Venn Diagram

Meme
Synonyms:
Date Started:
Related:
See Also:
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Venn Diagrams are illustrations using overlapping circles to show the relationship between different things. They are used in fandom to compare different fandoms, characters, and ships etc. as well as having developed into a meme. The diagrams often use three overlapping circles, though fewer or more also occur.

Examples

• 

  'y'all slept on the first chart but I will make the world see my vision' (Dec 2023) by fantasmalresplendent, comparing Fiona from Shrek, Miss Piggy from The Muppets, and Martha May Whovier from How the Grinch Stole Christmas

• 

  Venn Diagram (Oct 2023) by midwife-slash-cobbler comparing Aziraphale from Good Omens, Stede Bonnet from Our Flag Means Death, and The Captain from Ghosts.

• 

  A venn diagram of Dark Academia by lets-throw-bacchanal

• 

  A meme showing a four-way Venn diagram on various fanon traits for Fake Peppino from Pizza Tower. Meme by the-awful-falafel, ^{Archived on 12 July 2023}

• 

  A playful Venn diagram made by tumblr blogger protectspock. The quotes reference both Ursula Le Guin's politics as well as her commentary on slash fandom's classic ship - Spirk or K/S.

Fan Comments

An early use of Venn diagram was in a 1994 issue of the apa, Strange Bedfellows (APA):

Venn diagrams are concentric or non-concentric ellipses or circles to show the interrelationship, or lack thereof of various sets of ideas or objects), at the center. I will show what most slash fans have accepted as part of their definitions of slash: homoerotic stories, dealing with emotional relationships that are based on aired television programs which show two men in a close partner relationship which is not overly romantic. Overlapping this set ("set" is a mathematical term, but it means whatever elements are inside a particular circle) is another set which shows the two main characters in an alternate setting, or in a plot which contradicts the aired canon; these would be AU stories. This circle cuts through the other one, but is not entirely concentric, because in some fans' minds, AU stories are "original universe” and don't fit their definition of slash. Another circle would include stories featuring two female characters rather than two male characters (again, some people would include this set, while some others would exclude it). Yet another circle would include the "plot? what plot?" stories (such as those in FRISKY BUSINESS or SCIENCE FRICTION) which center on sex rather than on an emotional relationship; some would call theses stories "slash" while others would call them "gay porn." Related to this last set is another which defines a work as slash if it is done by a member of the "slash community" (regardless of its literary form or merit) and as not being slash if it is done by those perceived to be outsiders (such as the SCIENCE FRICTION editors as opposed to the FRISKY BUSINESS editors). There is probably another set where the story's protagonists are ambivalent in sex and/or gender, such as Fergus/Dil stories (is Dil a "man" or a "woman?" Is the story "slash" or "heteroerotic?") or else any involving Dax or Odo (is the "real" Odo a man or a woman? Does Odo's race of shape changers have genders in the way we know them?) I've even seen where some people would define a story such as Avon/Servalan as "slash" or else "slashlike" even though the two characters are clearly of opposite genders.