The Audacity of Fanfiction

Ever heard of Tumblr or Wattpad? You might probably recognize these platforms for their enormous number of fan communities they hold from everything you can imagine, from moody teen dramas to colorful cartoons. If you happen to come across one of these Internet rabbit holes, you might see posts filled with chapters and chapters of fan stories incorporating fictional characters from pre-existing properties. This is most known as “fanfiction”, and you´d think that said fan projects are usually kept hidden and unseen from the producers and studios. Well, think again, because in the last couple of years, and thanks to social media, there has been a massive outbreak in the public´s influence in choosing the content they would like to watch. Therefore, in this short article, we will explore the origins of two popular franchises that were not created by a paid producer per se, but rather, by some excited fans.

It is quite baffling to believe that the world-wide phenomenon that was Fifty Shades of Grey was ever connected to another world-wide phenomenon: Twilight. That´s right, before the popular movies starring Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson came out, as well as the book series which is based on, author E. L. James told ABC back in 2012 (referring to the books in the Twilight series) "I just sat on my sofa and just read them and read them and read them (…) I was inspired by ['Twilight' author] Stephenie Meyer ... she just kind of flipped this switch in my head." Shortly after reading the books, James says she sat down and decided to write a book of her own titled “Master of the Universe” and posted it in

Fanfiction.net. Soon after, she managed to publish it (changing the names of the characters and settings, of course) under the name Fifty Shades of Grey.

Moving on to a more recent case, let´s discuss for a moment the tale of how After came to be. Similar to the previous scenario, After was also a book before being pitched as a movie but, just like E. L James first posted her high-fantasy project on Fanfiction.net, Anna Todd (the author and producer) first shared her project in Wattpad circa 2013 as rather explicit fanfic centering around the fictional character Tessa and 1D ex-member Harry Styles as the go through the trials and tribulations of college. After it reached more than 100 million reads in Wattpad, the 102-part story got released as a book and, like Fifty Shades, it premiered as a movie last year with an announced upcoming sequel.

Thus, based on the previous cases (as well as others not exposed here), it is rather clear that, in this day and age, fans are taking over the entertainment industry.

By Silvana Sepúlveda, 10B