Chels

n the mid-20th century, post World War II, several philosophical and psychological theories developed. So much of culture was changing from technological to social developments, and human nature was increasingly fascinating. One such theory that developed (and one of my personal favourites) is discourse theory. Sometimes referred to as discursive theory, it refers to the importance of language, ie discourse, in shaping the way we understand the world. There are a few examples that illustrate the core of discourse theory – take, for example, teenagers. We have always aged the same way – and there has always been a period of our lives when we have been between the ages of 13 and 19. The concept of the teenager, however, didn’t actually emerge until the early 20th century. Before then, one was a child, and then an adult. The key years of adolescence were not actually named. Of course, once doctors and psychologists were increasingly interested in those years, they were named, and once they were named, the teenager became a distinct class. Teenagers were no longer just children, or almost-adults, (and, crucially, became a new demographic to advertise to – as is the case with much of 20th century social psychology).

The crux of discourse theory is the idea that things do not exist until we define them with language. The arguments, then, are that of course things exist before we have language for them. Most controversially, Michel Foucault argued that although men engaged in same-sex romantic and sexual relations with one another throughout recorded history, it wasn’t until 1870 when Carl Westphal defined ‘the homosexual’, that the identity even existed. Arguably, this is true – same-sex relationships were taboo, and therefore, they weren’t spoken about. There was no homosexual identity, because homosexuality wasn’t discussed or expressed. It was only when the identity was presented that people were able to identify with it.

So, what does this have to do with fanfiction?

In the early days of the internet, fanfiction was often sent via mailing lists or shared on fandom specific (and sometimes relationship or character specific) forums. Fanfiction.net, the first multifandom fanfiction archive site, was launched in 1998, but didn’t become hugely popular until the mid-2000s. The problem with .net was that they had a very strict set of rules, and stories that broke these rules would be deleted without warning. Stories up for deletion included those of certain IPs whose creators were strictly against fanworks, interactive stories, and ‘poorly written’ works. That’s right, your favourite story could be removed if the moderators didn’t approve of the quality of your writing. Understandably, people wanted better sites. Following the decline of .net, fanfiction writers migrated to two main sites, Archive of our Own (AO3) and Wattpad. 

AO3 allows all works that don’t break US laws, and works on a tagging system – users are required to use the archive warnings for non-consensual sexual activity, major character death, and underage sex, though they also are permitted to select ‘creator chose not to warn’. Outside of these, tags are optional, and they’re used to help users find themes or tropes that they’d like to seek out or avoid.

Wattpad, on the other hand, has always had slightly different practices. There are no major warnings, and searching for works is complicated, even with the tagging system that was in place. All works used to be allowed, but then the site shifted in value, and the ideal stories were those which could make money. Original works were preferred, and stories with sexual content were sometimes removed (but sometimes not – there was no real system). 

While Wattpad hosts both fanfiction and original works, the site has been known for a certain subgenre of fanfiction. Works typically featured either an original female character or a reader insert (y/n or ‘your name’) interacting with fictional characters within a fandom, or celebrities. Boybands and actors are generally considered the most popular ‘characters’ in these stories. In the 2010s, Wattpad was synonymous with ‘sold to One Direction’ stories, where the female main character was, as you’d expect, sold to the boyband, usually by neglectful parents, and often ended up falling in love with one of the members. Wattpad stories, of course, are more diverse than one trope, but they do tend to follow a lot of popular dark romance tropes, especially since fanfiction became more popular in the 2020s. Recently, Mafia romance has become the new subgenre that Wattpad is known for.

However, a few weeks ago, Wattpad updated their policies, and explicit works are no longer permitted on the site. This brings us back to discourse theory. Many Wattpad users, in the face of censorship, have turned to AO3, generally considered an anti-censorship website. During what has been referred to as the great Wattpad migration, new AO3 users have discovered the AO3 tagging system, and have become uncomfortable with the explicit nature of the works they’ve enjoyed.

This tweet (translation confirmed to be accurate by our resident linguist Karly) sums up the conflict:

From @Black_Dianxia: 

I think that AO3 babies who come from Wattpad hate certain tags so much because they materialize what they were actually reading all along… When they realize that “student seduced by the mafia” is the same as “underage sex” and “rape/noncon,” they get scandalized

Original Spanish: 

Yo creo que Ao3 babys que vienen de wattpad odian tanto ciertas etiquetas es porque materializan lo que realmente estuvieron leyendo todo el tiempo… Cuando se dan cuenta que “alumna seducida por el mafioso” es igual a “underage sex” y “rape/noncon” se escandalizan

Wattpad users have been reading these stories without considering them to be ‘problematic’ or even particularly controversial themes, because the culture of the site meant that stories evolved from non-explicit romance, to explicit romance, to dark romance, over time, and this progression meant that the dark themes weren’t identified and defined. Of course, the lack of a real tag system helped to foster this. Then, when faced with AO3, a site and userbase that are aware of the tropes and themes being read and written, they found it to be uncomfortable, and struggled to accept their own enjoyment of the tropes, once they’d been explicitly stated.

If a dark romance story about a (usually teenage) self-insert female character being seduced by a Mafia boss has no tags, it’s easy for a reader to ignore the fact that a teenage character is underage, and that she could not consent. The warnings aren’t there, so effectively, the concepts don’t exist. The same work would likely be tagged with underage and dubious or non consent on AO3, and therefore, those tropes are now attributed to the work, and the reader has to contend with the fact that that is what they enjoy reading.

Of course, this comes with a blanket statement that fiction is fiction, and the tropes and themes that a reader enjoys is not a moral issue (and that fiction is fiction, and a story is not morally correct or incorrect).

The point is that Wattpad users were happy to engage with ‘problematic’ stories when they weren’t labelled in a way that made them uncomfortable. They came to AO3 and reported works, made angry comments, and criticised the tagging system, calling for censorship of the site (which was especially confusing, given the reason they came to AO3 was that their works were being censored on Wattpad). 

According to discourse theory, then, Wattpad users didn’t have the terminology to define their ‘problematic’ works (though it has been widely used in other parts of the internet), and so, they didn’t register the works to contain those themes. A kind of cognitive dissonance happens where they know that they enjoy works that, for example, feature a sixteen year old whisked away in the night by her older brother’s friend, but they know that they ‘aren’t supposed to’ enjoy works tagged ‘underage’ ‘kidnapping’ or ‘dubious consent’. Wattpad users, generally, hadn’t considered that these tropes were in their favourite works, because they weren’t defined that way.