- Hi, I'm Jackson Bird, and like seemingly
every other even vaguely nerdy queer person
in my generation, I got my sex education
not from school, because we didn't have sex ed.
What's up, southern United States?
No, I got my sex education from fanfiction.
Yup.
Did I get your attention?
(upbeat music)
By the way, this video includes a paid promotion
by Disney Book Group, they sent me the book
I'm gonna be talking about later
and gave me a little kickback to make this video,
'cause your boy's gotta pay the bills.
But anyways, back to the erotic fanfiction.
Yeah, I started reading fanfiction when I was 14.
That hug between Remus and Sirius at the end
of Prisoner of Azkaban sparked something in my... head
that I couldn't stop thinking about,
and led to years upon years of reading fanfiction,
pairing them in every possible scenario.
Meanwhile, I was also involved in the non-fanfiction side
of fandom things, listening to podcasts,
reading up fan theories.
As the years went on, I started listening to Wizard Rock
and I got involved with the Harry Potter Alliance,
a global nonprofit that mobilizes fans towards social action
and who was my full-time employer for five years.
And part of that job was traveling around to comic cons
and speaking about fandom to both fans and
academic and industry types.
I even wrote a peer-reviewed paper about fandom,
so I get fandom, I love fandom,
and I've spent a lot of time thinking about
why I love fandom and why it appeals
to other people as well.
And there are a million different reasons,
but one that is particularly resonant to me
is that fan-created works show us the representation
that's missing in mainstream media.
Whether you are queer or a person of color or disabled
or trans, you are probably not seeing yourself
reflected in traditional media with any regularity,
or respect.
But fanfiction is filled with representation
of marginalized communities and identities.
It gives people a chance to both see themselves reflected
and create those representations themselves.
It empowers them as creators, and it gives them a platform,
if they want it.
And I'm saying they, but I mean we.
I'm a part of this.
I spent my closeted years reading every trans headcanon
from Glee fanfiction that I could get my hands on,
and I'm only about half embarrassed to admit that.
I mean, in the company of fandom people,
I'm not embarrassed to admit that at all,
because we all get how rich and well-written fanfiction can be.
Operative word, "can."
I mean it's a free-for-all, so there's gonna be
some bad stuff out there.
(coughing) Fifty Shades of Grey.
But so much of it is well-written,
and even sometimes when it's poorly-written
you still enjoy it because it's your
favorite familiar characters being thrown into
fun situations that you'd never see played out
in the original source material.
And with the rise of social media,
fandom went a little mainstream,
which meant that entertainment companies started
paying attention to fandoms and engaging with them,
in sometimes positive, sometimes negative ways.
And it's been really fascinating to watch, like,
as people have realized that fandoms aren't
and have never been all white men,
which means conventions are becoming more diverse,
which has experienced some growing pains with it.
And we started seeing media companies actually
listening to fans' demands for more diverse representation,
and seeing the baby steps that have come out of that.
And because I've been so fascinated by this merging
of fandom with the mainstream over the past couple of years,
I was so stoked when I heard about Britta Lundin's
new book, Ship It, which follows one fictional instance
of that merging.
So again, full disclosure, this is a paid promotion
by Disney Book Group, but I knew this book
was coming for a long time and I could not wait to read it.
See, I first met Britta at a fandom professionals
dinner party in Brooklyn, 'cause that is
the kind of life that I lead.
And I remember Britta telling us the basic plot
for Ship It, which I think at the time
I think was a screenplay for a short film.
I'm not sure when she decided to turn it into a novel,
but I am so glad she did, because it was
so much fun to read.
All right, let's just start with the cover.
I mean, pretty good cover, right?
But if you take the dust jacket off,
look at that!
It is like a cool, like, bird's eye view of a Comic Con,
all the different types of people that you might see there,
in all their various forms of cosplay.
So my thoughts.
No spoilers, by the way.
I mean, Ship It is out in stores now,
so like, you could just go buy it and read it
and then watch this, but I'm gonna keep it
spoiler free anyways.
So the main plot is that a popular fanfic writer
for the show Demon Heart causes a stir
at her local comic con when she asks a question
about the two main male characters being
in love with each other, aka she ships it.
One of the main actors freaks out,
and because the show was already on the verge
of not getting renewed for a second season,
the publicity team decides to invite the girl
to join them on a comic con tour with the cast
to show the world that they care about their fans.
Maybe an unrealistic plot, but also not?
Like, media companies can do some bizarre
PR things sometimes, especially when they're trying to show
that they understand fandom, and they also
just like to throw money at things to try to fix problems.
And Britta does a really good job of making it believable
as you're reading the story, which like,
is probably because she works in TV.
Oh yeah, Britta Lundin is a writer on Riverdale.
Did I mention that?
NBD.
But it's great because it means that she
really understands the ins and outs of both
the TV industry and of fandom, 'cause she's been in fandom
like her whole life.
So what she does is set up all of the characters
to be like archetypes of the various perspectives
that you would find in the entertainment industry
and in fandom.
So you've got the chill, slightly clued in actor,
the definitely not chill, totally clueless
about fandom actor, the jaded showrunner
who just wants everyone to stop bothering him,
and the PR person who wants to exploit fandom
in every possible way to save the show.
On the fandom side, you've got the overzealous,
slightly problematic,
headcanons-should-be-real-canon person,
and the fandom should just be fandom person
who's slightly embarrassed to be
involved with fandom at all.
And this is probably one small critique I have.
While the two main fandom characters
are decent foils of each other, I wish we'd seen
more sides of fandom elaborated on more.
They get some mentions, but not the in-depth,
like, explanations that we get from the two main characters,
Tess and Claire.
There's just so many layers of complexity
and competing opinions in fandom,
and I think Ship It does a better job of showing those
than I've seen before in a book like this,
but I still just wanted a little bit more.
And you know, I might feel that way because
the main character, Claire, is so flawed.
And the other main character's perspective that we get
is the equally so flawed main actor from the TV show.
And the chapters alternate from their points of view,
so you read the book from the points of view
of the two most extreme perspectives
from the entertainment industry and the fandom side.
Which means that I at least found it difficult
to fully relate to either of them,
and I got worried that some readers
who are less familiar with fandom
might not pick up on the fact that
neither of them are flawless, like,
monolithic representations of their communities.
But it does work really effectively in getting to see
both of their mindsets during various plot points.
But oh, there are some cringe-worthy moments.
For example, at one point Claire writes some RPF,
or real person fic, which is controversial to begin with,
but, um.
She writes it about people that she now knows,
which in my mind makes it black and white not okay.
Like, the erotic friend fiction joke in Bob's Burgers
was funny, but yikes, when you're seeing it
played out in this realistic way, just, ugh.
But I think it was supposed to be cringe-worthy.
Like, I think most of the cringe-worthy moments
are meant to show both how Claire learns and grows
over the books but also maybe to make me
a little uncomfortable and check my own, like,
too cool for fandom biases.
Plus it just makes for really fun reading.
I read the book in like a day and a half,
'cause I did not want to stop.
The two main fandom characters are a queer,
interracial, same-gender couple, and the white character
gets called out multiple times throughout the book
for her inherent racial biases as a white person.
Also we get terms like homoromantic pansexual
not only used multiple times, but explained.
So awesome representation happening.
A couple of other thoughts to wrap up on.
So my roommate tells me the book is
very heavily Supernatural-inspired.
I don't know much about Supernatural,
so I didn't pick up on that,
and I don't know if it's intentional
or something about the readers,
but books belong to the readers, so whatever.
But I actually thought that the show
that the fictional TV show in the book was more like
was Buffy, because the supporting character in the show
is named Heart because he's a demon who has a heart.
Kind of like Angel in Buffy is named Angel
because he's a vampire with a soul.
Anyways, there were so many other little moments
that I loved, like one character mentions Wizard Rock,
which was so cool and like weirdly meta and I loved it.
And there's a bunch of super-current cosplayers mentioned,
like Black Lightning and Kylo Ren and Wynonna Earp.
It's just wild to see those names in a novel.
And the main character totally brings up that weird paradox
that comes up sometimes in fandoms of
someone who has never had sex writing explicit sex scenes.
And she talks about why fanfiction can be so much sexier
than visual porn for some people.
I'm just gonna link you to a slam poem
that can explain that way better than I can.
Link here and below, or you could just
read chapter two of Ship It.
But in summation, I loved Ship It.
It is so much fun to read, like, an actual published novel
that talks about fandom in an accurate and genuine way.
Not to mention it's great to read queer books
written by queer people that make queerness, like,
no big deal, but also without erasing
the challenges of being queer.
I don't know if that makes sense.
If it doesn't, I guess you'll just have to
read it yourself and find out.
But once again, Ship It by Britta Lundin is in stores now.
You can get it at the link below
or at any of your local independent bookstores.
And thank you again to Disney Book Group
for sending me the book and sponsoring today's video.
In the comments section today, I wanna know
your ride or die ship, your OTP.
Mine is, of course, Wolfstar,
Remus and Sirius from Harry Potter.
Though now that I said ride or die,
I'm feeling pretty nostalgic for Han and Gisele
from Fast and Furious.
Leave your OTP in the comments below,
and give a thumbs up to other people's if you ship it too.
If you like this video, please do hit that subscribe button
for more videos every week, and share the video
with your friends.
You can also follow me on Twitter, Instagram,
and Goodreads at jackisnotabird.
Thank you so much for watching today, happy reading,
and I'll see you next time.
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