Deepfake pornography as a male gaze on fan culture

TL;DR

This paper explores how deepfake technology influences fan culture by enabling the creation of deepfake pornography, highlighting its role as a form of participatory fanfic and its gendered production and consumption patterns.

Contribution

It introduces deepfake pornography as a new facet of fan culture, connecting it to fanfic, machinima, and participatory practices, with insights into gender dynamics.

Findings

Deepfake pornography emerges as a male-driven extension of fan culture.

It functions as a form of fanfic and machinima within participatory culture.

Gendered production and consumption patterns are evident in deepfake fan content.

Abstract

This essay shows the impact of deepfake technology on fan culture. The innovative technology provided the male audience with an instrument to express its ideas and plots. Which subsequently led to the rise of deepfake pornography. It is often seen as a part of celebrity studies; however, the essay shows that it could also be considered a type of fanfic and a product of participatory culture, sharing community origin, exploitation by commercial companies and deep sexualisation. These two branches of fanfic evolution can be connected via the genre of machinima pornography. Textual fanfics are mainly created by females for females, depicting males; otherwise, deepfake pornography and machinima are made by males and for males targeting females.