There is a conversation to be had about prevailing fandom trends toward shitposting/intended-as-comedy/intended-as-absurdism short tumblr posts that are divorced entirely from canon becoming one of the dominant forms of content, and how that content influences the production of other forms of content including art but particularly fic, and how it’s driving the “all canon is ours now to toss out the window and call it transformative I guess” style of things.
There is a conversation to be had about that, and how it’s warping what transformativity as a means of engagement with media means. Problem is, it’s become tangled up with the “all literature and actually all storytelling ever is fanfiction” discourse, and so many people seem to define their personalities by their place in fandom subculture, that it’s becoming impossible to criticise fandom without being labelled a no good meanie fun hater and also an elitist snob who just can’t stand for people to enjoy themselves. Every time a conversation about this gains any traction, someone has to slam down like the hand of god to remind everyone that it’s actually okay to have fun!, and the actual intent of the conversation is lost, because it’s more important than anything that we soothe hurt feelings.
The thing is, it’s not only the feelings of the people who can only parse new content through old tropes that matter. There are people out there - and this may seem shocking to many of you - who don’t hate the canon on which their fandom is based. People who want to engage with the themes and storylines and world of their preferred canon in a way that probably gets them accused of being boring sticklers. Strangely enough, this is an equally “valid” way of engaging with media! Just because it doesn’t tickle your funny bone or tick your trope bingo boxes doesn’t make it bad!
It is increasingly difficult to find fanworks that relate meaningfully to the canons, across many fandoms, on which they’re purportedly based. I’ve seen some people put this down to “oh well, we’re all in lockdown and need a fun escape so being serious would be bad for our mental health” - okay, fine. That makes sense for some people. But it still doesn’t explain the strong trend over the past three years where every fandom seems to have taken the same journey to the same trends, where all canons must be beaten to the same tune.