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23 November 2018updated 21 Sep 2021 6:36am

Internet fanfiction is becoming mainstream – but not necessarily more representative

The once-mocked internet pastime for teens is starting to be taken seriously. But the stories going mainstream may not represent wider fanfic culture.

By Sarah Manavis

The internet lost its collective shit yesterday when Aviron Pictures released the highly anticipated teaser trailer for the movie After, based on the bestselling novel of the same name. The film, starring Josephine Langford and Ralph Fiennes’s nephew, the highly believably named Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, is a classic romance story, of a girl (Tessa) who meets a boy (Hardin) at university and has her otherwise perfectly planned, Type A life thrown into disarray by the ensuing relationship. “After your first,” the movie’s tagline reads, explaining its name, “Life will never be the same.” “My life before him was so simple,” Tessa says in the 90 second clip, “and now there’s just…after.” At the time of writing, the trailer posted to Twitter has been retweeted nearly 30,000 times and has over 4.5 million views.

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