5 ms·

Hacker News helps me everyday break my information bubble. Archive Of Our Own is something that I wouldn't walk into when wandering through the internet

chii 1y ago
> I wouldn't walk into when wandering through the internet it's interesting that some people are on the internet but is very well insulated! AO3 is very well known for me...
- parlortricks 1y ago
  this is the first i've heard of it
- diggan 1y ago
  > it's interesting that some people are on the internet but is very well insulated Not sure I'd call it "insulated", the internet is just very, very vast, even when considering "just" the English-speaking web. Then you have all the other "versions" out there too that are kind of hidden to most people :) Anecdotal, but also first time I heard about AO3, and I'd consider myself having broad interests and generally well-read, although my interests doesn't include fanfiction so maybe not so weird I haven't heard about it before.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - jorvi 1y ago
    Its very much a gendered thing. If you have lots of female (online) friends and late night topics with them ended up trending spicy, you might hear of AO3. FWIW the vast majority of writing on there is decidedly mediocre. There is also an even more inferior alternative called Wattpad. Funnily enough you learn that in general we aren't all that different in our tastes, it's just that what men like to watch, women like to read / imagine. Edit: to paint the picture, this[0] was sent to me a while back :-) [0]https://www.tiktok.com/@alexarowe11/video/7468462146347617579 https://www.tiktok.com/@alexarowe11/video/746846214634761757...
    - diggan 1y ago
      The world of "spicy reading" isn't new to me (male), just that website in particular. I don't think it's as gendered as you paint it, but I'd also acknowledge it depends a lot on geographic location, probably looks different where I am compared to where you are, I agree with that we probably aren't all that different in tastes in general :)
      - Freak_NL 1y ago
        Anecdata, but it does seem like a very gendered divide on the whole. The only reason I know of Archive of Our Own is because my wife is quite familiar with it. And I do consider myself well acquainted with various smut filled corners of the internet well beyond Literotica.
      - Ferret7446 1y ago
        Literary vs visual porn is strongly gender divided. I would be very surprised if you were into erotica and weren't aware of AO3; I find it more likely that as a male you aren't actually very into erotica, as is the norm. I'm sure you can find lots of studies about this, but just for a very easy data point, a few years old survey shows that AO3 is ~54% cis female, ~5% cis male, rest nonbinary/trans/etc.
        fouc 1y ago
        Maybe that's more a statement about the type of content it has (or originally had)? Fan Fiction isn't strictly about erotica after all, if you filter out the erotica part, the distribution might be a bit different.. I would assume webnovels.com wuxiaworld.com and r/ProgressionFantasy might be more male gendered, even though that some of type of content could easily be on ao3 too..
        diggan 1y ago
        > Literary vs visual porn is strongly gender divided. I would be very surprised if you were into erotica and weren't aware of AO3; I find it more likely that as a male you aren't actually very into erotica, as is the norm. Well, I've read my share of erotica, maybe I wouldn't say "very into erotica" but well-read enough it seems, compared to my peers. I guess everyone who happens to read erotica automatically isn't interested in fan-fiction, so they never stumble across AO3, I can hardly be alone in this situation.
- Sharlin 1y ago
  I’d say AO3 is the insulated part. Having been an active internet user for longer than most AO3 users have been alive, the first time I heard about it was a few years ago in a student radio show about the fanfic genre and culture. Poorly written smut featuring popular culture characters has just never been my thing. Probably because I’m not that much of a fan of any specific fictional setting or franchise in the first place.
  - xeonmc 1y ago
    I think in this case, the more appropriate adjective would be “quarantined”.
  - Ferret7446 1y ago
    What do you mean by "active"? IMO, if you haven't spent at least few years on, e.g., 4chan, then you haven't been very active at all, you've just stayed in a bubble. Who is a better judge of what is insulated or not, someone who spent decades living in a single city, or someone who spent a few years traveling everywhere? (I bring up 4chan because by virtue of being practically unmoderated, it is about as unlike a bubble as you can get. Where else do you get people into origami, hardcore rape porn, international backpacking, nobel prize winning mathematicians, and pranksters running iphone microwaving campaigns rubbing shoulders?)
- paganel 1y ago
  First time I read about it, not exactly sure what it is, by quickly glancing at it. Looks like a collection of links to some fan-fiction stuff.
bananaflag 1y ago
It is currently pretty much the main repository of fanfiction. I've been reading fanfiction on the Internet for two decades, so for me it would've been quite hard to miss it.
MangoToupe 1y ago
> Archive Of Our Own is something that I wouldn't walk into when wandering through the inter Kind of crazy to hear. AO3 is so culturally massive I don't know how you miss it.
- malnourish 1y ago
  I have never heard of it, and I've been pretty active on the Internet since the early 2000s.
- rsynnott 1y ago
  The internet’s big. I’m aware of it due to a moderate tvtropes addiction (there’s a enough crossover that it’s hard to miss) but probably otherwise wouldn’t be familiar.
ahazred8ta 1y ago
Remember "Don't they know we're brothers??" from Supernatural? This was the site. <https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Dean%20Winchester*s*Sam%20Winchester/works https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Dean%20Winchester*s*Sam%20W...> XKCD on index number exhaution: https://xkcd.com/865/ https://xkcd.com/865/ Remember Data and the Borg? "Accessing... accessing... accessing... accessing..."

chii 1y ago

> I wouldn't walk into when wandering through the internet it's interesting that some people are on the internet but is very well insulated! AO3 is very well known for me...

parlortricks 1y ago
this is the first i've heard of it
diggan 1y ago
> it's interesting that some people are on the internet but is very well insulated Not sure I'd call it "insulated", the internet is just very, very vast, even when considering "just" the English-speaking web. Then you have all the other "versions" out there too that are kind of hidden to most people :) Anecdotal, but also first time I heard about AO3, and I'd consider myself having broad interests and generally well-read, although my interests doesn't include fanfiction so maybe not so weird I haven't heard about it before.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- jorvi 1y ago
  Its very much a gendered thing. If you have lots of female (online) friends and late night topics with them ended up trending spicy, you might hear of AO3. FWIW the vast majority of writing on there is decidedly mediocre. There is also an even more inferior alternative called Wattpad. Funnily enough you learn that in general we aren't all that different in our tastes, it's just that what men like to watch, women like to read / imagine. Edit: to paint the picture, this[0] was sent to me a while back :-) [0]https://www.tiktok.com/@alexarowe11/video/7468462146347617579 https://www.tiktok.com/@alexarowe11/video/746846214634761757...
  - diggan 1y ago
    The world of "spicy reading" isn't new to me (male), just that website in particular. I don't think it's as gendered as you paint it, but I'd also acknowledge it depends a lot on geographic location, probably looks different where I am compared to where you are, I agree with that we probably aren't all that different in tastes in general :)
    - Freak_NL 1y ago
      Anecdata, but it does seem like a very gendered divide on the whole. The only reason I know of Archive of Our Own is because my wife is quite familiar with it. And I do consider myself well acquainted with various smut filled corners of the internet well beyond Literotica.
    - Ferret7446 1y ago
      Literary vs visual porn is strongly gender divided. I would be very surprised if you were into erotica and weren't aware of AO3; I find it more likely that as a male you aren't actually very into erotica, as is the norm. I'm sure you can find lots of studies about this, but just for a very easy data point, a few years old survey shows that AO3 is ~54% cis female, ~5% cis male, rest nonbinary/trans/etc.
      - fouc 1y ago
        Maybe that's more a statement about the type of content it has (or originally had)? Fan Fiction isn't strictly about erotica after all, if you filter out the erotica part, the distribution might be a bit different.. I would assume webnovels.com wuxiaworld.com and r/ProgressionFantasy might be more male gendered, even though that some of type of content could easily be on ao3 too..
      - diggan 1y ago
        > Literary vs visual porn is strongly gender divided. I would be very surprised if you were into erotica and weren't aware of AO3; I find it more likely that as a male you aren't actually very into erotica, as is the norm. Well, I've read my share of erotica, maybe I wouldn't say "very into erotica" but well-read enough it seems, compared to my peers. I guess everyone who happens to read erotica automatically isn't interested in fan-fiction, so they never stumble across AO3, I can hardly be alone in this situation.
Sharlin 1y ago
I’d say AO3 is the insulated part. Having been an active internet user for longer than most AO3 users have been alive, the first time I heard about it was a few years ago in a student radio show about the fanfic genre and culture. Poorly written smut featuring popular culture characters has just never been my thing. Probably because I’m not that much of a fan of any specific fictional setting or franchise in the first place.
- xeonmc 1y ago
  I think in this case, the more appropriate adjective would be “quarantined”.
- Ferret7446 1y ago
  What do you mean by "active"? IMO, if you haven't spent at least few years on, e.g., 4chan, then you haven't been very active at all, you've just stayed in a bubble. Who is a better judge of what is insulated or not, someone who spent decades living in a single city, or someone who spent a few years traveling everywhere? (I bring up 4chan because by virtue of being practically unmoderated, it is about as unlike a bubble as you can get. Where else do you get people into origami, hardcore rape porn, international backpacking, nobel prize winning mathematicians, and pranksters running iphone microwaving campaigns rubbing shoulders?)
paganel 1y ago
First time I read about it, not exactly sure what it is, by quickly glancing at it. Looks like a collection of links to some fan-fiction stuff.

bananaflag 1y ago

It is currently pretty much the main repository of fanfiction. I've been reading fanfiction on the Internet for two decades, so for me it would've been quite hard to miss it.

MangoToupe 1y ago

> Archive Of Our Own is something that I wouldn't walk into when wandering through the inter Kind of crazy to hear. AO3 is so culturally massive I don't know how you miss it.

malnourish 1y ago
I have never heard of it, and I've been pretty active on the Internet since the early 2000s.
rsynnott 1y ago
The internet’s big. I’m aware of it due to a moderate tvtropes addiction (there’s a enough crossover that it’s hard to miss) but probably otherwise wouldn’t be familiar.

ahazred8ta 1y ago

Remember "Don't they know we're brothers??" from Supernatural? This was the site. <https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Dean%20Winchester*s*Sam%20Winchester/works https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Dean%20Winchester*s*Sam%20W...> XKCD on index number exhaution: https://xkcd.com/865/ https://xkcd.com/865/ Remember Data and the Borg? "Accessing... accessing... accessing... accessing..."