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This week's featured article

banner ad used to advertise Ogi Ogas fan fiction survey

Surveyfail is the name used to refer to a late August 2009 incident in which two researchers -- Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam -- instigated a survey about women's desire and fandom, with an eye toward publishing a book called Rule 34: What Netporn Teaches Us About The Brain. In their communications they implied they were officially affiliated with Boston University.

The following comes from the survey's "About" page (no longer online):

The structure and activity of our subcortical circuits are shaped by neurohormones such as testosterone, estrogen, oxytocin, progesterone, and vasopressin; these circuits function differently in men and women. As cognitive neuroscientists, we draw upon a wide variety of empirical data sources to model these circuits, including brain imaging studies, primate research, cognitive science experiments, machine learning algorithms--and behavioral data. The Internet offers large, unprecedented sources of data on human activity: one of these data sets is fan fiction.

We're deeply interested in broad-based behavioral data that involves romantic or erotic cognition and evinces a clear distinction between men and women. Fan fiction matches this criteria perfectly.

The survey received widespread backlash and pushback from members of fandom for its ethically and methodologically questional approach, as well as offensive comments uttered by the researchers in discussions about the survey and their refusal to listen to the well-founded criticisms of fans. Boston University also publicly distanced itself from the researchers' actions following complaints from fans and emphasised that it did not endorse the survey.

Nominate and vote for more featured articles here.

News and updates

June 30, 2020

Fanlore's redesigned logo, designed by Amyl

Fanlore is updating its logo! After much behind-the-scenes designing, proposing, voting, and refining on the part of our volunteers, we're excited to present our new look.

The new logo, designed by Fanlore graphic designer Amyl, brings us thematically in line with the rest of the OTW's red logos and includes the imagery of the book and magnifying glass to represent Fanlore's mission of examining and preserving fannish history.

We will greatly miss our old logo, which served us extremely well for 12 years - but it's immortalised on our Fanlore page about Fanlore! And if you want to revisit the old logo in its original setting, check out this 2008 version of the Fanlore homepage saved on the Wayback machine - we've come so far since then!

June 28, 2020

Enjoyed Fanlore Bingo? Save your Bingo cards!

Thanks to everyone who took part in our 2020 Fanlore Bingo Challenge! We had a lot of participants this year, and we’re grateful to each and every one of you.

Since the templates on Fanlore are changed every year, we've made some cute Bingo graphics for you to preserve your cards - and share your success outside of Fanlore!

Select the images below to view the full-size graphics and save them - we've also made graphics for 2019's Bingo Challenge!