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Gay fanfiction is one life’s simple joys — but it does pose one major problem for writers. The problem is so big, in fact, that it garnered attention from actual linguists, including social media’s resident linguistic expert human1011.
“Have you heard of the gay fanfiction problem?” human1011 asked in a viral TikTok. “Now, I know that this term kind of looks like it was coined by some random Tumblr user 10 years ago — and that’s because it was. But since then, it’s seen actual use by linguists. So, what does it mean?”
“Imagine that you’re reading a story about Jack and Jill and come across this sentence,” he continued, pointing to the phrase, “He sees her.”
“You should automatically know what that means: Jack sees Jill,” human1011 explained. “But now imagine you’re reading a story about Jack and John and come across this sentence.” This time, the sentence reads, “He sees him.”
“Does that mean that Jack sees John, or John sees Jack? Without more context, it’s impossible to tell. This is the gay fanfiction problem, so named because fanfiction will often have lengthy sections in which two characters will interact with each other with extensive use of pronouns. It’s specifically gay fanfiction because English pronouns are gendered, which means this problem doesn’t apply to straight fanfiction.”
With that, human1011 offered a few potential solutions: “You could always refer to a noun explicitly” — ie, always using a character’s name instead of their pronoun — “but that quickly gets repetitive.”
“You could also use synechdoche, which is when you refer to something based on one of its traits” — ie, calling a character by their hair color or profession instead of their pronoun — “but that feels kinda clunky,” he conceded. “Honestly, there isn’t really a great solution other than just restructuring the whole sentence. At least, not in English. But other languages have workarounds.”
From there, human1011 broke down how languages including Nepali, Blackfoot, and some sign languages get around the gay fanfiction problem by differentiating pronouns by social status, role in a sentence, or physical placement in space, rather than just by gender as they are in English.
Meanwhile, folks in human1011’s comment proposed far less serious solutions to the problem for any fanfic writers out there.
“What if we mark John as he¹ and Jack as he²?” one commenter proposed.
“Wish there was a way to just do let x = John let y = Jack,” another suggested. “x sees y.” But of course, we all know bringing letters into math was bad enough — we don’t need to bring them into writing, too.
And as far as human1011’s claim that the term was coined by “some random Tumblr user 10 years ago,” it’s difficult to pin down the exact origin of the phrase — but one Tumblr user, @gothhabiba, did use the term “the gay fanfiction dilemma” in a viral post from 8 years ago, referencing a Swedish user’s frustration with English’s pronouns.
Gay fanfiction is one life’s simple joys — but it does pose one major problem for writers. The problem is so big, in fact, that it garnered attention from actual linguists, including social media’s resident linguistic expert human1011.
“Have you heard of the gay fanfiction problem?” human1011 asked in a viral TikTok. “Now, I know that this term kind of looks like it was coined by some random Tumblr user 10 years ago — and that’s because it was. But since then, it’s seen actual use by linguists. So, what does it mean?”
“Imagine that you’re reading a story about Jack and Jill and come across this sentence,” he continued, pointing to the phrase, “He sees her.”
“You should automatically know what that means: Jack sees Jill,” human1011 explained. “But now imagine you’re reading a story about Jack and John and come across this sentence.” This time, the sentence reads, “He sees him.”
“Does that mean that Jack sees John, or John sees Jack? Without more context, it’s impossible to tell. This is the gay fanfiction problem, so named because fanfiction will often have lengthy sections in which two characters will interact with each other with extensive use of pronouns. It’s specifically gay fanfiction because English pronouns are gendered, which means this problem doesn’t apply to straight fanfiction.”
With that, human1011 offered a few potential solutions: “You could always refer to a noun explicitly” — ie, always using a character’s name instead of their pronoun — “but that quickly gets repetitive.”
“You could also use synechdoche, which is when you refer to something based on one of its traits” — ie, calling a character by their hair color or profession instead of their pronoun — “but that feels kinda clunky,” he conceded. “Honestly, there isn’t really a great solution other than just restructuring the whole sentence. At least, not in English. But other languages have workarounds.”
From there, human1011 broke down how languages including Nepali, Blackfoot, and some sign languages get around the gay fanfiction problem by differentiating pronouns by social status, role in a sentence, or physical placement in space, rather than just by gender as they are in English.
Meanwhile, folks in human1011’s comment proposed far less serious solutions to the problem for any fanfic writers out there.
“What if we mark John as he¹ and Jack as he²?” one commenter proposed.
“Wish there was a way to just do let x = John let y = Jack,” another suggested. “x sees y.” But of course, we all know bringing letters into math was bad enough — we don’t need to bring them into writing, too.
And as far as human1011’s claim that the term was coined by “some random Tumblr user 10 years ago,” it’s difficult to pin down the exact origin of the phrase — but one Tumblr user, @gothhabiba, did use the term “the gay fanfiction dilemma” in a viral post from 8 years ago, referencing a Swedish user’s frustration with English’s pronouns.
