Wattpad

Wattpad is a combination of original and fanfiction hosting, social networking, contests, and commercial/advertising venture. Wattpad hosts The Watty Award.
The site encourages fanfiction as equivalent to original fiction in its contests and popularity ratings.The Watty Awards, Wattpad's annual writing contest accessed 2010-7-24 As of February 2015, Wattpad dropped the MPAA rating system and categorizes all content as either for All Audiences (13+) or Mature (17+). Many story contests on Wattpad, especially those run by brands, allow only All Audiences (13+) content.
Wattpad is a place to read and write stories:
==Fandoms on Wattpad==
A 2013 blurb from Wattpad: 
In a 2015 statistical review, destinationtoast identified the "hottest" fandoms on Wattpad at that time, including: One Direction, 5SOS, Magcon (Vine RPF), Phandom, BTS, Kaisi Yeh Yaariyan, Dolan twins, Justin Bieber, Aphmau/Minecraft Diaries, Avengers, Dylan O'Brien, Harry Potter, Joe Sugg, Seventeen (band), Star Wars, Fifth Harmony, and Vampire Diaries.
Another 2015 analysis of Wattpad fic showed 89% self-insert het and only 5% slash, with One Direction as the biggest fandom, and RPF overall representing the majority of fic content. However, due to the lack of search functionality and consistent tagging on Wattpad, both analyses were done using a sample of popular fics, so results may be skewed.
==Some History==
Wattpad did not start out as a fanfiction place; fanfiction came to it. 
From the 2015 interview What's the Deal with Wattpad?, fourth episode of the Fansplaining podcast:
==Regarding the Writing Process==
From the 2015 interview What's the Deal with Wattpad?, fourth episode of the Fansplaining podcast: 
==Fan Comments==
===Some Fan Comments: Pro===
====Corporate Involvement====
===Some Fan Comments: Con===
===="It's Like Your First Doctor"====
==Controversies==
All screenshots archiving taken on WBM from the site were deleted, fostering among users and critics a sense of censorship or concealment of information by the platform. Several official information pages, such as the printed one, have had two URLs modified over the years and the few archives available redirect to error pages. 
With the platform's shift in focus from publishing fanfiction to original works (fans who become professional authors) archiving issues have once again been raised again.
Because from the beginning of the site, it was known that the fanfiction hosted on it arrived through the migration of younger fans to the platform, much in part guided by the appearance of the site and its supposed practicality due to the features including its app. Many professional authors have started on the site, raising the expectations of other writers to try the same. 
It was no surprise then when the site announced that it would focus on helping its users to migrate to professional publications. However, some of the features mentioned in order to help the site as a Premium version without ads and with payment to authors were strongly criticized by some who saw there an attempt to monetize the works found there, including fanworks.
In addition, several hacker intrusions, including leaking login and password data, as well as a mirror site containing all the works of many authors, led to a series of criticisms of the team. Rumors of the site's association with Netflix for the production of series based on the works published there and winners of the Wattys Awards generated small divisions among the members, between those for and against, as many feared the loss of their works to a foreign company, as many authors are from other countries. 
In 2021 the site was sold to Naver, the South Korean company responsible for WEBTOON, which led to fears that authors would lose the copyright of their works and that they would be used without your authorization for the company's profit. Each country has dealt with these fears in its own way. In Brazil, lawyers wrote articles explaining the copyright and patrimonial rights of works.
=== Wattpad Purging as Moderation Increases ===
In April 2024, Wattpad announced increased moderation and significant limits on teenage sexuality in writing -- Wattpad Purge 2024
=== Wattpad blocked in Turkey ===
On 12 July 2024, Turkey blocked/banned access to the site, this movement comes shortly after another series of bans, such as linktree, Twitch, tiktok and kick. Journalists speculate that the reason for such decisions is to protect Turkish children.
==Popular Fandom Communities==
*Wattpad's Fanfiction Profile
*Marvel Fanfiction Rec Community
*Destiel Fanfiction Rec Community
*The Walking Dead Fanfiction Rec Community
*Tom Hiddleston Fanfiction Rec Community
*1D Fanfiction Rec Community
==Further Reading/Meta==
* by Aja at Daily Dot (July 2012)
* by Aja at Daily Dot (July 012)
* by Destination Toast (July 2015)
* Fansplaining: What's the Deal with Wattpad? (August 2015)
* So. I have *a lot* of Wattpad thoughts. (August 2015)
* ("Dang, Wattpadders, I wish you’d learn to punctuate and that you likedmy Mary Sue ships. I wish I got a hundredth of those hits on my fanfic on other sites! But kudos to everyone who makes the total lack of organization on Wattpad work for them. When people bitch about AO3’s tagging system, I just laugh. Fandom can make anything work for it.") (Oct 2015)
* Shipping on Wattpad vs. AO3 and FFN by Destination Toast (May 2019)
* Wattpad Subreddit - the organized discussion community that Wattpad never created.
* A Brief History of Online Fanfiction Platforms by Fangirls Anonymous (May 2021)
* The Wattpad Book Club (circa. 2023), a fannish podcast for reading fic of interest on Wattpad.
==References== 
Category:Social Networking