Genre Snobbery is Like Racism to Books

Credit to Tom Gauld

Snobbery irks me in its own right, but if there’s one thing I really can’t stand it’s snobbery of interests.

That thing you like is the wrong thing to like! Really, it’s just silly. Especially when it’s within fandoms, for crying out loud. You all watch/read and enjoy the same series. Why can’t you just soak that up instead of finding things to disagree on and excuses to bicker?!

That is not what this post is about. This post is about  genre snobbery, which is a hell unto itself. Basically, books are books, and the notion that the grouping they come from changes their quality somehow is a troublesome one. If you think about it in a roundabout enough way, it’s kind of racism to inanimate objects.

Fanfic: A Shady Area

Credit to Kate Beaton

You know fanfiction. You’ve heard it in whispers from the grimier corners of the internet and you’ve heard that it’s poorly written, explicit sludge hatched together by greasy nerds and manic fangirls frothing at the mouth.

I humbly beg to differ.

Fanfiction is often shot down as being the uninspired work of slimy fangirls, but can we talk about the amazing fact that it even exists? No one is paid or asked to write it, it’s just created for the love of it as a tribute to the impact the original work had on its audience. Someone somewhere watches or reads something and it sticks in their brain and stirs into their imagination, switching on a light that was not there before and setting the creative process in motion.

It’s the ultimate compliment to the creator—one day, hopefully, I shall be published, and I’ll lie awake at night wondering of somewhere in the world my characters and story are rolling around in a reader’s mind, soon to come out again in a piece of creative expression.