After Web 2.0: The Social Web-lit Platform of Wattpad and the Democratization of Web Authorship MA Thesis in Literary Studies: Literature, Culture and Society Graduate School for Humanities Universiteit van Amsterdam Ivy Emily Wade 12151297 Supervisor: Thomas Ernst June 2019 Wade 1 Table of Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………………...…...…2 1. The Social Webserial as an Emerging Form 1.1 Defining Traits of Social Webserials within Web Fiction…………...………...…...…9 1.2 Social Webserials as Works of Literature, Addressing Lack of Canonization…....…18 2. Wattpad as a Social Web-lit Platform 2.1 Definitions of Wattpad and The Sharing Economy…………………….……………23 2.2 Site Structure and Functionality as Web 2.0 Product…………………....……...…...26 3. Democratization of Wattpad 3.1 Cyberdemocracy and the Public Sphere of Wattpad…………………………...……28 3.2 The Reader Replaces the Critical Institution………………………………………...33 3.3 Reader Delegated Monitoring and Censorship ………………………...………..…..35 4. Wattpad, A Web-lit Utopia and Emancipation Tool? 4.1 Analysis: Gender Representation and After……………....………………………….38 4.2 Wattpad as a Restory Platform and Pedagogical Device…………………......……...53 Conclusion.…………………………………………………..………………………………......58 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………..……64 Wade 2 Introduction “I can't even. I just can't even. My fuck-o-meter exploded with this. Emily Brontë would be choking herself to death if she were alive…. And what about the mediocre writing? The fact that there's no plot whatsoever apart from an abusive relationship and make up sex? Is this the literature we want? Is this the literature that will survive, the legacy we'll leave to future generations?” (Evey) “I had to come back and check out the success of the book after I found out the movie came out. I read this book in Middle School and I’m nearly graduating and it brings back so many memories �. I was so happy that this book was able to get a movie because the storyline is just so good.” (Star_Dreamer_246) Figure 1: Comparing user comments of After on Goodreads.com and Wattpad.com. When viral self-published series like E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey or the more recently famous Anna Todd’s After take the literary world by storm, it is inevitable that the series not only sparks up a massive battle of online debates, but calls attention to the changing dynamics of the literary field in a digital era that is in constant motion. As Anna Todd’s After continues to gain international attention and gain over one billion reads across platforms, its humble beginnings have brought attention to the way social self-publishing platforms continue to change the sphere of online authorship and the road to independent creativity and publication. Critics and academics question not only the content of these new publications, but the greater implications they have on the relationships we have with new emerging forms of online books and authorship. These changing modes suggest that the fields of literature and book studies will be continually altered by the growing network society of the internet, globalization, and social media (Valtysson 200). As both highly successful series started as ‘fanfictions’ Wade 3 created on social writing platforms, the basis of their very existence can be seen as threatening to the traditional world of literature as well as leading industry publication and distribution methods. The introduction of self-publishing and online literary platforms will continue to alter the future of the literary canon and dependency on the traditional publishing industry. With the emergence of online web authorship and collaborative platforms, alternative means of self- expression become readily available for authors to publish their works and develop a fanbase independently from corporate publishing houses (Mustafa and Adnan 284). The advent of the internet and the community-forum centered websites that come after provide a way to circumvent traditional gatekeeping within the publishing world and present material to mass audiences. Often these works are associated with a new wave of literature: the “amateurization of mass authorship” (Vadde 27). Sites like Wattpad, The Archive of Our Own, and Fanfiction.net have developed to become the front line of amateur authorship on the internet. Though many sites with similar or overlapping functions continue to form, these three stand at the most popular social self- publishing platforms that allow publications from site users with low restrictions without the requirement of payments for reads, subscriptions, or membership fees. Each proudly brand and promote their site on concepts such as freedom of expression, “unleashed imagination”, and the legitimizing of “transformative works” (“FanFiction”; “About the OTW”). With less hurdles keeping back the masses of hopeful authors, the constraints to authorship are decreasing, while the path to notoriety is becoming harder and harder to achieve as the sheer number of self-published titles continues to grow each year (Carolan and Evain 286). According to ProQuest’s Bowker 2018 report, self-published ISBNs in the United States have Wade 4 increased 156% since 2012 (“New Record”). As for works without ISBNs, sites like Wattpad take these numbers to astronomical heights with 565 million works published on the site alone by 2019 (“About Wattpad”). Without such restrictions and institutions of criticism to create hard barriers and regulations, these works are often received differently than books that have followed more traditional paths of publication and distribution. Often dismissed against the historical literary canon, the content on social self-publishing platforms are constantly criticized and critiqued. It is not unusual for content on self-publishing sites to feature niche interests, taboo subjects, or fan recreations. Thus, these types of publications like the After series are often under scrutiny for being labeled too explicit, alternative, or not representative of high culture. These products can be interpreted as a part of the nature of “prosumption and remixed media” that inevitably leads to questioning quality (Valtysson 206). Highly viewed self-publishing successes such as Anna Todd’s After, a One Direction erotic fanfiction series, highlight how niche and explicit content has a way of being publicized and transformed into the public sphere after gaining popularity on self-publishing sites. On the opposite vein of its critics, many scholars and creatives herald these types of sites as beacons of literary freedom and creative expression, - open, safe, and uncensored spaces that democratize the publishing sphere and create a certain utopia of authorship equality. Finally, there is a space for people to write about whatever topic they like, even asserting their own identities and stories in empowering ways. Theoretically, if certain representations or demographics feel that they are not being represented on the traditional book market, these self- publishing platforms create an uninhibited space where marginalized groups can create works that they believe best represent their interests or even give them back some of their own autonomy, as well as social and cultural power. Wade 5 Although the range of websites, platforms, and digital publications that can be chosen from which to analyze this theoretical democratization are endless, this study focuses on the social web-literature platform Wattpad as it is the most popular ‘free’ self-publishing platform currently available online, with over 65 million users (“About Wattpad”; “Wattpad Company”). Most of the current studies on Wattpad focus on its positive aspect as a pedagogical tool; many in the teaching community see Wattpad as an empowering socialization and learning device for young readers (Tirocchi 97). Beyond Melanie Bold’s identifications on negotiating authority and influence on Wattpad and the several works on gender representations, most of the studies on Wattpad center on its learning applications in primary and secondary school, while studies on its social reading experience have been seen as neglected (Rebora and Pianzola 21). The focus of this study is to take a new and multifaceted approach to interpreting Wattpad within the field of literary studies, not just in pedagogical contexts. Failure to include Wattpad in self- publishing and electronic literature research magnifies the exclusion or overgeneralization of these types of platforms from academia and high culture; this works to acknowledge these absences. A comprehensive and detailed analysis of the website’s social and literary functions is performed to better understand how literature is changing in the midst of Web 2.0 participatory culture. Within the realm of Wattpad, there are endless publications and genres to analyze in response to how this evolving medium is changing content formation and the author-reader relationship. Romance, Teen, Action, and Fantasy are all popular genres on the site, however, the case example later used to explore potential issues in representations is through the romantic relationships displayed in Wattpad’s stories in relation to site guidelines and focus on audience self-regulation. As the Teen Fiction and Romance genres take up the largest percent of Wattpad Wade 6 stories, and almost entirely their most viewed and favorited stories, analyzing the complexities within these intermixing genres is a way to understand one aspect of the influence Wattpad can have on the cultural and social scripts displayed to its readers.