One of my daily routines is reading Cracked.com, often trolling for ideas from the real world that seem too damn crazy for anything but fiction. It’s odd how often reality trumps imagination, to be honest. At any rate, a little over a week ago there was an article on Fanfic and it’s role in pop culture, which is a subject that has specifically interested me for quite some time.
They’d come to similar conclusions as I had, though I found that they didn’t take their conclusions nearly as far as I had. The Cracked article came to the conclusion that pop culture was run by fan fiction, personally I think every real myth and story we have is fundamentally grown through fans retelling the story and building on it through years and generation.
Without fanfiction, where would King Arthur be? Even assuming that the first person to write his story was also the original storyteller, which isn’t likely, the myth of the Once and Future King is possibly the most fan told story in existence. Even writers like myself who don’t actually tell that story are constantly reinventing it for use in other stories. The Journeyverse may not feature Arthur, but the mythos of Avalon has become so central to the storyline that it’s only a matter of time before the King himself shows up.
I personally think that, today, you’d be hard pressed to find a movie that wasn’t fan service to some other property. Star Wars and Indiana Jones, two of the most brilliant movie series of my generation have roots that are clearly traceable to movies a generation earlier.
As the internet becomes a deep part of our daily lives, I think we’re going to see a strong and ever growing movement back to traditions that harken to the days of Oral Storytelling. Where stories get told over and over again, by different people, and grow with each telling. Society is eventually going to have to find a balance between the rights of the ‘creator’, and the rights of the fans…
King Arthur without the countless devout fans of his life’s story is really nothing more than one more dark ages despot.
Writers may create a story… But the FANS, they make it legend.
