How Fan Fiction and Fan Edits Play an Integral Role in Film and TV Marketing

Posted on by Yundira K. Santoso

Social media has been known to spread its influence across every field, including as a marketing tool. Film and TV show distribution is one example of using social media as a tool to reach targeted audiences, encourage people to watch their movies, and increase their revenue. However, relying only on one specific team for marketing purposes may not be efficient, especially when each social media platform has a different algorithm. At the same time, the emergence of online communities in social media is also a form of social media influence, especially in the scope of a fan community, where they share the same interest in one or more media.

This fan community, particularly in the film or TV shows community, may sometimes elusively enhance the film brand persona, indirectly boosting the marketing of its film or shows with their collectively creative expression, mostly in the form of fan-made content from existing media. While it may have initially started as a creative expression towards the original, it could actually benefit the film or show distribution marketing team, and even raise a copyright issue or blur the line between fiction and privacy. This essay will mainly focus on fan fiction and fan edits as advantages for production houses and film distributors, as well as how, in some cases, their presence could create an issue for the original media.

​While fan-made content in the form of fan fiction and fan edits is ubiquitously spread all over social media platforms, there is still no firm explanation to describe both. However, fan fiction is widely known as “any kind of written creativity that is based on an identifiable segment of popular culture, such as television shows, and is not produced as professional writing (Tushnet, 1997), and fan edits is a short type of video with a combination of songs and cut-scenes from a film or shows, in which transcend the audience to feel an emotional connection with the characters or the scene. Both forms are created by fans for fans, implying the term user-generated content, which has become the pioneer in social media algorithms.

​With the assistance of the algorithm on each platform, the fan-made content alone has influenced people to watch the movie or shows that have been depicted or written in it. This phenomenon is a crucial point to indirectly boost the brand performance of the movie or the shows that have been shown. This effect can arise due to the constant and organic engagement the community has made, subsequently maintaining the presence of the movie or show mentioned even after the film distributor’s marketing team has stopped their marketing campaign for their movies or shows.

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The following example is based on the study done by Ethan Milne, Kirk Kristofferson, and Miranda Goode from Western University (Milne et al., 2024). The research has proved the fact that reading fan fiction can elevate brand performance and boost viewership. In their study, participants are divided to read the Harry Potter books and a prominent fan fiction of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky (2015), and the result shows that the one who reads the fan fiction are reportedly have a higher intent to purchase the books and to stream the movies afterward.

Another example comes from the prominent Star Wars franchise. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) has led the majority of the fans to dislike the faith of Ben Solo or Kylo Ren played by Adam Driver. This occurrence invokes the fan fiction writers to develop stories where there is a chance for Kylo Ren’s faith not to be doomed. The accumulation of this movement has ironically reached Disney. While Disney has not given any green flag for the prospect, the accumulated anger from fans to create such fan fictions had moved Steven Soderbergh to write the infamous The Hunt of Ben Solo, in which Adam Driver has read the script and calls it “great”, based on an article in The Hollywood Reporter. This phenomenon has further proven the advantage that fan fiction brings to the film industry.

The advantage falls the same way for fan edits, especially the one uploaded on TikTok and Instagram – a platform suitable for a short-video format. In every comment section of trending fan edits, there is always a significant number where the internet user was new to the characters shown on the edits, by asking what show or what movie the scene comes from. The interaction between the commenter and the creator afterwards may not prove the fact that the person asking would watch the movie or the show ultimately; however, a tangible move from the production house to acknowledge the benefits of fan edits can be seen in the recent trending phenomenon, where HBO recruits a fanpage editor as their creative team. Melanie, a 25-year-old who goes by @uhbucky as her online presence, has actively edited for her favorite shows or movies since she was 17-years old, and when her Heated Rivalry edit got to 3.5M likes, HBO reached out to her, based on her interview with Newsweek.

​Although fan fictions and fan edits enhance the presence of movies and shows to a wide range of audiences, there are still ongoing discourses and negative effects from their creation. In the scope of fan fiction, under Section 107 of the US Copyright Act, fan fiction should fall under the fair use due to its involvement noncommercially of creative labor to a copyright holder’s characters (Tushnet, 1997); however there are some instances where the legal gray area of fan fiction has sparked legal scope an undesirable state of affairs, and it is due to a lack of clarity and no lasting solution has been found of the usage of mass media source material (Dunford, 2022). While fan fiction may cause copyright issues in some cases, a visible drawback from the creation of it has been seen in the recent criticism of Real Person Fiction (RPF) by the Heated Rivalry actor, Hudson Williams. The mentioned RPF was using the characters of the real actor Hudson William and his co-star, François Arnaud, in its writing, making the two actors address the importance of respectful interactions within the fan community.

​Due to fan fiction and fan edits’ benefits in boosting film or TV show’s presence, it is important to acknowledge that fan-made content nowadays has become more than a creative expression outlet for the original media. Supported by the cases of how Steven Soderbergh and HBO took action from the creation of fan fiction and fan edits, has further proven that both have become integral to the film or TV show’s marketing agenda. Nevertheless, it is imperative to be cautious and research the fan community of the original media beforehand, as this is solely to prevent individuals from copyright issues. Moreover, separating fictional characters and private lives is also essential for healthy interactions within the fan community.

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Yundira is an Indonesian writer crafting fiction and film articles in both Indonesian and English. Her fiction works have been published in Kaytell Ink, Livina Press, and Porch LitMag. She shares her thoughts on film and fangirling on TikTok @Starkackerman and Instagram @yundiraks. While she is currently preparing for her MA in Creative Writing, she always loves to show her fangirling side on social media —Punkrock!

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Published by Yundira K. Santoso