Fansplaining

Gav is back in Fansplaining in 2025! This time, she writes about Sam Wilson's recent Captain America debut—and how the MCU failed both the character and the fandom. "Sam Wilson Des...

Our first article of 2025 is here—and it's a big one!   "The War That Almost Broke a Classic Fandom" by Lena Barkin: Blake's 7 fans and actors mixed regularly at cons and on the pa...

Around this time in December, we usually wrap up Fansplaining with "The Year in Fandom": a look back at five trends from the prior year followed by five trends from the year com...

Our latest article is by Abby Kirby, who writes about her experiences teaching fanfiction to middle schoolers: "Fic does something that my traditional English classes cannot: it pl...

We're excited to welcome back Allegra Rosenberg, who's written a new article for us on contemporary Beatles fandom: "The Beatles Live! New generations of fans are cultural archaeol...

Our newest article is "The Scream Fandom's Enduring Divide" by Michael Boyle: Nearly a year after star Melissa Barrera was fired for pro-Palestinian social media posts, fans remain...

Our newest article is "The Acolyte's Squandered Potential" by Gavia Baker-Whitelaw: The show brought a whole new set of fans to a stagnating franchise. Its cancellation suggests St...

Our newest article is "The Traumatized Gatekeepers of Broadway" by Laura Wheatman Hill: Theatre fans measure their passion by nitpicking. Does it do the industry more harm than goo...

Our first piece in this new era of Fansplaining is "The Yellow Balloon Movement" by Maria Temming: Within jam band fandoms often dominated by substance use, clean and sober fans ar...

After nine years of collaborating on Fansplaining, Flourish and Elizabeth mark Flourish's final regular episode by casting back to the state of fandom when they first met on a pane...

Flourish's final "Ask Fansplaining Anything" episode follows the format of the previous 18 (!!), with a new batch of (thoughtful as ever!) listener letters and voicemails. Topics d...

On Episode 221, "Self-Inserts," Elizabeth and Flourish welcome fan studies scholar Effie Sapuridis to talk about the wide world of self-inserts, including Y/N and x reader fic, ima...