Constructing queer female cyberspace: "The L Word" fandom and Autostraddle.com

  • Kelsey Cameron University of Pittsburgh
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2017.0846
Keywords: Blog, Fan community, Fan productivity, Queer women, Recap culture, Web history

Abstract

Autostraddle.com is the most popular independently owned Web site for queer women and a central, organizing force in queer female cyberspace. It also grew out of The L Word fandom, though its appearance now occludes the history of fan recapping that laid its groundwork. In this article, I reconnect Autostraddle to The L Word fandom, tracing the gradual accumulation of online fan activity into a stable Web site and queer female social space. In doing so, I revise dominant conceptions of fan productivity as individual-centered and temporally bound, arguing for a more expansive consideration of the large-scale creations fans can build over time. My intervention is twofold: a plea for history where the Web can seem to be an eternally present medium, and an assertion of fandom's inseparability from the larger landscape of queer female life online.

Author Biography

Kelsey Cameron, University of Pittsburgh
Kelsey Cameron is a Ph.D. candidate in English and Film Studies at the University of Pittsburgh.
Color image of Lexa (THE 100) as a saint, halo behind her head, left hand raised with two fingers pointed up in benediction, with a set of icons and the "t" Tumblr logo superimposed atop
Published
2017-06-15
Issue
Vol 24 (2017)
Section
Praxis
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