck do you think you're talking to?

:>

Gosh I love that movie <3

 

[Abounder]

I'm probably on the curative side but in the end it depends on quality. I'm not into cosplay, fan fiction, deviantart, etc. But transformations can definitely work in some ways, like putting Sherlock Holmes in a modern setting or Americanizing House of Cards.

 

[braves01]

Curative. Make something new instead of bastardizing someone else's perfectly fine artistic vision, transformative people. /s, sort of

 

[FUME5]

:>

Gosh I love that movie <3

This better not be your handiwork:

 

[SolicitorPirate]

You are completely right, and I never thought of it that way. Wow. So the Bronie fandom basically proves that people get into transformative fandom because the original text isn't made with them in mind.

They definitely seem to be a strong piece of evidence to support the author's argument.

The one stumbling block though are the shoujo/josei/otome fandoms. Admittedly I'm not a part of those, but from my interactions with my friends who are, it appears those fandoms still have very strong transformative elements, which goes against the notion that fans create when the source material isn't targeted towards them.

 

[jgwhiteus]

Shipping and shipping wars are another super interesting thing to me.

I've been involved in various fandoms for a long, long time. 20 years or more, and there is ALWAYS shipping and shipping wars. I enjoy shipping myself, it's fun, but I dislike when it spills over into wars or fans screaming that their pairing should be canon.

One of the funniest posts I read on Tumblr was a quotation from Plato's Symposium (sections 179e to 180a) where Plato basically engages in a "shipping war" with Aeschylus and argues that OF COURSE Achilles was not the "lover" but the "beloved" in his relationship with Patroclus (take a wild guess at what those terms mean...) because he was younger and prettier, according to Homer. Basically a grown man getting angry at this idiot who ISN'T PAYING ATTENTION TO CANON about who was on top. So yeah, some forms of shipping wars have been going on for literally thousands of years.

&#8220;Very different [to Orpheus&#8217;] was the reward of the true love of Achilles towards his lover Patroclus - his lover and not his beloved (the notion that Patroclus was the beloved one is a foolish error into which Aeschylus has fallen, for Achilles was surely the fairer of the two, fairer also than all the other heroes; and, as Homer informs us, he was still beardless, and far younger).&#8221;
&#8212;
Plato, Symposium (179e)

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

This better not be your handiwork:

XD omg.... that's almost sooooooo tempting to read @____@




I dont know how to ship anything. Except parcel posts :<. Canon FTW.

 

[Platy]

Shipping and shipping wars are another super interesting thing to me.

I've been involved in various fandoms for a long, long time. 20 years or more, and there is ALWAYS shipping and shipping wars. I enjoy shipping myself, it's fun, but I dislike when it spills over into wars or fans screaming that their pairing should be canon.

Those are noobs.

Shipping pros knows that the lesser than chance of being canon, the better

 

[Unbounded]

Curative.

May all of your ships be sunk in the most violent fashion imaginable.

 

[KmA]

I love this reddit post it actually really opened my eyes on how certain fans interact with their fiction.

Anyway, I used to be staunchly curative but I'm opening myself up more slowly to the tranformative side.

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

Never run into those fandoms, so I have no idea, but there has got to be at least one outlier eh? ;p



Oh man, that is hilarious.

(And very reminiscent of conversations I've seen take place over different pairings)


Shipping is easy!

See? Shipping.

OH I looooooooooooooove reading / looking at fan-created contents

but I mean. I donno how to make them myself...... therefore i fail at shipping :x

but destiel is definitely hawt. oh yesyes.

.... i still count as a shipper even if i dont create contents, right?

Spoiler

ALSO WHERE IS CHAPTER FIVE >:O

 

[Permanently A]

I don't think I fall into either, I just like things. And even the things I like I'm not really critical of until I read others' opinions.

 

[The Silver]

I'm definitely curative a large majority of the time, I have to REALLY REALLY REALLY into a work for me to lean towards transformative tendencies.

Naruto has scarred me for life in regards to shipping, may all ships crash and burn.

 

[Ganzlinger]

I don't think shipping is exclusive to "transformative" unless if it's opposing the canon.

If the ending is "open" about it or the story didn't reach the end I think it's fair to ship since it is more speculative than transformartive.

Said that I'm into shipping but as long as it doesn't change the canon. Once it happens, the ship is dead for me. lol

 

[Blargonaut]

I'd say I'm well-stocked in curatives, but I'm more than meets the eye

 

[border]

And then curative/male fandom tends to view most things that transformative/female fandom does with disdain. Why? Because, in their eyes, it devalues canon.

Fan fiction is viewed with disdain because it's typically poorly written garbage that more often than not is just creepy or unabashed wish fulfillment for the author and audience.

Nobody is worried that your short story about Batman giving a blowjob to Aquaman while Bizarro watches is going to somehow overwrite or devalue canon. You'd have to be pretty massively insecure to be threatened by low-rent fan productions.

I'd also tend to note that transformative fiction tends to be lauded and encouraged, so long as it's a geek-baiting crossover. Everybody ate up that dumb fan video of Batman fighting Darth Vader.

 

[kamineko]

Transformative. I don't make anything out of them (other than the occasional allusion in poetry), but I crave experiences that fire my imagination.

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

Takes the fun out of shipping for me. Looking for the subtext is a blast




Then you are a shipper. The majority of shippers consume, a fraction of them create.

And it's coming >.< It was supposed to be only four chapters and I caved to the pressure!

Then I am a shipper! yesyes..... LesserShippers consume, GreaterShippers create.

XD

and YAY ! chapter five coming~~~ <3333

 

[Night Hunter]

Curative

Non Canon Shipping and Slashfics can go die in a fire

 

[GamerSoul]

Transformative for sure. I do it all the time for games. I take certain elements i like and work it into my own ideas. And when i hear certain songs, i usually think of how amazing it would sound to a certain boss encounter or something. My recent example would be jay rock's "pay for it" ft. Kendrick. That would make for a glorious battle. the vibes i get from that song are too much to ignore. Hah

 

[Wreck-It Ralph]

Curative.

Fanfics are dumb. Shipping is dumb. Cosplay and fanart can be okay though.

 

[Renekton]

Curative.

I also totally despise fans acting as armchair designers telling creators how to do their jobs (customer feedback is okay though).

 

[thetrin]

Curative. Canon is important to me, and I only really care about the official work. Don't really care about fan creations (and largely actively avoid them). Rather than tell a creator how things SHOULD be, I'd rather leave my faith in the original creator.

Imo, actual thematic analysis and peeling away the layers of what is actually there is far more interesting, and closer to what my university degree was actually about (literary analysis).

Also, shipping is annoying.

(I get a lot of inspiration in my own work from games, movies, comics and books, but I don't take existing properties and play with them. Rather I take inspiration and work on my own creations.)

 

[GamerSoul]

You sound like a Vidder

A what now? :0

 

[border]

Yeah, there is shitty stuff out there. A lot of it. But there is also incredible stuff. Stuff I would pay to read.

Condescending 'lol it's all pervy trash' is pretty indicative of how men in general view female fandom. It's tiresome.

I'm sure there are people doing it right, but so many of most prominent examples in writing and film tend to just be junk. Boring, plain prose that apes its source material, but with less wit or sensibility and more meant to indulge fans than tell decent stories. In the visual arts, there are so many low-rent film/tv productions shot on video with spotty sound. Art/comics are one of the only areas where fan productions can compete, because they can produce works which rival professional-quality on a decent budget.

Our estimation of the quality of fan work can differ, but I certainly don't think it's fair to say that distaste for it has anything to do with it posing a threat to canon.

I'm also really not sure why this has to be framed as a "men versus women" issue.

 

[injurai]

So they split people into two groups. Then start painting the curative group as being the white male who holds the transformative group in disdain? Hmmm. Hard not to see where this whole dichotomy is coming from.

It makes it sound like being a curative fan is a privileged position for a fan. That a transformative one is one of wanting. Even in this dichotomy I see both forms of fandom as holding intrinsic value and neither actually falling on opposites of the watershed that the author wishes to invoke.

Then the whole thing about actually getting a conversation about issues on Tumblr? That reddit is some homogenous pit. Entirely different content distribution models. You get to subscribe to your interests on Tumblr. Tumblr you more often find local echo chambers, where Reddit is a majority voxpop.

Where is any data or support the claims tendencies and distributions in that post? It's all just supposition where the author is trying to throw people into preformed stereotypes. Any one that I've met is an active fan of something, has qualities of both, and respects and appreciates both styles of celebrating some form of media. This whole thing is set up to create another "us vs them" scenario. There will always be individuals who find other fans annoying, because people find other people annoying. There are always fans that will find others fan fiction to be trash. Because a lot of original fiction is trash.

I seriously hope this rhetoric does not catch on. But I'd wager that it will with a few, which will cement it enough to grow to encompass a larger mindshare than it ever deserves to.

 

[Kwixotik]

I'm more of an analytical fan, I guess. I'm not worried about factual minutae about what specific events occured in which episode or who could beat who. More interested in the big picture and themes. I'm transformative insofar as that means being creative with analysis, but I've always considered critical analysis to be a form of creativity.

Also I wouldn't consider myself a part of any "fandom". Fandoms in general kind of weird me out (no offense meant to anyone, I just can't work up that level of fanatical enthusiasm for any one thing), but I have a significant interest in a lot of franchises that have fandoms.

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

I'm a girl but I'm more curative than transformative. I meant I produce fanarts, but they have to adhere to canon references.

However, when I consume as a fan, I am more transformative than curative. It all depends on how skilled the delivery is, really.




Also I didn't notice the male vs female agenda before a few posts above me..... @__@;;; im oblivious waaah... .___.;;;

 

[Plywood]

I'm just a fan, man, goddam.

TV series > the books.

COME AT ME BRO

The only thing the show did better was characterize Robb.

 

[Kwixotik]

I'm just a fan, man, goddam.

The only thing the show did better was characterize Robb.

I've only seen the show and still felt Robb is like the least developed character.

 

[border]

I found it amusing that the first 50+ Reddit responses to this article were people discussing whether or not Hermione is black or if she could be black or maybe she's actually Jewish.

 

[FUME5]

I'm a girl but I'm more curative than transformative. I meant I produce fanarts, but they have to adhere to canon references.

However, when I consume as a fan, I am more transformative than curative. It all depends on how skilled the delivery is, really.




Also I didn't notice the male vs female agenda before a few posts above me..... @__@;;; im oblivious waaah... .___.;;;

OK, now I demand you post some fanart.