The other day I sat down and watched MTV's rerun of "The Road to Celebrity," a two-hour special on the group *NSYNC. I did it for research purposes, knowing I'd be writing this article. Watching Justin, Lance, Joey, JC, and Chris singing and dancing onstage, horsing around with each other, interacting with their fans, I thought about the recent explosion of "real people fic" (RPF), the most widespread form of which is in writing about boy band members, though it often takes the form of "actorfic." Actorfic is, basically, fanfic written about actors, and RPF is fanfic written about real people. I tried to come up with some theories about the popularity of RPF and the ethics of writing it.

Let's talk about the appeal of boy band fandom first, since many people unfamiliar with the phenomenon are probably scratching their heads and going, "What the hell?" Watching *NSYNC in action, I'm hard-pressed to deny the sheer energy of their performances, their charisma, their attractiveness. We're talking about well-dressed, muscular young men whose singing and dancing talents, whatever the average person may think of them, have allowed them to rack up millions of dollars in sales of albums and concert tickets -- not to mention toys, magazines, posters, and all the other types of assorted merchandise. And just so I can lay all my cards out on the table: they're cute as hell.

In short, these guys have made it their livelihoods to attract fans. And I'm not just talking about the kind of fans who like their music -- I'm talking about the kind who fall into outright obsession and keep coming back for more. Fans who keep track of tour dates, TV appearances, magazine articles; fans who build websites, enter contests to meet group members, stand in line for tickets; fans who devote incredible amounts of time and energy to following the smallest details in the lives of *NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, O-Town, whoever.

Does any of this sound familiar? Let me ask you something, dear fanfic writer/reader. How well do you think you'd do on a quiz about your favorite character from your favorite television show? How much do you know about Buffy's sex life, or Mulder's, or Janeway's? What would be a ballpark estimate of how many hours you've spent watching episodes, reading about them online, talking to other people about the shows, reading fanfic, writing fanfic, discussing fanfic?

Which brings me to the popularity of fanfic written about real people. I have to ask, is it really so unheard of? Writing about real people is as old as the hills -- or at least, as old as writing. Consider Plato on Socrates, or Shakespeare and his peers on anyone from Antony and Cleopatra to various English kings. Many such portrayals were highly unflattering of their subjects, but we read them today as great works of literature. In modern times, we have dramatizations in writing and film of figures ranging from JFK to Amy Fisher. The lives of real people are fascinating, all the more so when it comes to those in the public eye.

Obsession -- especially obsession in the form of fanfic -- is a strange, multi-faceted animal. For every person who finds writing about boy bands or other celebrities odd, there are just as many who look askance at people who write about characters from genre shows like The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or with two-dimensional comics like X-Men. In the end, ask yourself: which has more inherent oddness -- obsession with celebrities, or obsession with fictional characters and creations? I'm not going to propose a scale by which to measure both types, but I will offer the generalization that it's the latter that tends to be perceived as non-mainstream.

I think what it comes down to is a "What if...? Well, this..." mentality. The fanfic reader or writer is the type of fan who asks this question and decides to go in search of an answer, whether the subject is a fictional character or a real person. What if Mulder and Scully had sex? What if JC is really gay? Well, find a story about such a scenario, or write one yourself.

The problem with RPF, however, is that it apparently crosses a whole new boundary of what's normal and appropriate. Writing about real people? Not to mention their sex lives (either in heterosexual or homosexual relationships)? Many see RPF as an invasion of privacy, as libel, as legally unsound, as drawing all the wrong kinds of attention to fanfic. But I submit that on those grounds, erotic fanfic about TV characters is just as objectionable.

Let's think about a graphic sex scene between Mulder and Scully. An NC-17 rating for sex generally means the characters' genitals get described in great detail, not to mention the sex act (or acts, as the trend goes). Where does the writer get her information about what Mulder and Scully look like naked, especially if she wants her readers to believe it and see the characters naked as well?

Answer: she gets it from the actors. Whether David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson have bared it all onscreen or not, the writer is still describing their naked bodies. Scully's rosy-tipped breasts are Anderson's rosy-tipped breasts. Mulder's big dick is Duchovny's big dick. If the reader doesn't see Scully-and-Mulder-in-fanfic the way she sees Scully-and-Mulder-onscreen, the fic is unbelievable. What she must picture in her head, when reading the fic, are not just the characters -- she also has to see the images of the actors. Thus, when the reader and writer imagine Mulder and Scully having sex, they're imagining what it might look like if Duchovny and Anderson had sex.

Most fanfic writers would come down on the side of fiction, of course -- if we really believed smut was about the actors rather than the characters, I don't think there would be anywhere near as much of it out there. We'd probably even have trouble watching sex scenes onscreen. (The whole subject of how much actual sex there is onscreen, as opposed to acting, is a topic for another day.) With RPF, there is no fictional character acting as a buffer between reality and the writer's imagination.

But consider something else: unlike the kind of dramatizations done by Shakespeare and Oliver Stone, which are interpretations of reality, in RPF the real person is a fictional character. As I pointed out earlier, fanfic is a writer saying, "What if...?" and then constructing a tale around that non-real scenario. It's not that a story in which JC and Justin have sex is the writer saying, "JC and Justin actually had sex." The writer is simply saying, "This is how I'd see it if they did." Ursula K. Le Guin writes in her introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness that fiction is a thought-experiment. What it boils down to is an elaborate exercise in lying. All fiction, ultimately, is storytelling, make believe, pretend.

Of course, RPF in the end fictionalizes real people and real events -- the characters outside of the story are people with lives and emotions and reputations. They are not figments of anyone's imagination, even if their actions in the story are. This is the boundary that many find so difficult to cross.

I should further point out here that I have not meant to imply that all RPF writers have fiction as their intent, or that RPF never abuses its subjects. I think actorfic is frowned upon so strongly in most fandoms because it is often used to bash actors' personalities, and because many see it as an easy legal target. Legally, though, I don't know if RPF writers could be sued for libel any more than "fiction" fanfic writers could be sued for copyright violation. That is to say, I think the chances are about the same. As far as I can tell, RPF garners its writers no more money than fictional character fanfic. If it did, we'd be talking about tabloid territory, where the lies are marketed as truth.

The ultimate issue, however, is one that I honestly don't think can be resolved. That is the matter of intent versus interpretation. More specifically, the writer's intent that a story be considered fiction or non-fiction, and the reader's interpretation of that story as one or the other. Le Guin also points out that while we read fiction, "we are insane -- bonkers," because for that duration we believe in the reality of what we are reading, right up until the point of closing the book or turning off the computer. A fiction writer may be immune to this insanity, being on the outside, though I consider a good fiction writer to be one who believes in her story just enough to make it believable to the reader. Which is to say that in the end, what should be of concern is whether or not the reader and the writer have separated the fictional story from real life.

So, is real person fic harmless? I say that it is, but only if the writer's intent and the reader's interpretation both come down on the side of fiction. Unfortunately, these mental states are by nature un-measurable, and for many people it is simply not enough to take them on faith.

Jintian doesn't actually own a copy of Celebrity, but she knows all the words to "Pop" and even used to know the dance moves. (You learn a lot of things when you spend time with middle schoolers.)

This essay owes much to a recent discussion on the Glass Onion mailing list, which introduced me to many new arguments and perspectives on RPF. I extend thanks also to the ladies of zendom, for pushing me to figure out just what I was trying to say.