juanita's subculture proposal!

By:

A proposal for a study on Wattpad, the literary world's hidden gem (outside the Abusive! Harry Styles fanficition)

A. Explain your involvement in the subculture you plan to study. 
B. Why are you interested in studying this subculture? 
C. Who will you interview? Who will you observe? What other research or field work could you conduct? 

A. I've been a unfaithful reader and steadfast writer on Wattpad for two and a half yeasr. I've been able to have my books rank in the overall website ranking system, which was both super gratifying and deeply enlightening. 

B. I've been able to observe the ebb and flow of the website–what attracts readers, how to amass followers, what books win Wattpad-issued awards, etc.–on both sides of the glass. Some of my biggest writspirations and writers exist exclusively on that orange website–I've watched talented authors launch careers on the platform, and other equally as talented authors boast hundreds of thousands of reads on their books, but less than 1000 followers. Teenage girls are tastemakers and innovators in , so I'm especially interested in studying what a concentrated collective of teen women think and feel in the world and how that translates into the spheres we create online!!!!!!
Over the course of the two years I've discovered what stories/styles were the most consumable, what fit within the Wattpad model o' success, and what lied on the cusp, what was not usually sought out but fascinating enough to get readers anyway; what type of readers existed (people who analyze a story vs. people who read it like a movie, reacting to lines in keyboard-smash; subcultures within the subcultures, social justice educators and gay fiction writers and the all-encompassing term that included anything from six word 'stories' to 18 one hundred word chapters, Poets. Everyone on this website is a poet, to each their own extent. 

C. I plan on interviewing friends/acquaintances I've made on the website, gaining perspective from small and large accounts. I also plan on doing hands-on 'research' by reading through featured (on the front page of the website) books and diving into the comment section, which is often times the most interesting part of a story and the most authentic reflection of culture. 

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