What Does Fanlore Mean?
Fandom CultureThe wiki run by the Organization for Transformative Works that documents fandom history, terminology, communities, and events from a fan's-eye perspective. It is the closest thing fandom has to an institutional memory.
Fanlore in Practice
Fanlore records what fandom itself would otherwise lose: definitions of slang and how they shifted, histories of zines and mailing lists, timelines of platform migrations and wank, and pages for individual fanworks, tropes, and ships. Its editorial approach favors plural points of view, preserving disagreements about what a term meant rather than flattening them — appropriate for a culture where definitions are perpetually contested. For anyone researching why a fandom convention exists or what some archaic abbreviation meant, Fanlore is usually the first and best stop. It is volunteer-edited, like everything else fandom builds, and perpetually deeper in some fandoms than others.
Example usage
"I fell down a Fanlore hole reading about 1990s X-Files mailing list drama and surfaced three hours later, changed."
Related Terms
OTW (Organization for Transformative Works)
The nonprofit founded by fans in 2007 that runs the Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, and Open Doors, and advocates legally for fanworks. The OTW exists so that fandom's infrastructure is owned by fandom itself.
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Fandom Wank
Spectacular fandom drama — feuds, meltdowns, and self-important blowups — observed with popcorn in hand. Named for the snarky LiveJournal-era community that chronicled such episodes.
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Zine
A fan-made publication — printed or digital — collecting fic, art, and other work, usually around a theme, fandom, or ship. Zines are both fandom's oldest distribution medium and a thriving modern scene.
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Mailing List
An email-based discussion group where fans shared fic, meta, and conversation before blogging platforms and archives took over. Mailing lists were a central home of fandom in the 1990s and early 2000s.
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More Fandom Culture Terms
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