If you outsource the act of being a fan to AI, what does that leave you? Fan creators are powerful because they’re deeply participatory media consumers—they don’t passively absorb a work, but grab onto it and reshape it to their will. Large tech and entertainment corporations prefer the passive: they want us sitting there, clicking a button, as stories wash over us like the automatic scroll of a video app. Next, next, next.
For fanfic writers, it can feel like generative AI is closing in on all sides.
… But isn’t writing the whole point of fan writing?