Shipping discourse
Beginning in the mid-2010s, significant discourse emerged within fan spaces such as Tumblr and Archive of Our Own (AO3) regarding the ethical implications of portraying taboo and abusive sexual content within shipping fanfiction. "Shipping"—the depiction of a romantic or sexual relationship between fictional characters—has long been a staple within fanfiction. The lack of censorship emerging from spaces such as AO3 allowed for the portrayal of disturbing or taboo dynamics within fan works, including incest, abuse, rape, and pedophilia.
Fandom discourse is divided between "anti-ship" and "pro-ship" camps, focusing primarily on the extent to which fictional works depicting such content affect real-world behavior and attitudes. Anti-shippers, referred to as "antis," take the view that fictional portrayals normalize harmful dynamics and behaviors and pose a particular threat to children. Fanfiction depicting underage characters in sexual contexts is characterized as child pornography. Pro-shippers oppose antis on a variety of stances, including opposition to censorship and the rejection of notions of fictional abuse affecting reality. Both anti- and pro-shippers draw from primarily LGBT fan communities and share similar demographics, although antis are generally younger, with the largest contingent in their early-to-mid teens.
Academic coverage generally disputes antis' claims regarding fictional works, analyzing the movement as a
Background
![The front cover of Old Friends and New Fances, 1914](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5f/Old_Friends_and_New_Fancies.png/180px-Old_Friends_and_New_Fancies.png)
The term "
The term later broadened to include supporters of any fan pairing of fictional characters.
Many shippers become strongly emotionally invested in their preferred relationships, even when no such romantic relationship is portrayed in canon.[7] Because of this, conflict can emerge in a fandom between proponents of different ships. This is exacerbated when there are multiple plausible partners for a particular character, such as within love triangles.[1] By the early 2000s, anti-fans opposed to certain ships came to be known as "anti-shippers."[8]
Internet fandom and AO3
Stories (or, less often, pieces of fanart or comics) containing depictions of violence, torture, abuse, pedophilia, incest, rape, suicide or suicidal ideation, self-harm, homophobia, racism, and other content deemed problematic by the advertisers, exist on the platform alongside child-friendly stories about the characters baking cupcakes cheerfully.
Agnieszka Urbańczyk, Finding a Dead Dove in the Refrigerator[9]
The emergence of Internet
![The front page of the website Archive of Our Own, as seen on 2021-10-11](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ee/Ao3-screenshot.png/330px-Ao3-screenshot.png)
When
Viewpoints
Although "anti-shipper" can refer to anyone opposed to a specific pairing of characters, the term anti generally refers to opponents of fictional sexual content considered harmful. The question of whether "fiction affects reality" is a central point of dispute between antis and the opposing camp of pro-shippers. Antis generally believe that taboo or abusive sexual content within fiction directly influences the views and actions of those who consume it, with pro-shippers disagreeing with antis for a broad spectrum of reasons, ranging from a complete rejection of fictional media's influence on behavior to a defense of harmful sexual dynamics when properly depicted as abusive.[16][17]
Samantha Aburime, a fandom researcher, described antis as "hybrids that exhibit traits of fans, anti-fans and anti-shippers."
Pro-shippers (also known as anti-antis)
Both antis and pro-shippers are largely LGBT, reflecting the fanfiction community as a whole—a 2013 survey revealed that only 38% of AO3 users were heterosexual, with more nonbinary users than men. The two groups are demographically similar in terms of racial, gender, and sexual identities and report similar rates of neurodiversity and survivorship of sexual abuse. However, antis are generally younger than pro-shippers, with the largest contingent in their early-to-mid teens.[8][28]
Analysis
Although antis generally claim to be motivated by a desire to protect minors and abuse victims rather than by opposition to shipping itself, academic scholarship generally analyzes the movement as a "ship war gone too far".[29] Tensions over pairings between various characters within the television series Voltron: Legendary Defender led to a large-scale expansion of shipping discourse in fandom spaces. Opponents of the romantic pairing of the characters Keith and Shiro (although both characters were adults within the source material, Shiro was several years older than Keith) characterized that relationship as pedophilic in nature.[21]
Absolutely no remorse wishing death on proshippers. None. If you like ugly, horrific shit then I hope ugly, horrific shit comes your way. Namely a slow painful death in which you are forced to beg for mercy but it doesn't come for days, weeks even.
anonymous Tumblr post, c. 2022[30]
The actions of antis have been compared to
There's no meaningful difference to me between a right winger who calls me a pedo because I'm trans and an antishipper that calls me a pedo because I read Homestuck.
While many antis disavow more radical actions, the movement has been criticized for
Pro-shippers have been critiqued for minimizing valid critiques of fan works by labeling any critics of their works as antis. Anti-racist critiques of fanfiction are sometimes described as anti-ship by white fans, leading to an environment where various motives to opposing fanworks are dismissed as "anti".[41][42]
See also
Notes
References
Citations
- ^ a b c d van Monsjou & Mar 2019, p. 432.
- ^ Scodari & Felder 2000, p. 240.
- ^ Scodari & Felder 2000, p. 249.
- ^ Scodari & Felder 2000, pp. 246–247.
- ^ Scodari & Felder 2000, pp. 243–244.
- ^ Jenkins 1992, pp. 192–193.
- ^ van Monsjou & Mar 2019, p. 445.
- ^ a b c Aburime 2022, p. 138.
- ^ a b c d Urbańczyk 2022, p. 411.
- ^ Urbańczyk 2022, pp. 409–410.
- ^ Urbańczyk 2022, pp. 411–414.
- ^ "Russia Growls at LiveJournal Deal". Wired. 8 November 2006. Archived from the original on 7 December 2021. Retrieved 29 March 2024.
- ^ Urbańczyk 2022, pp. 411–412.
- ^ Burkhardt, Trott & Monaghan 2021, pp. 6–7.
- JSTOR 10.3998/mpub.11537055. Archivedfrom the original on 15 February 2023. Retrieved 30 March 2024.
- ^ Urbańczyk 2022, pp. 414–416.
- ^ Aburime 2022, pp. 136–138.
- ^ Aburime 2022, p. 136.
- ^ a b c Fazekas 2022, p. 106.
- ^ a b Aburime 2022, p. 141.
- ^ a b Urbańczyk 2022, p. 414.
- ^ Aburime 2022, p. 140.
- ^ Urbańczyk 2022, p. 405.
- ^ Aburime 2022, pp. 144–145.
- ^ a b c d e Romano, Aja (24 May 2023) [23 May 2023]. "Puritanism took over online fandom — and then came for the rest of the internet". Vox. Archived from the original on 22 March 2024. Retrieved 30 March 2024.
- ^ Aburime 2022, pp. 139–140.
- ^ Urbańczyk 2022, pp. 415–417.
- ^ Urbańczyk 2022, p. 412.
- ^ Urbańczyk 2022, p. 413.
- ^ a b Aburime 2022, p. 143.
- ^ a b Fazekas 2022, pp. 140–141.
- ^ a b Urbańczyk 2022, p. 415.
- ^ Aburime 2022, pp. 140–141.
- from the original on 31 March 2024. Retrieved 31 March 2024.
- ^ Urbańczyk 2022, pp. 404–405.
- ^ Fazekas 2022, pp. 107–108.
- ^ Aburime 2022, pp. 107–108.
- ^ Fazekas 2022, pp. 108–109.
- ^ Aburime 2022, pp. 141–143.
- The Mary Sue. Archivedfrom the original on 29 March 2024. Retrieved 31 March 2024.
- ^ Fazekas 2022, pp. 110–111.
- ^ Pande 2024, p. 115.
Bibliography
- Pande, Rukmini (2024). ""Get out of here you anti": Historizing the Operation of Structural Racism in Media Fandom". Feminist Media Histories. 10 (1): 107–130. from the original on 22 June 2024. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
- Aburime, Samantha (2022). "Hate narratives, conditioned language and networked harassment: A new breed of anti-shipper and anti-fan – antis". Journal of Fandom Studies. 10 (2 & 3): 135–155. .
- Fazekas, Angela Marie (2022). Creative Becomings: Explicit Fanfiction, Reinventing Adolescence, and Queer Relationality (PDF) (PhD thesis). University of Toronto. Archived (PDF) from the original on 10 November 2023. Retrieved 31 March 2024.
- Urbańczyk, Agnieszka (2022). "Finding a Dead Dove in the Refrigerator. The Anti-Shippers' Call for Exclusion of Sensitive Content as a Means of Establishing Position in the Field of Fan Production". Przegląd Kulturoznawczy. 53 (3): 404–420. .
- Burkhardt, Emily; Trott, Verity; Monaghan, Whitney (2021). ""#Bughead Is Endgame": Civic Meaning-Making in Riverdale Anti-Fandom and Shipping Practices on Tumblr". .
- van Monsjou, Elizabeth; Mar, Raymond A. (2019). "Interest and Investment in Fictional Romances". .
- Scodari, Christine; Felder, Jenna L. (Fall 2000). "Creating a pocket universe: "Shippers," fan fiction, and the X-Files online". .
- ISBN 9780415905725.