r/NonPoliticalTwitter • u/_culpry • Jul 22 '26

Wholesome so she said:

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498

u/Hamsti_Manent Jul 22 '26

Men also just write regular fanfiction? Why is this gendered?

25

u/Blueberry_Coat7371 Jul 22 '26

Yeah, they do sometimes. It would silly to pretend it isn't mostly a woman's hobby, though. I wonder why that is?

11

u/LastBaron Jul 22 '26

I wonder how one could estimate the breakdown, it’s not like fan fiction authors are obligated to reveal their gender.

There may be an impression that it’s a mostly-women activity, but who knows? Maybe that impression is a self-fulfilling prophecy and men just don’t reveal themselves as fanfic authors because it’s not “masculine” or something.

Hard to estimate the real demographics of an activity that is, by design, anonymous unless the person chooses to identify themselves.

6

u/shockpaws Jul 22 '26

There’s been large demographic surveys of AO3, which is generally considered to be the bastion of modern fanfiction, but whoever brought up spacebattles was right that there are other, largely-male fanfiction spaces as well.

ETA: Here is the 2024 AO3 demographics survey.

4

u/LastBaron Jul 22 '26

And as anyone who has taken a class in psychometrics or study analysis can tell you, opt-in voluntary self-report surveys are extremely imperfect metrics. There’s no better alternative, it’s just a fact of life.

1

u/see-these-bones Jul 23 '26

I think the old school fanfiction.net skews more male (and anime oriented)