Kink Bingo - Fanlore

Kink Bingo is a pan-fandom challenge community. Its challenges have so far run from June 1st to September 1st 2008 and 2009, with other mini-challenges throughout the year after the 2009 challenge. It ran on Livejournal in its first year, and moved to Dreamwidth in its second. It proved very popular, with around 250 people signing up in its first year (although only around 45 posted bingoes) and over 600 in its second year (103 bingoes, not including the amnesty period post-deadline). It was designed to both encourage fanfiction, fanart and vids that include or explore kink, and to give writers/vidders/artists a space to challenge themselves and push their own boundaries.

Each participant receives a 'bingo card', which contains 25 quasi-randomly selected kinks from a list of over 100. The list of kinks, exhaustively researched by the co-mods ^[1] include more 'mainstream' kinks to fanfiction such as 'bondage: wrist restraints', as well as less 'mainstream' kinks like 'watersports'. Participants then have several ways to complete the challenge, either by 'finishing a line' (writing five stories, one per kink, following a horizontal, vertical or diagonal line of the card) or completing a 'blackout' (25 stories for their 25 kinks), with several additional challenges for those who finish a line. Each way of obtaining a 'bingo' wins the participant a certain number of points, which are tallied at the end of the challenge, and those with the highest number of points win prizes (usually banners, art, fic or podfics) made by the mods and other volunteers.^[2] There are also 'mod prizes' awarded to particularly notable stories, chosen by the mods.^[3]

The nature of the challenge ensures that participants have limited choice of which kinks they can write (although they may write them with any fandom or characters); this encourages participants to challenge themselves and others to explore these kinks less usual within fanfiction.

Kink Bingo has proved an influential format, and has inspired several other multifandom Bingo challenges, including Cliche Bingo, Death Bingo and Talk Bingo, and some fandom-specific challenges, including Heroes Bingo.^[4]. It has arguably also made kink fic in general more popular and visible within fandom, particularly in the rise of kink memes.

Kink Bingo has also provided a focus for discussion of the way kink is treated and discussed within fandom, particularly the tendency to denigrate certain kinks without consciousness of insulting/alienating those who hold that kinky identity. ^[5]

Eruthros and Thingswithwings were outspoken opponents of the fanfiction survey which became the subject of surveyfail, after being contacted in their capacity as co-mods of Kink Bingo by the survey's authors in August 2009.^[6]

Notes

1. ↑ Kink Discussion Post Accessed: 10th January 2010.
2. ↑ Rules Post (second round, summer 2009). Accessed 10th January 2010
3. ↑ Very Official Mod Prizes post (second round, summer 2009). Accessed January 10th 2010.
4. ↑ Cliche Bingo, Death Bingo, Talk Bingo, Heroes Bingo
5. ↑ I'm not posting fic - you can relax! Excerpt: "Here is an example of a comment, a type FREQUENTLY used to reply to kink stories, that drives me a bit up the wall: "I normally hate enemas/watersports/bondage/tickling/uniform fetish stories, because they're disgusting, but this story was SO GREAT that I loved it and thought it was ttly hot even though normally I'd be throwing up!" I exaggerate for effect, but like, NOT BY MUCH GUYS." Posted: September 1st 2009. Accessed: 10th January 2010.
6. ↑ don't take the fanfiction survey posted by thingswithwings on August 31st 2009. please don't take the fanfiction survey posted by eruthros on August 31st 2009 (includes her and thingswithwings' email exchange with the survey authors). Both links accessed 10th January 2010.