History of BandFic, an overview

Meta
Title:	History of BandFic, an overview
Creator:	Michela Ecks/Laura Hale/Partly Bouncy
Date(s):	March 3, 2008
Medium:	online
Fandom:	Bandom (music source text), bandfic
Topic:	popular music history; RPF
External Links:	History of BandFic, an overview, Archived version
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History of BandFic, an overview is an essay by Michela Ecks/Laura Hale/Partly Bouncy that was posted to fanthropology and the Fan History Wiki.

The post did not get a lot of attention in fandom (the fanthropology post had 7 comments) and is mainly notable because its author was involved in tangentially related wank around the same time; see Bandom Terminology Debate and Media Fandom. However, the essay is also unusual in that relatively little meta has been posted on livejournal on the topic of music RPF as a whole, especially not historical overviews.

Introduction

I've come to the conclusion that I'm just not motivated to try to get this published. Rather than let it sit on my hard drive, I've decided to share it in case some one finds it helpful. This represents probably two years of research and three months of trying to write it. The article addresses BandFic as a cultural movement, as fans interacting with fans. The issues of legalities are not really addressed, nor is there much done addressing how fans look at canon. There are many people who I owe a debt of gratitude for doing research, for providing me contacts to ask people additional questions, for editing and for discussing personal perspectives of certain events. In writing this, it challenged a number of assumptions I had regarding the history of BandFic and of fan fiction in general. My own understanding of fandom history is better for that and I owe a debt of gratitude for those in fandom who helped me along that path. This has been cross posted to Fan History, where some of the original research and note taking was done.

Conclusion

As the 2000s begin to draw to a close, BandFic communities are beginning to look to the future. People are looking at new technologies and trying to integrate themselves in to their fannish experiences. The community has started looking outside of itself, for things that work, to see how they can integrate those things into their own fanspace. Most of these practices continue to come, not from media fandom, but from the publishing world, internet companies and the music world.

Some Topics Mentioned

• FanFiction.Net
• Led Zeppelin
• Duran Duran
• media fen
• Mary Sue
• RPF
• FanDomination.Net

Chapters

• The Start of BandFic history
  • The 1920s
  • The 1930s and 1940s
  • The 1950s
  • The 1960s
  • The 1970s
  • The 1980s
  • The 1990s
  • The 2000s
  • Bibliography

Reactions and Reviews

I read this as "a history of badfic" and got all excited that someone was going to explain that phenomenon in a scholarly fashion.

I enjoyed reading this--I'm always fascinated by fanhistory-type things. :)

It was interesting to write and hear from a lot of people in the community who shared and to look at how the material was referenced (or not) in existing academic and and reference materials.