With the release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in 1997, the world became bewitched by the tale of a young orphan, Harry who struggles to overcome adversity in his life as a wizard. "Poterrmania" (the madness behind Harry Potter) quickly ensued, and "Potterheads" (extreme versions of the Harry Potter fan) couldn't get enough of all things Harry Potter.
Although author J.K. Rowling intended the books to be for children between the ages of nine and twelve, Potterheads of all ages in fact developed. Older fans, specifically can testify to the fact that their desire to pretend never really vanishes. Fans of all ages, however, took pleasure of the ability of the novel to place them in a magical, enchanting world.
When we think of crazy fans a lot of the time we think of the screaming Beiber fans, or the fainting Beatles fans (thank you, Morgan) We often forget about the amazing, and incredibly artistic production of activities that comes with being a fan. In the Get a Life article the author said, "Media fandom constitutes as well its own distinctive Art World..."
I like this quote because it emphasizes the outstanding creation that comes with being an inspired fan. Potterheads, for example, discovered numerous methods to demonstrate their attachment to the novels. Most significant of all production of activities is the Harry Potter fan fiction. Fan fiction are stories written and distributed by fans, and Harry Potter fan fiction is the MOST searched of all fan fiction on the web. It impressively surpasses the fan fiction in the Star Trek fandom (take that Trekkies!)
Harry Potter fan fiction is, for lack of a better world, overwhelming. I did a Google search on it myself, only to find that the very first website I clicked on had 68,000 instances of fan fiction alone. The stories are within all sorts of genres such as romance, drama, horror, humor, mystery, even "slash" fiction which features homosexuality between the characters.
I'm simply so impressed by the fan who is inspired by what he/she adores that I wanted to talk about it.
Laura,
ReplyDeleteI got really excited reading your post because, well... I am a Potterhead. I used to spend hours and hours on the online forums discussing Harry Potter story lines and character/actor gossip. (This was, of course, while the books were being written and before anyone could definitively say whether Snape was loyal to Dumbledore or the Dark Lord... yeah.. that's right, I won't say his name.)
I loved hearing everyone else's theories about the characters' back stories and I watched as a tangled world of fan fiction developed. While I stuck to the theory/plot themed threads in the forum, there were countless threads of fan fiction. Quite frankly, I was intimidated by them. People were literally writing novels worth of fiction about our beloved HP characters. I was afraid I would start blurring the lines between what was really written by J. K. Rowling and what was made up by fans. I stayed away from it because I literally didn't have the time to go through it all. Like blogging, authors would add on to their stories daily - and, in my opinion, it wasn't worth reading unless I could keep up with it.
What was crazy about the fan fiction I did read was how amazing the writing was! I'm sure that if any of these fans had come up with the idea first, they could have taken Harry Potter to heights J. K. never would have dreamed of. I completely agree with you that fan fiction has become a serious art form. And I love that it incorporates elements like homosexuality - gotta have something for everyone, right?