Wattpad is a cultural artefact representing and changing current youth culture. This book is a self-reflexive attempt to unpack the social and cultural influence this artefact has on adolescents. In this study attempts will be made to describe some...
The biggest cultural and social impact of Wattpad on teens can be seen in the area of facilitating fan networks, engendering new ways of gaining social and cultural capital, and forming an increasingly participatory youth culture. Teenage fans often start off on Wattpad in search of fan fiction about their current object of interest. A culturally diverse fan base that spans the globe, gathers on Wattpad to search for, produce and consume fan fiction on a range of common topics of interest including Avengers, BTS, Sherlock Holmes, Anime, etc. Wattpad offers "a new context of convergence within which previously unrelated fandoms now share this common platform and has features which allow for easy participation in forums, fanfic writing, video uploading, conversations, activism and archiving. (Jenkins, 2014)
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Diverse fandoms may be "marginalised in different countries in similar ways" and hence "operate within common social contexts" online. Also different fandoms share "common discourses and practices" and fans of very different objects can behave in "surprisingly similar ways creating their own cultural fields that seem similar" (Jenkins, 2014). Seen in social and cultural terms, fan fiction communities can be seen as different clusters of readers and writers socialising behind created personas in similar cultural fields for example, Harry Porter books or Shawn Mendes, and then creatively participating in the remixing and recreating of fictional lives within this field (social authorship). Through engagement fans build cultural capital within such culturally diverse communities on Wattpad. In this manner, Wattpad can be seen as key player in youth social and cultural change within its online community and in society at large.
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Four ways Wattpad is part of the changing youth culture
Firstly, Wattpad is a social platform that empowers teenage readers and writers as it builds the online infrastructure necessary for fan fiction and teen fiction to gain legitimacy in the publishing and entertainment industry. Unlike other adult spaces that traditionally marginalise fan fiction, Wattpad nurtures young talent until they can produce a publishable manuscript in the process gaining credibility and allowing for more voices of the young to be heard leading to social change.
