Whats a fanwank?

[EnsignRicky]

All I know is it sounds British. We just don't use the word wank here in the states; We do it, but we just call it something else. And I certainly wouldn't advise using a fan; It sounds pretty painful, and if your not careful, you'll only be able to do it once. If you absolutely positively have to experiment, try vacuumwanking; Only remember to take the rotating powered part off of the hose first, otherwise you may as well be fanwanking.

 

[USS KG5]

All I know is it sounds British. We just don't use the word wank here in the states; We do it, but we just call it something else.

Wanking is the best word for it - lets you use so many other variants wank, wanker, wankee, I wank he/she wanks, you wank - etc...

And I certainly wouldn't advise using a fan; It sounds pretty painful, and if your not careful, you'll only be able to do it once. If you absolutely positively have to experiment, try vacuumwanking; Only remember to take the rotating powered part off of the hose first, otherwise you may as well be fanwanking.

Or just find a heroin addict and give her five quid.

 

[Samuel T. Cogley]

While I agree with all of the above definitions, in practice "fanwank" has become a meaningless term which is simply used to label something someone doesn't like.

This is also true.

I would hold up "The Dark Knight" as an example of a genre movie that excised practically every bit of fanwank from the rich Batman history.

In other words, if 'normal' people can watch it and not feel like a dork, there is probably not much fanwank.

If 'normal' people watch it and feel dorky, there's probably too much fanwank.

 

[Starbreaker]

I think we should have an argument over fanwank. That would be fun.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

I think we should have an argument over fanwank. That would be fun.

I'm to busy fanwanking to argue over fanwank. Now if you will excuse me, I have to go get a tissue.

 

[Tom Servo]

Gimmicky piss like this would be an ultimate example of fanwank

Bring Back Kirk

Holy Christ in a chicken basket...I forgot about that cringe-inducing piece of crap! Absolutely! This thread can now be closed.

I just watched that...good lord.

Once I saw the Spock head on the obviously CG Spock body I lost it.

 

[USS KG5]

Gimmicky piss like this would be an ultimate example of fanwank

Bring Back Kirk

Holy Christ in a chicken basket...I forgot about that cringe-inducing piece of crap! Absolutely! This thread can now be closed.

I just watched that...good lord.

Once I saw the Spock head on the obviously CG Spock body I lost it.

It does make you wonder how some of these people cope when REAL people die around them. It is a bit scary that some people get such deep denial and sorrow over the demise of fictional characters.

 

[sojourner]

My thoughts on fanwank would be
1. overly cute and ¨wink at the audience¨ concidences. Eugenics Wars was so bad about this I threw out the book before I finished it.
2. Fans putting themselves in there own fanfiction. Usually as a living deus ex machina. Clive Cussler is actually one of the worst writers for this type of thing.

 

[hellsgate]

Anything/everything I've ever tried to write. *LOL* Hey, if you can't take a shot at yourself once in a while.....

 

[Star Treks]

Any time a show does something to try to appeal to fans, but some of those fans don't like it, those who don't like it call it a fanwank.

In other words, it's a bogus term.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

The textbook definition of fanwank.

Your post: the textbook example of CaptJimboJoness REAL definition of the term...

 

[The Caretaker]

I've always understood a 'fanwank' to be the inclusion of really obscure continuity references in stories. As a fan of all the Doctor Who novels, this happens a lot there. You can be reading a paragraph and then come across the name of a character / alien that appeared in one episode back in 1965 or something. What makes these references even harder to spot is that sometimes they start to reference other novels, and unless you've read them all you won't get the link. For example, I think in the last Eighth Doctor novel The Gallifrey Chronicles, a whole load of past characters are referenced, one of which is the Timewyrm, a character from a completely different set of books published over ten years before!

I actually like spotting these things, it's fun in a sad way!

 

[Jim Steele]

The textbook definition of fanwank.

Your post: the textbook example of CaptJimboJoness REAL definition of the term...

Um, no, Ent S4 perfectly fits the definition of fanwank with its oodles of continuity porn.

Also, there seems to be a misconception that fanwank = bad. That's not necessarily the case. I love Enterprise season 4, mostly *because* of the fanwankery.

 

[AlanC9]

This is really kind of weird. The term seems to have two completely different uses.

I'd prefer to keep using it for fan-conjectured continuity cleanups. We've already got "continuity porn" for the other use.

 

[Jim Steele]

This is really kind of weird. The term seems to have two completely different uses.

I'd prefer to keep using it for fan-conjectured continuity cleanups. We've already got "continuity porn" for the other use.

It's impossible to dictate how it gets used. The phrase has more than one meaning depending on the context, just like most of the words in the dictionary.

Language is a wonderful thing. Embrace it!

 

[Nebusj]

This is really kind of weird. The term seems to have two completely different uses.

I'd prefer to keep using it for fan-conjectured continuity cleanups. We've already got "continuity porn" for the other use.

It's impossible to dictate how it gets used. The phrase has more than one meaning depending on the context, just like most of the words in the dictionary.

Language is a wonderful thing. Embrace it!

However, what words mean is also an effect of what they are used to mean, and surely it's useful to have a way of distinguishing the continuity porn that The Powers That Be are putting into things from the obsessive string of coincidences and misunderstood terms that the fans use to patch up their mistakes.

Pointing this out, and recommending people do make the distinction, is not a bad idea. Isn't the point of language to be able to say just what you mean, when you want to avoid ambiguity?

 

[AviTrek]

If you knew what wank means in the UK you would realize why it should be used for continuity porn. I'm not sure what term I would use for "fan-conjectured continuity cleanups." Inevitably some of that will qualify as fanwank according to the other definition. The rest will <shrug>. Any suggestions? Maybe it doesn't need it's own term. And if one is needed I'm sure a word will evolve to fit the need.

 

[AlanC9]

Well, at least it's not two difficult to distinguish the two uses. If the item in question comes from the fans, it's meaning 1. If it comes from TPTB, it's meaning 2.

 

[Forbin]

Wank means the same thing on both sides of the pond.

 

[Colonel Green]

To me Fanwank is anything that is put into a film or ep for the sole purpose of making hardcore fans go OOOO!

For instance, if ST XI opens with a graduation ceremony in the Jonathon Archer Auditorium, that would be fanwank. Or if Kirk and Spock are introduced by the Academy gardener to his toddler son Boothby. That would be fanwank.