In early January, fanfiction website Archive Of Our Own experienced some temporary downtime. Rumor had it that it was caused by a single fanfic releasing a new chapter, one that had become so popular that the sudden influx of readers had overwhelmed the site’s servers. And though AO3 clarified that this was not the case, the idea didn’t come from nowhere.
“It was like everyone was suddenly admitting to everyone else that they were reading and enjoying [real person fanfiction],” says Aenqa, a writer who asked to be referred to by their pen name.
Every day on the internet, new micro-trends emerge, only to become old news five minutes later. In Polygon’s new series The Next Generation of Everything, we’re looking at what’s blowing up in the worlds and fandoms we follow, and what the latest shifts say about where Extremely Online life is going next.