safyhallanfarah:

I was all like “It’s cool you’re covering TSN fandom inaccurately because ANY coverage of this fandom is awesome.” Then he responded asking how he got it wrong, and I said:

Hi Adrian,

You called it “Mark Zuckerberg fanfic,” but Zuck has little to do with it. It’s less about TSN, and more about the chemistry between Jesse Eisenberg, and Andrew Garfield.

There is also a large segment of TSN fandom that believes Jesse Eisenberg, and Andrew Garfield are in an actual relationship. This part of the fandom is referred to as ‘Jewnicorn.’ Urban Dictionary defines ‘Jewnicorn’ as: “A word used by the incredibly quality faction of The Social Network fandom on Tumblr to describe Andrew Garfield and Jesse Eisenberg, as both of them are Jews who were clearly raised by unicorns in a magical forest somewhere.”

Judging from the most popular definition, the people of this fandom are well aware that it’s very likely a relationship between the two actors is as mythical as unicorns. Personally, I consider the friendship of Jesse, and Andrew the archetypal post gender normative (to borrow a phrase from Eisenberg) bromance. There’s a distinction between the modern day ‘bromance’ and ‘Jewnicorn.’ The biggest difference between the two types of relationships is that within typical bromance, unlike Jewnicorn, elements of knee-jerk no-homoism exist. (Just watch any Judd Apatow movie where “you’re so gay” jokes are ubiquitous.) It’s quite clear, from all of their press junkets and interviews together, Andrew and Jesse eschew gender norms. This makes them appealing to young girls who write slash fanfiction in their free time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd7QcpOXpTo

Since 2010, these girls have been documenting the instances in which Jesse, and Andrew have been publicly flirtatious with each other. If they are this flirtatious in public, it’s easy to imagine the two in a relationship. Furthermore, these two men are incredibly smart, and the girls of this fandom are smart, too. Most of the girls of this fandom are self-identified feminists, anti-racists, etc.

I would say Jesse Eisenberg is the biggest fixture of this fandom because he is culturally more relevant than Garfield. Jesse writes plays, short humor pieces, etc. His most recent play, Asuncion, deals with white guilt, and while it is clear that Jesse Eisenberg is no Tim Wise, a meme idealizing him as such has cropped up.

This is certainly a fandom worth keeping up with for your internet culture beat.

Best,

Safy

This is my new favorite post on Tumblr. 

(I believe it is in response to this article.)