I’m feeling… hingeless.
It’s been a crazy 72ish hours, hasn’t it? Political upsets, Republicans betraying Republicans, James Talarico predictably declaring that he wants to work with Spraytan Mussolini… as if that’s even kind of normal. I hate to say I told you so on that front, but I did express distaste for Talarico, like, twice.
But who’s keeping count?
Anyway, you could point out a ton of different things as the reason that Democrats cleaned up at the polls this week. Historic turnout from Black and Latine voters, maybe. Or perhaps it was the price of eggs, figuratively speaking; the economy’s in the shitter, and most Americans are feeling that squeeze on the daily. Maybe it was the fact that our president, who repeatedly stated he would not put America into another forever war in the runup to his second term, almost immediately put America into another forever war by blowing up schoolchildren in Iran.
Of course, if you’ve ever believed a single promise Donald Trump has made, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. Maybe more than one.
Here’s my take: Each of those things played a pivotal role in the defeat of Republicans all across the nation, but what really saved our bacon was the temporary collapse of an online community that used to house some of the most terminally online weirdos known to mankind. Hear me out…
If you’re unfamiliar, Archive of Our Own is a website dedicated to hosting (mostly) amateur writers’ work, which (mostly) consists of fanfiction, or stories written about existing intellectual properties by fans of those properties. So, for example, a fan of the cartoon Adventure Time might write a lovely new adventure for their favorite li’l guys, Finn and Jake. Alternatively, a fan of the CW drama Supernatural might write a story about Dean Winchester impregnating his 1967 Chevrolet Impala.
It’s a funny old world out there, isn’t it?
Archive of Our Own, or AO3, doesn’t provide in-house demography statistics, but an unofficial survey conducted in 2024 makes it very clear that the website is predominantly inhabited by LGBTQ+ women of voting age who live in North America. Considering the website has more than 11 million registered users, it seems fair to assume that a statistically significant number of key Democrat constituents are uploading freaky Chevy Impala erotica to AO3.
Why is that important, you ask? Well… on October 29, AO3 went down for what they stated would be a 12-hour maintenance. Several hours later, that 12-hour maintenance was extended to a two- to four-week downtime. The next day, they explained that there had been a critical security breach, and that they couldn’t rule out a full database theft that would include usernames, email addresses, IP addresses, and a hashed version of users’ passwords.
As of now, AO3 is still down, and they’re sticking to their guns on that two- to four-week downtime. The results have been somewhat catastrophic, as reported by fucking NBC News. Fanfic readers are distraught, some convinced that their beloved fic repository may never return, and sharing saved fanfics with one another to tide themselves over through the hard times.
More predictably, a scam website has popped up, where fanfics are rehosted without author permission. The website claims you can have your fic taken down (or receive totally legit, for realsies money for allowing the website to host them) by simply sending them an email essentially doxing yourself to strangers. How delightful!
The whole thing’s a bummer, but I have a secret theory… and it may sound outlandish to you, but I want you to consider it with an open mind: The pseudo-death of AO3 resulted in a cohort of mostly queer women being forced to vacate their smutty mind palaces, at which point they were confronted with the evils of the real world around them, and decided changes must be made. Next thing you know, boom, the whole country’s blue. Texas and South Carolina are suddenly new Dem strongholds after more than a generation of Republican control. Democracy is saved, and evil shall never prevail in this beautiful nation again.
Then again, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there are complex forces at work, beyond a security breach at the online erotica factory. Maybe, yet again, Black women have saved America from itself.
It’s impossible to say, so I’m sticking with my fanfic website theory!
