One manifestation of lesbian One Direction fandom was the drag king performance group known as Every Direction, which maintained an active Tumblr page in addition to performing live drag king renditions of popular One Direction songs. Lesbian fandom of the British-Irish boy band One Direction congregated primarily on Tumblr this fandom constituted a queer community space that exposed the boy band as a site of lesbian erotic and creative energy. Lesbians and other queer women are typically absent from theorizations of boy band fandom even though boy bands often have sizable lesbian fan bases. Unpacking " queer cryptography " as a form of reception labor offers a feminist reading of the diverse modes of LGBTQ+ identification, kinship, and activism performed by queer female viewers on Tumblr, while questioning the vulnerability and possible exploitation of the unsanctioned affective labor produced by such a desperately underrepresented demographic. This article examines the shifts real-time digital interactivity and transmedia storytelling have introduced to viewer/producer power relations. In their digital fanworks, Tumblr queer users marry crafts associated with domestic heterosexual femininity (collage and scrapbooking) with established female fan practices (slashing and shipping) to articulate complex sexual and gender identities and navigate neuro-divergent mental health statuses. In examining the level of risk participants associated with slash in Kelly Boyd's 1997 study on slash fiction, feminism, and risk compared to 2015, I found that my participants were more worried about judgement for writing sexually explicit material than about homophobia specifically.Äominated by LGBTQ+ and female-identified fans from various backgrounds, Tumblr blogs dedicated to queer readings of the BBC television series Sherlock (2010–ongoing) are a breeding ground for less-discussed forms of unremunerated queer labor: utopian, heuris-tic, and care work. My research found that fans believe mainstream media's understanding of slash fiction and fandom culture is poor, but they also believe media representation has a significant influence on public perception and awareness of fandom culture. I look at past research to frame the functions of slash fiction and why media representation is important as it relates to the queer community and female sexuality. Slash fiction is loosely defined by Kelly Boyd as, "sexually explicit, amateur, gay male and lesbian tales produced predominantly by heterosexual women for heterosexual women, about characters in mainstream television series and feature movies." My research confirmed that slash fiction fans are predominantly female, but I also found that a significant portion identify as part of the LGBTQ/queer community.
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