Wattpad...what are you doing babe?

Being a tween in the era of One Direction was the best time of my life, and I am not even remotely kidding. It was the buying every magazine they were on so I could cover my room in the free posters, screaming the music in the car while my mom drove me to volleyball practice, and spending every bit of money I got from chores on merch. It was all so amazing, until I gained unrestricted access to the internet with a little Samsung tablet and opened up a little app called Wattpad. 

Guys, I can literally tell you the very first fan fiction I ever read had to do with running into One Direction at a campsite after their tour bus had broken down and needed a place to stay. Looking back on it now, it was definitely an author insert with her and her friends that go to pick and date their different boys. Anywhoo, I was an absolute fiend for stories on this platform. I know I am not the only one who pulled an all-nighter to read One Direction fan-fiction. I would read under my blanket because my mom could walk in any second and take my phone anyway. I read so many different stories like the university AU, the adoption AU, the "she is my sister, and you can't date anyone in the band" AU, and one of my favorites, the fake dating AU. If you were an avid reader at this time, you may have come across a certain AU that made the Wattpad daily active users data skyrocket......"I got sold to one direction" 

WHY WAS THE LIKE THE NUMBER ONE AU ON WATTPAD? We were some weirdos eating these stories up. "I throw my hair up in a messy bun, grab my book because I'm not like other girls, and go downstairs in my converse. I see my mom with a cigarette in her mouth, "I need money, so I sold you to some boy band." I turn and my eyes meet five other pairs looking at me. One Direction. Thats when my world turned upside down." LIKE OH MY GODDD IT WAS JUST A COPY AND PASTE OF THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN. Yet, even if it was bad and poorly written, you couldn't help but eat them uppppp. What was crazy was that the stories could be super fluffy and have a found-family vibe or just straight up NSFW (You know the ones that made you verify if you were 18. Then lied about your age) 

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. See, I grew up, stopped using Wattpad and began using AO3, as is the rite of passage I believe.  So, Wattpad was not on my radar for a long time until I see a story about how it had wiped out thousands of stories because its new guide lines removes anything with NSFW from sexual act to even certain violence. Which I found interesting because these guidelines have always been in place, but never enforced because look at what made them popular.....SEXUAL STORIES ABOUT ONE DIRECTION. Wattpad, did you not have an author publish her her series to be sold and distributed in bookstores? What was it again? Oh yea! A HARRY STYLES FAN FICTION SERIES ABOUT HAVING SEX WITH A GIRL AS A BET. It even got turned into a FREAKING MOVIE FRANCHISE PEOPLE. (I couldn't accept that she changed his name to Harden. Not a vibe) 

 

I think this was a bad move for them because I know there has been an uptick in users for AO3 because of it. Wattpad was a great introduction to your own little bubbles of fandoms. It was a place you could go and just read to your heart's content about whatever you wanted. Now it is heavily censored, and authors are losing their work, as well as people who are losing their favorite stories. Well....I hope you Wattpad users are okay with the learning curve that is AO3, because once you figure it out, there is no going backkkkk.