Here's an idea. "Sherlock Holmes" paved the way
for "Fifty Shades of Grey."
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"Fifty Shades of Grey" is a risque eBook-cum-novel
penned by English mother of two, EL James.
It is the fastest selling paperback ever,
breaking records held by both Harry Potter and "The Da Vinci
Code."
Oh and also?
It's a fanfiction.
A "Twilight" fanfiction.
Jacob, keep your shirt on!
No!
Originally titled "Master of the Universe,"
James crafted "Fifty Shades" using "Twilight" characters
Bella Swan and Edward Cullen.
When she started gaining fifty shades of popularity though,
she began fearing fifty shades of lawsuits.
She retooled her tome, Apple-F Replaced All some names,
and safe.
Now generally speaking, fanfiction
has a pretty bad rap.
It's considered amateur, poorly-contructed, exciting
only to dedicated fans.
You know, like how most people think of Canada or Rob
Schneider films, which is why "Fifty Shades of Grey's"
extreme success is a little surprising,
but maybe it shouldn't be.
Accepting attitudes about fanfiction aren't common now,
but way, way back, there was the anonymously-written
and published second volume to "Don Quixote."
There were professionally-penned parodies
of "Alice in Wonderland."
But the mother of all fanfiction honeypots
to be "Sherlock Holmes."
When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle killed off
the beloved detective in 1891, his fans were miffed.
Left with a treasure trove of characters, situations,
and settings, fans took matters into their own quill pen-toting
hands.
The list of non-canon "Sherlock" auteurs
is longer than Moriarty's rap sheet.
And their work is not only good, but it was well-received.
All this might lead you to ask, why
would a writer not want to start with their own creation?
Well, in order to understand the fanfiction writer,
we must become the fanfiction writer.
Sure, the laziness argument is really easy to make.
But what if you genuinely love Holmes and Watson
as characters?
And what if it's not just you?
What if it's a whole community of excited people?
Doyle could never explore all of the possibilities
within the "Sherlock" universe by himself.
It is huge.
Something like, what would Detective Inspector Lestrade
do if he ever came across a zombie Holmes?
We give fanfiction a hard time for all of this borrowing
and "perverting," but this is actually
just kind of how the arts work.
If instead of characters or settings,
we talk about artists borrowing perspective techniques,
material choice, or harmonic progression.
Suddenly, we're talking about art movements or schools
of thought, and not ripoffs or pastiches.
Media scholar Henry Jenkins said that we
are drawn to master what can be known about worlds which always
expand beyond our grasp.
This is a very different pleasure
than we associate with the closure found
in most classically constructed narratives.
The "Sherlock" cannon was one of the first
to inspire a community of writers
who were willing to attempt such a mastery.
But fanfictions-- whether "Sherlock,"
"Star Trek," "Twilight," or the over 14 million Star Wars
novels-- have traveled right under the major media radar,
until "Fifty Shades of Grey," which
has sold 20 million copies in three months, and was recently
optioned by Universal Pictures.
Stephanie Meyer, the author of "Twilight,"
has even congratulated EL James on all of her success.
JK Rowling has a similarly accepting attitude
about Harry Potter fanfics, as do the creators of "Adventure
Time" and "Doctor Who."
It stands to reason that, while constructing their story
worlds, these people are keeping in mind characteristics
and loose continuities which are welcoming to fan writers.
And as stigmas around fanfiction disappear,
fan use of pre-existing characters and situations
might reach a level of popularity
that we haven't seen in over 100 years.
Meaning that, while "Fifty Shades of Grey"
is the continuation of a fad "Sherlock Holmes" started,
it might also be the beginning of a new heyday fanfiction.
What do you guys think?
Will we start to see a ton more popular fanfiction?
Let us know in the comments.
And if you like us, you should talk incessantly about the show
at the next party you're at with your friends--
except don't do that, because if irritating.
No but really, tell your friends.
And subscribe.
The relationship between Microsoft and art's benefaction
is complicated.
Let's see what you guys had to say.
Reacocard calls Microsoft more of an arts enabler
than a benefactor or a sponsor, in the same way
that the people who make easels or paints
are enablers and benefactors, which is a fine distinction.
Come on, tadgirlnextdoor.
It's not that easy.
But we will keep an eye out for you and your classmates
if they identify themselves, but we're not
going to pick a comment because you beg.
That's just cheating.
Griffin Hotchkiss and Chreseieee make the point
that the real benefactor with Adafruit Industries,
who offered a $10,000 bounty to the first person
to crack the Kinect driver and open source it, which yeah,
sounds a lot like direct and actual benefaction.
So that's awesome research.
That's a little weird.
It's a little weird.
I mean, it's flattering.
But it's also a little weird.
OleprechaunO and Apolloscleric and a bunch of other people
also make the point that they think
the real benefactor is Hector Martin, the guy who
open sourced the driver.
I think our point was that Microsoft was the company that
put all of the money into the R&D and the development
and the manufacturing of the Kinect.
And so there's actually a really interesting conversation
to have here.
It's kind of complicated.
Kaykat0505 points out that artists aren't the only people
who are benefiting from the Kinect, in that it's also
being used in robotics and assisted technologies.
It's actually incredibly interesting.
We'll get some links up here so you guys can see those videos.
LeaPrufrock agrees with our assessment
and says that Microsoft should continue
to be considered a benefactor, as long as they don't actively
stop people from making things with the Kinect.
BigSkimmo had some feels while reading the comments this week,
and we do too, from the bottom of our internet YouTube hearts.
Thank you.
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