I started out online as a message boarder, a particularly annoying teenaged girl on the analysis-based boards. Even after I discovered blogging, I carefully avoided fanfiction-based communities (despite being urged to try it) until I started WFA and found a lot of thoughtful posts on fanfiction journals. Intrigued, I set out to learn more about fandom, and discovered this among the livejournals I had friended. A ten chapter account following a single writer in the Harry Potter Fanfiction community over a five year period of time. It alleges that she used alternate identities to gain social status in the Harry Potter fanfiction community by attacking herself and playing on the sympathy of the community. The accusation is supported by screen shots, IP addresses, quotes, and links. Someone even came up with a guide to the involved personnel.

It’s mesmerizing. A writer known only as the Duchess of Richmond recounts a story of deceit, manipulation, and betrayal that shakes the entire Harry Potter fanfiction community out of its comfortable illusions. From an outsider’s perspective, it becomes a fascinating study of the intricacies and social connections of a fan community, on Fanthropology they are already debating the historical/sociological value.

I’m interested in the writer. This is incredible, with links and quotes and screenshots and IP address. The entire account is meticulously backed up by as much evidenced as the author could amass. In the afterword, she even explains how it was gathered among a group of different people who had slowly noticed the behavior. If this is a lie, it is one amazing piece of detective fiction. If this is a mistake, it is an incredible paranoid conspiracy theory. If this is true, it is a grim lesson that no one on the internet is truly overlooked.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 22nd, 2006 at 4:20 pm and is filed under Fandom, Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.