71 lines
5.6 KiB
HTML
71 lines
5.6 KiB
HTML
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<title>Zk | essay</title>
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<h1>Zk | essay</h1>
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<article class="content">
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<ol>
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<li class="done2"> <a href="Intro.html">Intro</a></li>
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<li class="done1"> On fandoms and subcultures<ol>
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<li class="done0"> <a href="001.html">What are they</a></li>
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<li class="done0"> <a href="002.html">What’s important to them in their writing</a></li>
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<li class="done0"> How is that usually accomplished</li>
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</ol>
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</li>
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<li class="done0"> Introducing furry<ol>
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<li class="done0"> What are they</li>
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<li class="done0"> What’s important to them in their writing</li>
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<li class="done0"> How is that usually accomplished</li>
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</ol>
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</li>
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<li class="done0"> Adapting workshops</li>
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<li class="done0"> The two workshops<ol>
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<li class="done0"> OCWW</li>
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<li class="done0"> FCWW</li>
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</ol>
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</li>
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<li class="done0"> Conclusions</li>
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<hr />
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<p>Writing what’s important to us helps us to build styles, language, and stories of shared meaning. Fandom and subculture spaces provide authors with a meta-genre of sorts in order to explore this shared meaning. By leaning on each other for support, the members can build up a corpus of their own, something that resists commercialization outside of those spaces, and builds a stronger sense of in-group community.</p>
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<p>Over the last four months, I’ve had the privilege of running two writing workshops and four writing classes within the furry subculture.<sup id="fnref:furryfandom"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:furryfandom">1</a></sup> The first workshop took place at an online furry writing conference called <a href="https://oxfurredcomma.com">Oxfurred Comma</a> hosted by the <a href="https://furrywritersguild.com">Furry Writers’ Guild</a>, involving three authors learning about writing critique through the process of critiquing each other’s work through a <a href="https://twitch.tv">Twitch</a> stream visible to other attendees of the conference. The second took place at <a href="https://furcon.org">Further Confusion</a>, an in-person convention in San Jose, California, and focused on a more general set of sessions regarding critical reading and critiquing writing.</p>
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<p>My goal with running these workshops and classes was to explore what specific aspects of fandom and subculture writing can be incorporated into writing workshops.</p>
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<p>For the purposes of this project, I’m leaning on two working definitions, one for ‘fandom’ and one for ‘subculture’.</p>
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<p>Fandoms are groups of people focused on consuming media from a particular canon and, in this case, producing content related to that canon. This can take the form of art, music, costuming, or fanfiction, with the last being the natural choice for workshopping in a writing context.</p>
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<p>Subcultures, on the other hand, are groups of individuals focused on consuming media from no one, single canon, yet sharing an interest related to some aspect of media, culture, or identity. This can be anything from anime to LGBTQIA+ identities to furries. Without a central canon, there is no concept of fanfiction, and yet they can still serve in the role of a meta-genre, informing the style and content of the creations associated with the subculture, regardless of the core genre of the work itself.</p>
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<p>Both of these serve an important role in building community in a playful way. Association with fandom and subculture is often seen as frivolous, silly, or in many ways ‘not real’, despite the fact that members may make a very real living off their creations.</p>
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<p>Still, it’s that very playfulness that allows a set of styles and tropes to arise within these areas. When the works created aren’t necessarily beholden to popular tastes, fandom and subculture creators have a lot of freedom to explore.</p>
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<p>The creation of this shared language within the context of an in-group such as a fandom or subculture is bound up in two things: conversation and art. Conversation is the sharing of information, emotions, and opinions surrounding the shared sense of identity, but the creation of art strengthens shared identity through the mutual appreciation of the core subject or topic of the fandom or subculture.</p>
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<p>In the context of writing in particular, the shared language takes center stage. When using a similar lexicon, grammar and stylistic choices, and word choice, a sense of membership can build, strengthening community bonds.</p>
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<p>This is what drew my interest </p>
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<div class="footnote">
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<hr />
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<ol>
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<li id="fn:furryfandom">
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<p>It’s quite common to refer to furry as a fandom as well. I resist this phrasing more on intellectual than moral grounds, simply because there isn’t a core media that furries are a fandom. When asked, most furries will say that they’re fans of anthropomorphic animals or, more poignantly, themselves. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:furryfandom" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
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</li>
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</ol>
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</div>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2023-02-06</p>
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