A Social Media AU (SMAU) is defined by its integration of social media platforms / practices into fan works. This inclusion spans format (message templates, email snaps, newsletter blasts) & content (imagine: your OTP just came out to the world—here is how fans on Twitter & news channels are reacting).
In many ways, this format of fanfiction is not only the most “modern,” but also the one most deeply concerned with our current conceptions of truth and truth-making. It crafts a text within which the celebrity-idol is no longer simply pedestalized or merely aspirational — they are a reflection of the fan. Those you root for, idolize & support form an extension of your own interiority.
This inspires creators and readers to actively ask: How is this celebrity read by me, the fan? What does this representation of my idol through me, the fan, say about my idol? What is the perception of me, the fan, here? &, perhaps most crucially, what does this say about me, the fan?
This issue is concerned with exploring all these questions. It also concerns itself with the origins of SMAU, its recent surge in popularity, the craft in-play, and how this form interacts with other tropes in fan works. It is also interested in social media networks within fandoms, and how they moderate discourses & relationships, both among fans & between fans & the celebrity-idol — How has social media changed the landscape of fandoms? How has it changed the way you connect & communicate with your co-fans? In which ways do SMAU speak to technologies & desires? How does it test the limits of interaction between the aspired & the aspiring? Is there a right way to be a fan; what constitutes a wrong way? What kinds of opportunities, & obstacles, are presented by this form, & in what ways do you see it evolving into the future?
If any of this piques your curiosity, please check out the full guidelines here. Submissions are now OPEN.
your editors,
@rameenwhile & @headcanonmag