The ＂fan circle＂ things： We talked with writers, scissorhands and AO3 volunteers.
Wen | Wu chatters
Editor | He Runxuan
With idolize’s behavior of fans becoming the talk of the mainstream public opinion field, another subculture circle "Chinese fan circle" has also gained increasing attention.
The most recent large-scale outing of the fan circle originated from the "227 Great Unity" and the AO3 wall incident. As the trigger of the incident, YiBo and Sean Xiao’s "Falling" attracted the attention of netizens on the fan creation platform AO3, and eventually the click rate exceeded one million, which surpassed its textual meaning and passively became the "first Chinese fan" on the AO3 platform.
"Falling" has been read 1.08 million times in AO3.
However, "227" not so much opened the "new world door" for ordinary netizens, but rather aroused some people’s consciousness: ordinary viewers who once thought they had nothing to do with the fan circle found that they had already watched or enjoyed the fan creation: The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a fan of The History of the Three Kingdoms, and the second video of bilibili Film and Television Zone is a fan product, and the "Lady’s Character" was originally a fan creation.
Fan-creation videos are increasingly becoming a kind of "good quality and low price" drama promotion method in the entertainment industry: Weibo, the official of a drama, often rewards the starring photo and a small bonus, and calls on scissorhands to create fan-creation videos for the series.
And this has led to several other discussions:Is it fair that the creator’s "power generation for love" virtually becomes a cheap labor force of capital?Recently, the copyright platform took off a large number of fan videos on bilibili after the publicity period of the drama series, which also caused protests from the fan circle. Fan creators thought that the platform’s "kicking down the bridge" and "killing the donkey" made them chilling; However, from the perspective of copyright ownership, fan creation is indeed a vague area, and there is an objective risk of being removed from the shelf.
Although it has just been out of the circle, the "fan circle" has already become a creative force that cannot be ignored.Poisonous eyes (WeChat ID:youhaoxifilm）We interviewed AO3 volunteer clay balls, the operation team of fan creation mutual aid type account "Scissorhands TutuBot" and Chi Wan, a fan writer of Tanmei. They are typical individuals in the huge Chinese fan circle. Observing them will help us understand the operation mode of the fan circle-they are doing the necessary work to maintain the normal operation of the fan circle: classifying and sorting out the fans, and helping each other in video editing skills teaching; And most fundamentally, they represent the creation itself.
Fan writer Chimaru:
Write something for it to prove that I like it.
Chi Maru is a professional writer who spans the circle of fans-she has signed a contract with a certain platform to become the author of novels about Americans, and at the same time, she is also widely engaged in fan creation. The Japanese anime "Inuyasha" is Chimaru’s masterpiece of beauty-seeking fan culture enlightenment: "I watched" Inuyasha "in the third and fourth grades of primary school, but I don’t know why I came into contact with Sesshomaru and Inuyasha, two CP fans, probably because their images are long hair and beautiful, so I easily accepted this setting."
Sesshomaru and Inuyasha (Source: Douban)
Then Chimaru began her fan creation career: primary school began to write fans for her favorite Russian singers, and after climbing the wall, she dabbled in more and more: two-dimensional, three-dimensional, real-life CP and even national personification.
For Chimaru, creating a fan is the way for her to prove her love: "Generally speaking, I have a favorite character, so I will need to get to know this person and then use my fan to complete its story.I think I have to write something for it to prove that I like it. "
Chimaru believes that the pleasure of writing a fan comes from the release of creative desire and the satisfaction of self-projection. "The pleasure of writing a fan is actually similar to the pleasure of writing an original novel with me-I have my own creative desire, and I express it. For example, the original work actually gives you fragments of Gundam or other models, and writing a fan is the process of putting Gundam together. "
Therefore, Chimaru doesn’t care much about the number of readers. She has become the "pillar" in the unpopular CP circle several times, and she is almost the only writer in the whole circle. "There were two RPS(real person slash, CP) I started, and few people produced grain at all. There were almost no messages in my articles on LOFTER, because generally speaking, your few readers have become relatives and friends, and relatives and friends generally praised you in the private chat window and shouted’ I still want to eat, I am so hungry’."
Cold circle CP is also called arctic circle CP.
(Source: Weibo @ Entertainment Circle)
Chimaru, who has more than 10 years’ creative experience with humanities, has also experienced the prosperity and decline of several creative platforms. Chimaru remembers that the post bar before 2008 was very suitable for the creation of the same person: "The post bar is actually very small, and the users are all old acquaintances you have chatted with for a long time, so there will be no strangers coming in, and the atmosphere will be very good." However, with the increase of blocked words and advertisements in the post bar after 2008, the phenomenon that the post floor was swallowed frequently for no reason made the user experience worse. "At that time, I basically didn’t write in the post bar."
Around 2013, LOFTER became popular in the same circle. "LOFTER’s tag function naturally forms various fan circles, and then there is hot feedback including what red heart and blue hand are (note: red heart and blue hand are small icons like and recommended on LOFTER, which are used by users as pronouns of like and recommendation), and fans’ encouragement to the author is obvious." Chimaru said.
However, around 2016 and 17, with the action of "Net", LOFTER began to strictly restrict external links and increase shielding words. "Your articles are easily blocked, and people have to start using graphite documents, simplified books and AO3 to insert external links." Chimaru said.
AO3, which is now a hot topic, has not yet become the main position of Chinese fan circle in Chimaru’s view. "The social activity positions I have observed in the fan circle may still be in LOFTER and Weibo, while AO3 is that two groups are slowly converging. One is the fans who have been mixing Europe and America for a long time, and they have long been used to using AO3; There is also a kind of people who are pushed outside by the action of Net Net, and slowly start to send some fan clips that may be blocked in Weibo in AO3, and gradually get used to sending full texts in AO3. "
As a post-1995 generation, Chimaru has not experienced the "forum era" of fan creation, but she learned from her older friends that they miss the fan creation atmosphere in the forum era more. Because the circle of peers at that time was more private and like-minded.
"When the fan circle goes public, the risk of being reported and being’ harmonious’ is increasing, and the whole creative space is indeed getting smaller.But I’m not sure if this thing can bring some consensus to the circle of peers-for example, don’t report it.——I don’t believe it anyway. I’m rather pessimistic.. "
The behavior of printing entity fan zhi, which was once popular in fan zhi circle, is becoming less and less common now. "People, including the original beauty-obsessed authors, actually have a paper-book complex, and they all want to publish books in particular, so they will feel very happy. But now the investigation is particularly strict, so maybe everyone is not very used to publishing paper books. " Chimaru said.
The author of Tanmei was sentenced to four years in prison for publishing a personal chronicle.
Chi Maru, who has written about celebrities and real people, also suffered from "a police officer in the rice circle": "When there is hip-hop in China, I wrote about GAI and Wu Yifan’s fans. GAI is attacking, Wu Yifan is suffering, and my tag directly hits Wu Yifan. Then Wu Yifan fans told me that you can’t tag Wu Yifan, but you should tag’ whatever you suffer’-it was my freedom to tag according to the truth, but I did.
“I feel very crazy inside.",late pill added," but I’m willing to respect the rules of mental derangement. Because to put it bluntly, I am not a fan, I just borrowed this character image. It seems that you borrowed a material from someone else’s house. If you don’t show a little respect to the owner of the house, isn’t it a bit arrogant? "
In Chimaru’s view, the Chinese fan circle has not yet created an innovative worldview like ABO in Europe and America, but there have been interesting small ideas. She believes that the aspect that reflects the creativity of Chinese fan circle is the integration of various entertainment phenomena in the creation of real people.
"For example, now I’m visiting the’ La Tread Group’ in Douban, where the fellow scholars are particularly interesting. For example, ten pairs of real CPs are locked in a room to play escape, and all kinds of stalks of stars are integrated in the middle, which is what I particularly like. It is no longer the scope of the text, but it is more media-integrated." Chi Maru once again stressed, "Generally speaking, playing with stalks is a particularly vital thing."
AO3 Volunteer: My strange knowledge has increased.
In the "227" incident, the performance of AO3 official Weibo account OTWComms(OTW Re-creation Organization) continued to be well received: when Sean Xiao fans questioned the issue of the same humanity scale, AO3 official Bokop introduced AO3′ s warning label function and said that the use of the form label meant "the reader will bear the consequences", so "the author doesn’t need it, and we don’t stipulate that any other form of extra warning must be used."
When AO3 was blocked, the official blog continued to update the progress of problem investigation; When AO3 users have suicidal thoughts due to emotional instability, AO3 volunteers leave a message to the suicides: "The creative freedom you expect will come true. Please wait until that day. Can you make an appointment with me?" These rational, gentle and decent messages have been forwarded 50,000 times on Weibo. The netizen sighed with emotion: "The more educated, the gentler, the more empathetic, the more compassionate, and the more valuable life."
OTW Re-creation Organization responded to the situation that users in Chinese mainland could not access AO3.
OTW and AO3 volunteers left messages to persuade depressed patients who tried to commit suicide.
Behind the highly acclaimed AO3 official blog in the incident are dozens of AO3 Chinese volunteers who have been busy for nearly a week. AO3, as a non-profit fan creation platform, largely relies on donations from users and voluntary work of volunteers to maintain its operation. The number of Chinese volunteers on AO3 platform is about dozens, mainly including tag administrators who are responsible for sorting out the tags of Chinese fan works, PAC volunteers who handle complaints, Weibo homepage operators, news translation volunteers and so on.
Clay Ball is an AO3 volunteer who is in charge of label management. She called February 29th when AO3 was blocked as "a day of disaster": "One week after the incident, there were people in our Chinese volunteers’ chat group all the time, and everyone had a day of upside down day and night, which was too tired."
During that special period, in addition to cooperating with the technical department to investigate network problems, as an open volunteer, Clay Ball was also busy dealing with the public opinion in Weibo. "A large number of people flocked to my Weibo, so I collected feedback in Weibo and replied to some private messages to calm everyone’s mood."
In the next few days, AO3 users committed suicide again. "There was a sister in 227 Chaohua. It seems that she had depression, and the AO3 incident triggered her suicidal thoughts. A group of volunteers advised the sister in private letters and comments overnight, but fortunately she finally persuaded her-although I have never suffered from depression myself, I actually quite understand their feelings." Said the clay ball.
This understanding comes from empathy-before becoming a volunteer of AO3, the clay ball was already a fan of the same circle who highly recognized AO3. Nowadays, the clay ball, which has just entered the university, has been exposed to fan culture since the sixth grade of primary school. "At that time, I was watching an animation. Since the original work has not been updated, I posted it and discussed it with everyone during the waiting window. I looked at my fan and then wrote a little myself. At that time, I began to have a concept of my fan’s work."
The opportunity for clay balls to contact AO3 is to read Harry Potter in sophomore year. Interestingly, she first became interested in the original work through her fan works: "At that time, when bilibili was painted, it happened that the video of Vodafone CP was recommended on the homepage-Voldemort and Lin Daiyu were the’ cults’ of Lalang, so I went to see a lot of Vodafone CP texts, and then I had the idea of going to see the original."
Fudai CP on bilibili
After reading the original work systematically, the way clay balls continue their fun is still the same person. "Because I especially like the role of Snape, and then I can make up for the regret of its ending in the original, I have read a lot of Snape-related fan works-not to make up for the regret of letting Snape live, but to make up for the regret that the original did not tell his story more completely."
As Harry Potter began to wander around Europe and America, clay balls "inevitably came into contact with AO3", and AO3′ s community atmosphere also gave clay balls a sense of belonging.
She introduced: "AO3′ s tag search system and mechanism is that no matter whether you are a big boss or a newcomer, as long as you hit the right tag when posting, and then this CP you are using has a certain degree of popularity, your work can be seen by many people. Therefore,AO3 is a good encouragement for new creators.;On the other hand, AO3 is not so strict, even a little abnormal censorship, and the fan creation inside will be more free.. "
During the busy high school life, clay balls began to create Harry Potter fans in English on AO3 on weekends. "At that time, I was still living on campus. Every weekend, I went home and turned on my computer. My mailbox was full of readers’ reminders. When I found that so many people wanted me to update, I wrote happily. In fact, the works written at that time are really not very well written now. I am very grateful to the earliest group of colleagues for giving me so much encouragement and not abandoning my grammar and various mistakes. "
While writing about the same person, the clay ball ball also spontaneously made some search engine evaluations for AO3, recited words in AO3 and other Amway words: "I just want to let everyone know that there is such a good platform, and how to create and search things on this platform, which is almost the same as some people like to share beautiful photos of their cats and dogs in Weibo."
When AO3 recruited Chinese volunteers again in March 2019, the clay ball naturally applied and joined this big family: "There is one kind, how to say it? The feeling of being admitted to your favorite university. "
This mysterious organization aroused the curiosity of the outside world after the "227 incident". "In early March, someone pretended to be AO3 volunteers to sell VPN, saying that I was the administrator of AO3 volunteers in China, and I managed more than 90,000 volunteers. We have more than 100 groups. Give us the money quickly. I’ll take you to climb the ladder-it’s very interesting. In fact, there are not tens of thousands of people in OTW headquarters. If Chinese volunteers are involved, they will probably float on dozens of such values." In the Chinese volunteer team, there are students who have no background of studying abroad but have good English, as well as overseas students, overseas Chinese, mixed-race children and even foreigners who have studied Chinese.
A small number of Chinese volunteers are faced with a huge amount of work: sorting out the tags of Chinese works of the same humanities on the AO3 platform. "Chinese fan tags are really messed up, and there are too many interesting things. For example, there are four types of our tags-fandom (fan circle), character (role), relationship (pairing) and freeform (other), and then an author mistyped all the tags of all categories. After finishing the author’s article introduction, he also said, my English is not good, I hope tag doesn’t. But it’s really cute. " Said the clay ball.
"Dealing with Chinese tags really lets us know a lot of amazing things," said clay balls. "The pit of Chinese rpf is really deep-It’s okay abroad. Foreign fans will bring the real names of the characters when they write rpf. However, because many fans in China tear CP powder, they don’t always bring their real names when writing rpf.In AO3, although there is no such worry, it is customary for them not to bring their real names, so volunteers need to guess through a series of clues. "
I have never sorted out the Chinese rpf labels, but a colleague who has handled such labels told her: "There is no mention of the name of the protagonist in an rpf from beginning to end, and he has to go through a series of clues to finally determine who this person is and successfully put this article in the correct tag."
Although the volunteers’ English level is good, the Chinese peer circle tag is extensive and profound, which often makes them feel difficult in translation. "Some words feel too normal in Chinese, but I don’t know how to translate them. When I look up information about some uncommon tags, I often feel that my strange knowledge has increased. Once before, I had to translate nearly 100 Ne Zha-related tags, and one of them was the enchantment beast-the thing that stood at the door of Nezha’s house. I really didn’t know how to translate this thing, so I had to pinyin it, and then the description in brackets explained it. "
On April 2nd, OTW started a new round of volunteer recruitment, which was different from the previous number of comments in Weibo. This time, it was quite lively and was forwarded by comments for thousands of times. Of course, most of the messages modestly said, "Sorry, my English doesn’t match, so I can only bend my waist in the comments."
Scissorhands spit bot: becoming a satellite connecting islands
"bot with Scissorhands" (hereinafter referred to as bot) was established at the end of 2018, when "bot" accounts rose on a large scale in Weibo. "Scissorhands" is a nickname for fan video creators. As the name implies, it is an account for fan video creators to spit, help each other and share materials.
Bot operates diligently, posting more than 44,000 blogs in more than two years. Every day, it forwards and shares the empty lens materials that may be used by scissorhands, the single material of some stars and some color matching and special effects techniques with high frequency words, which has become an important editing material transfer station and a platform for answering questions about editing.
"When I was brushing Weibo, I saw someone saying that I wanted a scissorhand to spit bot. This is a very attractive idea," bot said to the poisonous eyes. "Because,As scissorhands, we often encounter problems that are difficult to solve by ourselves, such as finding materials, making friends and broadening our horizons.If there is such a platform, I believe that the creative life of many scissorhands will be much simpler and happier. There just happened to be an idle Weibo account under the skin, which was set up conveniently. "
Image taken from Weibo @ Scissorhands Tucao bot
Bot’s self-positioning is "a bot that can help Scissorhands do more things, hoping to become a space for Scissorhands to talk and communicate freely." There is a word "deviant" in the top Weibo of bot, which comes from the game "Detroit: Changing People", implying that bot wants to be a gentle AI like Chloe on the main page of Detroit. "This positioning is the core. Maybe our operation mode has been adjusted according to the feedback from fans, but the core has never changed.Creation is not an island, because we are willing to be a satellite connecting every island."
Bot will not easily see the creator of the fan video: "It’s all wives who produce food with their hearts! Scissorhands should be able to better understand the efforts and efforts of others. A video has been watched in three to five minutes, but it may take half a month for Scissorhands to complete. The efforts behind Scissorhands are particularly understandable. It is precisely because of this understanding that scissorhands can often cross the powder gap and communicate sincerely with other scissors hands without prejudice, and appreciate and help each other. This is commendable. "
Bot was affectionately called "Scissors" by its 67,000 fans. It was once jointly operated by four operators, who called themselves "Four Little Swan". Although they each liked different stars and works, the four people were good friends in life. "I don’t think the fan attribute is a reason to hinder cooperation and communication. After all, there is no circle boundary in creation. We have never wanted the scissorhands circle to be affected by the rules of rice circles. We don’t need to define a person by fans.Attribute and membership are not so important, only one thing is the same for everyone: power generation for love and persistent creation.. "
Creating fan videos is a process of "visualizing dreams" in bot’s eyes: "Who wouldn’t want to turn their dreams into reality? Moreover, compared with writing and drawing, editing fan videos is more pure, and no one will interfere with your creation. Moreover, the visual and auditory enjoyment of videos can’t be achieved by other creative methods. The stories created are just like the truth, very happy, right? "
However, bot, which adheres to the beautiful vision that creation can transcend attributes, still has inevitable friction with the rules of rice circles. In the "227 Incident", one of the operators used the bot account to forward a content that boycotted Sean Xiao’s endorsement, which led to the siege of Sean Xiao fans. In the end, bot fired the operator, and the "four cygnets" became "three cygnets".
"We still have to explain this matter to her, not with personal feelings, but really with the wrong number. It is the common decision of the four of us to expel her. It is definitely sad to be sad. It is indeed a helpless move. We can only’ sorrowful and change’-we don’t care much about who our companions like and hate, but as a bot, it is the original sin to lose the skin on the wrong number.We have devoted our energy and enthusiasm, and we don’t want our bot to end up shut down because of something."
Two years of operating bot is full of happiness for them. "If fans think that the road to editing is really more relaxed and convenient because of our existence, then our goal has been achieved. In addition to the daily submission, we also have some game activities, such as "The Role Escaping Guess" and "The Blind Box of Lang Lang", which are interactive games designed according to the hobby direction of scissorhands. Sometimes, because the skin is busy, the time of playing games may not be so fixed. Every time we receive fans’ "Are there any games today?" "I haven’t played for a long time and miss them" in a private message, we will feel that we will be very satisfied and happy when we have brought happiness to others. "
Image taken from Weibo @ Scissorhands Tucao bot
Bot also admits that when he is busy, he simply "wants to abandon his number every day": "When he is busy with work and study, he still thinks about clearing manuscripts, and he has opened nearly 100 articles to be cleared in Weibo for submission, which is very big. There are still many problems that I want to vomit, such as submitting without reading the submission guide, reaching out to the party, submitting a lot of repetitive content, and bringing the rules of rice circles into the scissors hand circle. However, when I want to give up, I will think that many people will be sad. When I want to vomit, I may send some Weibo that fans can see, or vomit in the fan group, which often resonates with fans or gains some improvement opinions. "
Nowadays, the pressure faced by the fan video circle is not only the entanglement of rice circles, but also the copyright party’s control over fan videos. Many fan videos released in bilibili are often taken off the shelves by the copyright party in large numbers, which has hit many scissors’ enthusiasm for producing food. In this regard, bot thinks: "The copyright owner has the right to remove the fan video, and the scissorhands also have the right to refuse to edit certain works for some reasons.Using love to generate electricity doesn’t mean that scissorhands in the same circle can be free labor. Scissorhands can edit and promote favorite stars or film and television works out of love, but no one should be used.. "
@ Scissorhands Tucao bot’s Tucao Content
In bot’s view, creation is essentially to generate electricity for love, driven by interest, and the most important thing is that scissorhands produce happily. "If you give up what you like for various reasons from outside, then this kind of love may be a bit stale.We believe that the boundary of co-author creation and copyright issues will become more and more perfect in continuous practice.. "
tag
Before the "227" incident, most people only knew about rice circles, but didn’t realize that there was a Chinese fan circle that transcended the attributes of fans and existed based on the consensus of free creation for love. Facts have proved that although its structure is loose, it is real: there are volunteers to maintain order, there are mutual-aid accounts as porters of knowledge and resources, and there are many fan creators who exist for the creation itself rather than a specific star or work, and they continue to produce works.
When the values recognized by peers are offended, this force from subculture will come together and even shake the reputation of a top traffic star. As Scissorhands Tucao bot said, the "creators" seem to be isolated islands, but countless satellites connecting each island have been quietly running under the night.
