Chocolate Frogs for My Betas!: Practicing Literacy at One Online Fanfiction Website

In the past decade, digital technologies have become more and more ubiquitous and accessible, making them seem seductively “democratic.” This cultural moment evokes Yancey's (2004) call for a re-evaluation of the work of rhetoric and composition, because “this moment right now... is like none other” (p. 297) as it marks a major shift in reading, writing, and participation in new, digitized economies. I argue that online fanfiction practices demonstrate to us, as literacy scholars and teachers, how digital tools have affected one writing community. These tools have allowed fans to develop an alternative to the “commodity culture” that we live in, a “gift economy,” where affect and emotion play integral roles. In this article, I explore “good writing” and community features at one Harry Potter fanfiction website, Sycophant Hex. In addition, I explore some tensions of Sycophant Hex's literacy practices in depth through a case study of one prolific fanwriter, Chivalric. I argue that investigation of these kinds of online writing spaces is especially valuable for literacy scholars and compositionists because they highlight how writing is a deeply embodied and emotional, life-long process.