Picture this: it is 2016, your hair has just been thrown into the perfect messy bun, and somehow, you have been sold to One Direction… It may seem like fanfiction only appeared on the internet 20 years ago, but did you know that it has existed for centuries? The earliest examples appeared after the 1726 publication of Gulliver’s Travels when readers began writing their own “shocking” stories about the characters. The modern pioneer of fanfiction was developed in the 1960s through the Star Trek fandom. However, for better or worse, one could argue that fanfiction has hit its peak popularity in the last five years – at least in the eyes of traditional media.
Today, fanfiction is mostly shared on online platforms. Launched in 1998, FanFiction.Net was the first major website dedicated to hosting fanfiction and remained the dominant platform for years. This continued for over a decade until 2013 when the so-called “Great Fanfiction Purge” took place, removing all R-rated and explicit works from the site without warning. The sudden deletion of thousands of stories sparked a widespread debate about censorship and creative freedom within fandom spaces.
The Purge caused a lot of authors and readers to jump ship to emerging sites such as Wattpad and Archive of Our Own (Ao3). However, over a decade later, Ao3 seems to have become the default. Wattpad was the go-to for many as a gateway platform; its user-friendly design and easy navigation made it perfect for beginners. It also gave authors a space to publish original works, with some notable successes including the Kissing Booth series. However, in the last couple of years, the focus has shifted more and more from the actual works to the monetisation of the app. Wattpad has now become practically unusable as a free programme due to the number of ads and paid content on the site.
In contrast to earlier platforms, Ao3 was designed specifically to resist the kind of censorship that caused the purge of Fanfiction.Net. Created in 2008 by the Organization for Transformative Works, the site was built as a non-commercial archive run by the fans, for the fans. It is not just an archive in name alone though. Archives collect and preserve content for long-term access rather than being curated or judged based on quality or content. This means that anything can go on Ao3 – anything. Ao3 relies on an extensive tagging system that allows writers to label their works correctly and readers to filter out unwanted content. The goal of the platform was not to curate fandom, but to preserve it. The tagging system has helped Ao3’s rise in success as its structure as an archive means that, in theory, works are preserved rather than periodically purged when rules change.
This emphasis on unrestricted expression has placed the platform at the centre of debates within fandom spaces about what kinds of content should be permitted. Fanfiction is created from one’s imagination and sometimes factors such as physics, biology, and international laws tend to become optional or just completely disregarded. The golden rule of fanfiction has, for a long time, been “don’t like, don’t read”. For a while, this approach worked well, but with the new influx of readers joining the platform for the first time, the content can be… jarring. Many authors migrated from FF.net with the promise of being able to upload whatever they want, as long as it is still fanfiction, and the calls for the removal of some works are not being well received. Admittedly, there is content on the website that some may argue is the exact reason why Ao3 censorship should be a thing. The site’s infamous “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat” tag is used by fanfiction writers to warn potential readers that the work they are about to read is going to feature illegal or overly explicit content. The premise is simple: if the bag says “Dead Dove” and you open it to find a dead dove, you cannot complain that there is, in fact, a dead dove inside.
The demands for censorship go against the founding philosophy of the site. Fanfiction is meant to be a space for boundless imagination, even when it tests the limits. While discussions about content and appropriateness continue, the archive model shows that it is possible to safeguard creative freedom while still providing readers with tools to navigate the material responsibly. By emphasising preservation over curation, Ao3 ensures that works are not erased simply because they are controversial. In doing so, the platform reinforces the idea that fanfiction should be a playground for creativity, not a target for censorship.
