Containment Breach

Synonyms:	break containment
See also:	Context Collapse, Viral
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A containment breach occurs when a post, meme, or fanwork relating to a specific fandom—frequently, though not exclusively, on Tumblr—escapes its origin and reaches a wider audience than was intended, usually absent its fannish context. This often happens with posts that are vague enough to be relatable in different situations, including outside of fandom altogether. As in the case of LegitTayUpdates, sometimes an entire fan can become notorious enough to be considered to have breached containment.

Alternatively, a containment breach can refer to a post that merely escapes its original platform (e.g., Tumblr) to show up on another site such as Reddit or Facebook, with much of the original fandom context mostly intact.

Examples

Fans

• LegitTayUpdates - i.e., the Swiftie who went to prison for refusing to join the IDF.

Fanworks

Fanart

• Kagurabachi fanart by aoshiro_bee - Twitter fanart that broke containment with the Reddit post Fujo artists have found KGB. We’re gonna make it, which in turn broke containment when it was screenshotted back onto Twitter.
• want to know what the weak point of a mech is? by mixxavii - Broke containment on Twitter, where it was misidentified as referencing several different popular anime series.

Fanbinding

• 2024 Harry Potter Fanbinding Controversy - Involved the practice of fanbinding breaking containment from its origins in the fannish gift economy to become popular on BookTok and other book-related social media spaces.

Fanfiction

• Mudblood by ComfortableSilences - Broke containment after notorious TERF Helen Joyce was spotted reading the fic on a train.
• my wife doesn't know I hench, the evil sex ray made my employees do it, and more by whetherwoman - Yuletide Hench/Ask A Manager fusion that underwent a containment breach when a Mastodon post brought it to the attention of Alison Green, the blogger behind Ask A Manager.
• Respawn of the Dead by Cat Bountry
• Sexy times with Wangxian by virtual1979

Fanvids

• Firestar Doesn't Like Waffles

Memes

• Rune_Sa_Riik's quote tweet of "KOF94's internal eval was so low that I feared it'd be axed"
• Various Tails Gets Trolled redraw memes, including Did You Know That Even With Seat Belts People Die All the Time in Car Crashes? I Thought That Was Interesting and I'm So Mad. I'm Gonna Have Sex With My Girl Friend So I Won't Be So Mad
• Wow Cool Robot
• Spiders Georg(on Wikipedia) -- Example of the meme being referenced in a Business Insider article, ^{Archived version} -- link to said article
• Goncharov
  • horse plinko? Live Slug Reaction??

Posts

• Lindsay, the Comrade?
• The "I really hate the "My OC, my rules" thing" post from Fandom Problems

[jaskierx]
how am i meant to be normal about those old men when that old man isn’t even normal about that other old man

[jaskierx]
this broke containment and i’m learning about all sorts of brand new abnormal old men

Tropes

• Sold to One Direction