It can be hard to recognize that Dark Brandon is a fanart trope because most of the participants in the American Politics Extended Universe fandom are reluctant to explicitly admit that they belong to a fandom centered around a prominent entertainment product. But make no mistake: Dark Brandon was developed and shared by people who spend several ho... See more

closed net cultures such as One Direction fandom do produce a lot of creative work, but it’s basically like the inside jokes you come up with at summer camp rather than innovations that will diffuse into the mainstream.

but whether parasocial content is desirable or not, it points to a growing crisis on the internet: So much of what we encounter online just doesn’t matter , and even worse, offers no mechanism for us to start caring about it. The average human living today sees more things they don’t care about in one week than a medieval peasant did in their entir... See more