The Americanisation of British Fandoms
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| Title: | The Americanisation of British Fandoms |
| Creator: | Alison |
| Date(s): | June 28, 2004 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | |
| Topic: | Fanfiction, Britpick |
| External Links: | The Americanisation of British Fandoms, Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Americanisation of British Fandoms is an essay by Alison.
It is part of the Fanfic Symposium series.
Excerpts
If you take a look at the fandoms prevalent on the Internet you will see that the vast majority are North American. Look at the fans and you will see that the majority appear to originate in the United States or write American English. Fair enough, America is a very large and highly influential country and its culture has spread far and wide to the extent that American English is now taken as the standard language and spoken almost everywhere. That’s a fact that I, as a Brit, accept with a certain amount of equanimity. Whining on about it isn’t going to change a thing. I also accept that usage and boundaries are constantly shifting and what is regarded in the UK today as an Americanism may be commonplace in a decade or so. To be honest, there is much about American culture that I like, admire and happily embrace, and when I write for an American fandom I ensure that, as much as I am able, I write my characters in that culture. That means that as well as using betas I need to use an American to ‘Americanise’ my work and catch any howling Briticisms – and there’s been a few. What I want is for that same courtesy to be given to British fandoms and, before the yelling begins, I know that many writers do. I’ve been reading in The Professionals fandom for a number of years and, on the whole, I’m impressed by the effort made to get Bodie and Doyle and their environment as authentic as possible. The trouble is I’ve just started reading Harry Potter fan fiction and, apart from being astounded at the vast amount of stories out there, I’m becoming more and more irked by the fact that there are far too many writers who are not bothering to learn about the culture that Harry and his friends and foes live in, despite having the books as reference material.
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