TOASTYSTATS: Did the US election influence fanfic production?
I’ve heard some folks talking about using fanfic to cope with/distract themselves from the recent US election (I’m in this camp, though I’m not ignoring the real world), and others, like the hosts of @fansplaining, discuss not being able to focus on fandom right now. I wondered which of these impulses was currently stronger overall in fandom.
TL;DR: as of two weeks following the 2016 election, there’s been a big post-election spike in fanfic production on AO3 (~30% increase) – which is unusual for this time of year. Though, of course, correlation is not causation – there could be some other cause(s) at play. And while some people may be turning to fandom for distraction, there’s a bigger increase in ‘Angst’ than ‘Fluff.’
I gathered daily data from AO3 for the pat 5 years in order to compare this year to past ones. I figured even if we did see a spike or a drop in fanworks, that might be normal following an election – or just normal for November. The past 5 years have the benefit of containing another presidential election, as well as a midterm election and two off-years. I looked at the total amount of fanworks produced in each of the two weeks leading up to the US election, and in each of the two weeks following it. (If you look at the above graph, 0 on the x axis is Election Day – Nov 8, 2016.)
Based on the above graph, we can see that most years have a fairly flat production rate surrounding the election. 2016, however, departs strongly from this pattern with a 32% increase from the two weeks leading up to the election.
Interesting! I have been in “unable to write” mode, but finally managed to sit down and crank out a few hundred words last night and that felt good. I’m thinking I might have to default on Yuletide, though, having lost several weeks to despair, and that is making me feel like a Very Bad Person. Meh.
There was a similar (25-30%? I’ll find the article later) jump in US domestic moviegoing on Veterans’ Day weekend over 2015, that was not projected by the industry, which would seem to support the hypothesis that people are looking for some escapism as self-care.
After an event like this, for many there’s a period of what amounts to grief, I think. Individuals respond to grief differently, and grieve for different durations. My own response is a need to, in the words of Dr Elly Cat, “feel fullness of bad feelings”–while doing this I reject escapism or even encouraging/comforting sentiments. In a state like this I don’t read fic, let alone write it. The day after the election, for instance, I wanted to punch every encouraging “keep making art!” post that appeared on my dash, even though on some level I recognized the importance of the message. My response was: jfc, you don’t show up at a funeral and tell the bereaved what to do or how to feel. You respectfully let them grieve. But last week on tumblr one could see people moving through the process at wildly differing rates, so some were in “fullness of bad feelings” stage while others were looking for comfort or escape and/or taking up arms.
Outside of intensive grief mode, using fanfic for escapism as self-care in response to stress is standard operating procedure for me. It’s one reason I write the kind of fic I do, and am choosy about curating the fic I’ll read according to its anticipated effect on my emotional state. It feels like a compounded betrayal, actually, if I turn to fanfic to make myself feel better, only to read something that makes me feel worse–like getting sick from what was supposed to be comfort food.
On the actual election night itself I turned off the news around 11pm and read @hellotailor and @nakamasmile‘s “One Way Out of Many” instead (it’s about 55k words). That’s a childhood coping mechanism for when my parents used to fight – close the bedroom door, retreat into headphones and a book – that I haven’t had to resort to for years.
After that I got up the next morning ready to be an adult, albeit an upset adult. I couldn’t even think about writing fiction for more than a week. But I did read books (I finished the Price of Salt), and I went to several movies in a row, and I wrote the Cohen pieces for TSJ and my blog. Strangely enough, I’d always thought that whenever Leonard Cohen passed I’d be completely useless for a while, but I ended up feeling better – as if it helps to attend a funeral, even if not a real funeral, or even for the same cause of grief.
