#this article says slash fiction began in the 70s and even then was written largely by and for women

[writingwhilequeer]

We own nothing, while gorging ourselves on content—on other people’s lives and other people’s struggles—to avoid the tedium, blandness, and futility of our own. Corporations burn hundred-million-dollar joss paper blockbusters so that we placate our hunger for the real with smoke and ash and let the living go about the real business of running the world.

[...]

Where once fandom served the needs of fans (telling new stories, letting people see themselves, offering alternative possibilities for how we understand heroes), today it serves only the needs of media conglomerates by acting as free advertising and by adding value via content and enthusiasm to the IP—a charitable donation of your time and energy to the Walt Disney Company.

[...]

Fans have become the hungry ghosts of late capitalism. Our appetite for content—an escape mechanism from the modern world by which we sublimate our own alienation and anxiety through participation in the spectacle—can never be satisfied because we are fed only ephemeral simulacra. We are kept distracted and anesthetized by the contentless content of the modern entertainment franchise. The communities and shared interests that promised connection and perhaps even solidarity are now fully commodified. We produce everything, own nothing, and pay multiple subscription fees for the honor. We feast at a burning banquet of paper delicacies and praise the taste of the ashes.

I've talked before about how the end of capitalism would bring about it the end of fandom. Nice to know my intuition was pretty close to the truth.

All the more reason to become anti capitalist.

#anti capitalism #anti shipping #anti fandom #this article says slash fiction began in the 70s and even then was written largely by and for women #this piece is fantastic