The Genre War

Event
Event:	The Genre War
Participants:
Date(s):	2009
Type:
Fandom:	Hanson
URL:
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The Genre War is a term presumably coined by LiveJournal user tumbling_down in her post of the same title in Hanfic Rants. It refers to the period of animosity and discord between writers of het Hanson fanfic and cest that reached a head during the spring and summer of 2009.

Background

Hancest has been present in the Hanson fandom since nearly the beginning of the fandom, gaining in popularity as the band and fans aged and explicit fic became less stigmatized. In the earlier years, with the fandom massive and spread across private websites and mailing lists, it was possible for fans who were opposed to incest in fics to avoid it entirely. As the fandom became more centralized around LiveJournal and Hanson's official website, this became more difficult.

Debates about hancest frequently occurred on Hanson (LiveJournal community):

i don't enjoy incest, some sick fucks do though. just think- what if someone was writing stories about their fantasies with you & your siblings? repulsive.

We enjoy slash because it's different, it doesn't follow the same rules as hetfic and it's more challenging to write than hetfic, especially if you're female. Me, I don't like girls in my fic. I don't like Mary-Sue fic, which is exactly what hetfic always is. Men are beautiful so what's better than two men together?

makes me uncomfortable-- especially because it seems to be so prevalent in this community. I didn't realize there were so many people who were also bothered by it. Perhaps a new rule is in order? I mean, if so many people have a problem with it, then...

Until a few months ago i thought it was pretty sick too. Now i write my OWN. Basically i find it easier to detatch myself from the 'ickiness" i dont think of them as brothers so to speak, half the time i forget that they are Hanson. Its just easier to write fiction when you have 'real, 3-d' characters. Yes some hancest is just an excuse for porn, but a lot are well written, interesting love stories.

f you don't like incest, fine. most people don't. if you don't understand hancest, if you don't like it, if it does absolutely nothing for you, all fine. but don't go off on how it's "stupid" and "gross" and attack the people who write and read it, calling them "sick fucks". how soon we forget the lessons from our childhoods: if you've nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all.

The bulk of fans circa 97-99 DID write out their Mary-Sue fantasies and paste them all over the internet. But now its more just to build a writer's talents and trades. I've written about everything: AIDS, gangs, drugs, death, supernatural, het, slash, divorce, romance, what have you. Its not because that's what I want to happen. I am not jealous of their significant others, I don't think they're drug addicts...but I write these things out of sheer enjoyment of just writing.

i personally find incest wrong, but whatever floats your boat i guess. the only thing that bothered me in this post is when you talked about showing respect. why not show hanson a little respect?

Eventually, the moderators were forced to comment, explaining that despite some users' complaints, discussion of hancest would not be banned from the community, but that rules would be put in place to insure readers were properly warned of what a fic or post contained.

In May 2006, Rule 15 was officially implemented on Hanson's official website forums, banning all discussion of fanfic from the site. Though authors of all stripes had used the site to promote their fics, it seemed that cest writers bore the brunt of the blame. They retreated to LJ, where they could control who read their stories and thus avoid further controversy.

By late 2008, hanfic appeared to be waning in popularity. When one fan on the Various Artists forum asked why that might be, another fan offered this short, dismal assessment:

hancest killed Hanfic

Challenging Challenges

The community that formed around Just Shy of Reality, with its zine and forum, set the tone for het hanfic in the late 2000s. Few of the authors and readers who made up this community were fans of hancest and were not afraid to express that opinion publicly.

In early 2009, Renee C. and Renee P. hosted the Hanfic Genre Challenge. The rules for the challenge contained the following rather combative statement about hancest:

mizzc and I personally do not favor hancest and though we WILL allow it in the challenge, we WILL NOT agree to put it on our own sites. Therefore, if you need your story hosted and it is hancest, then we will be setting up an Angelfire site to host those stories on. If you find this to be unsatifactory then you can either-

a.) quit the challenge

b.) pick another spot such as livejournal to host your story and we will help you set it up

c.) rewrite your story to nonhancest

It's worth noting that their wording the following year was much more accepting, though their personal views had not changed

Later that year, The Spark Inside ran for a summer round. Brittney always chose a different type of challenge for each round; for this one, authors were paired together to collaborate on a story. Renee C. was paired with Amanda W., who wrote all genres. Since those genres included cest, that set a contentious tone for their collaboration. Ultimately, the two dropped out, citing writers block.

And the Winner Is...

While these challenges were going on, Nat and Renee P. were also in the middle of hosting the Hanson Only Awards. These awards were focused on honoring characterization, with categories based on common tropes for each of the brothers. Once again, hancest was excluded, with the explanation offered that any fic featuring one of the Hanson brothers engaging in incest would be, by its very nature, out of character. This, naturally, angered many cest writers who felt their stories were just as well written as het stories. The LiveJournal community Hanfic Rants was created during this time and featured a now-deleted rant by Jayde about the self-congratulatory nature of the awards frequently hosted by het authors.

With the awards I didn't know I wasn't qualified just because of content. And srsly, what if one of my Hancest stories is my best work ever? Should I be penalized because I write hancest (and slash in general) better than I write hetfic? So that's all I'm going to say about that because I don't want an effing comment war.

That being said, I must tell you that I've gotten a lot of awful words thrown at me about the Hancest thing. I have said numerous times how much I really think Hancest authors are great writers and storytellers and I have tried reading Hancest myself, but I just cannot support it. It is morally wrong to me. I'm not going to preach or anything bc you write what you love and I'm not ever going to judge you for writing it. I think you're awesome, you're my friend and I respect you. It's just not my preference. I do hope to one day host an awards including all genres as I had no idea Hancest authors would care so much about our stupid little awards that was all in good fun. We never meant to hurt anyones feelings we just figured most of the Hancest authors didn't read our hetfic and I know most of us don't read Hancest so it would go back to what you said, "I don't think I've even read any of the fic that was nominated." See what I'm saying? Next time though I'll try to make it more fair or if you'd ever want to host a Hancest only awards, I'd totally let you do it on my site.

The exclusion of hancest from these awards led to some attempting to organize hancest only awards. These were to be hosted on LJ and called the Endless Haze Awards, but few nominations were received and the community has since been deleted.

Bethany also hosted awards in the fall of 2009, with the intent that all genres would be allowed. At first, she planned for separate categories by genre, but when this received pushback from members of Just Shy of Reality (Renee C. specifically stated that she would not participate under this format), she opted to just made it clear that the awards were inclusive to all. These became the Thieves and Liars Awards, and were the first step toward the creation of the all-inclusive site PlaceToHide.net.

Fan Reactions

A number of authors took Amanda W. and Bethany's lead and made it clear that it was possible to write and enjoy all genres. Although some authors retreated further into their own insular friends groups or left the fandom entirely, others grudgingly accepted that it was possible to find common ground. There has been no real resolution to the genre war, but the growing popularity of hancest has mostly drowned out the complaints of those who object to it.

Fanworks

As a reaction to the complaints against hancest that seemed to suggest it couldn't be well written, Jayde wrote and posted the shockfic Kittens Are Either With Us Or Against Us, which cast Taylor as a cannibalistic serial killer. The fic was originally posted anonymously, but its purpose was clear even before the author claimed it and reposted it to AO3.

Communities

Though the owner hasn't come right out and said that the genre war inspired her, it's clearly that Hanfic Rants creation in the middle of it all was no coincidence:

So, for those of you who actually read and/or write Hanfic, this is something you're going to want to see...

A friend and I have started HANFICRANTS, the community for those who are fans of fanfic and want to gripe/complain about something. Whether it be... - your major DISLIKE/LOVE for Hancest - the ridiculousness of certain plot lines and summaries - horribly written badfic - stupid trends that should not exist - ETC.

This is the community you want to join! Browse, let it all out, and just have fun!

Comments

Hancest is sick and disgusting. Full stop – NO exceptions. My personal opinion is that those that read/write it have some deep issues that just might require help.

It's not a federal, nor a universal, crime. It's only illegal in some states, and guess what? If any of the Hanson boys got a blowjob in Oklahoma, then they're committing a crime as well. Also, rapefics are in circulation, so that's a pretty bad example about "riling up the community of fans" ;) Lastly, I have two quite popular erotica books that contain both incest and rape. One's Delta Of Venus by the late, great Anais Nin. It's not something new, it's not something created by the Hanson fandom, and it's never going to go away. Boohoo, it's a new taboo, if you don't like it, don't read it.

As for the subject of Hancest, I don't think there is anything wrong with the people who write it. I know plenty of them, and they are all wonderful people. If you were friends with them and didn't know they wrote Hancest, you wouldn't consider them to have "issues" or anything of the sort. They're sweet, kind-hearted people who wouldn't hurt a fly. As for how I would feel if anyone wrote about me and one of my siblings... as long as they made it clear to everyone that it was fiction and I wasn't forced to read it, I honestly wouldn't care. I know it's not real and the readers know it's not real, so what difference does it make? It's fiction, it's not hurting anyone.

hancest is nothing more than freedom of expression. and it's not the only kind of sibling cest written. there are slash fics for the jonas brothers, and also for imaginary siblings such as sam and dean from supernatural.

I think there are other ways to show they're human and have human flaws than having them bump uglies with their brothers, lol. When people write 20 incest stories, I think creativity and good writing has nothing to do with it. If you were that creative and volatile you would come up with different stories and storylines than finding 20 ways to make Taylor and Zac fall in lust with each other. They're fake stories, yes, but they disturb people. The same way the fanfics about girl bands being raped and cut into pieces disturbed people.

Most people know I can't stand het. I'm straight, I don't find the idea of a man and a woman having sex disgusting or anything, I just find het to be incredibly boring. Does that mean you shouldn't read it or write it? No, I don't really care. So why do people care so much about what I write?

Second, I may dislike hancest and all of it's entirety but I have not once in my life ever gone to a writers journal or site and bashed them for writing it. Personally, I just think that it's wrong to leave that crap on your journal/site and I'm sorry people are doing that to you. You're right, people should only comment on things that actually matter, but as you know when writing something controversial you're going to get negative feedback from people who are strongly against the topic. It sucks, but there's always going to be THAT someone ya know?

If you revolve your plot around two brother's having sex, then I think it's just a cheap trick for cheap thrills..same with het fic for that matter....

but if what you're writing addresses meaningful things, whether it's between two brothers or a man and a woman, etc. , it can still be talented writing....

Because it isn’t about Hancest or Het or Slash or Gen, it’s about telling a good story.

Throughout this war, hancest continued to grow in popularity and eclipse het, whose authors clung to private websites and did not embrace LJ, AO3 and Tumblr in the way cest authors did. This 2018 joke from Shit Hanson Fans Say sums up how little has changed in the overall fandom discourse since the height of the genre war:

hancest:*exists*

Hanson: *doesn't care*

fansons: oh my god all of you are awful and going to hell

fansons: i will read every single hancest fic out there to tell each and every person how bad they are

fansons: every. single. one.