Where do I even begin with this one. I guess I should start at the beginning.
Back in the day, ca. 2003, FanFiction.net was a magical place where the formatting of fics was unrestricted and the rating system ranged from G to NC-17. NC-17???!! you might ask. Yes, my friends–NC-17. Truly the sky was the limit in that golden age of fanfiction publishing.
But more to the point, the G to NC-17 rating system, also known as the MPAA rating system, has been around since the late 1960s and has undergone careful consideration and revision over the decades. The end result being that it is concise, familiar, and most of all, MAKES GODDAMN SENSE.
Let’s take a minute to review it, shall we?
| Rating symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
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 |
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So a couple of things stand out immediately in the MPAA rating system: 1) The ratings are easy to interpret from the symbols. 2) Ages are included in the symbols! What a concept.
Now let’s take a look at FF.net’s so-called system. But before I copy-and-paste it from their ratings website, I’m going to attempt to decode it myself:
K – Kindergarten? WTF is “K” supposed to mean. I guess it means suitable for kindergartners.
K+ – Kindergarten plus. Suitable for anyone who’s passed kindergarten.
T – Teenager. Have acne and/or a period? This content is approved for you.
M – Mature. If you’d consider yourself mature, go ahead and view.
MA – Mature Audience. Hey, this rating’s on television shows like Breaking Bad! I guess that means it’s for adults but could still be broadcast on network TV.
Okay, so even after years of trying to interpret this system, I clearly still have no fucking idea what it means. Surely FictionRatings.com can clear up my confusion!
Intended for general audience 5 years and older. Content should be free of any coarse language, violence, and adult themes.
Suitable for more mature childen, 9 years and older, with minor action violence without serious injury. May contain mild coarse language. Should not contain any adult themes.
Suitable for teens, 13 years and older, with some violence, minor coarse language, and minor suggestive adult themes.
Not suitable for children or teens below the age of 16 with non-explicit suggestive adult themes, references to some violence, or coarse language.Fiction M can contain adult language, themes and suggestions. Detailed descriptions of physical interaction of sexual or violent nature is considered Fiction MA.
Content is only suitable for mature adults. May contain explicit language and adult themes.
Okay, so after reading through all that BS, I’m actually more confused than ever. First of all, what the fuck is FictionRatings.com?! It appears to be a website consisting of only 1 page, which is accessible to the general reading public only through the Guidelines link, which is buried– without even proper hyperlink formatting–only in FF.net’s poorly written TOS.
Second of all, I still have no clue what that elusive “K” stands for! Not a single K-word is included in its description or even in the description of its description. Why does this have to be so damn hard to figure out??
Third of all, it’s still unclear what the difference is between an “M” and “MA” rating. Not only are the “recommended minimum age” ranges a mere 2 years apart, but the descriptions are nearly identical, save for the ambiguous word “explicit.” What does one consider “explicit”–is the word “nipple” explicit, is the word “shit” explicit?
Finally what exactly is a “mature adult”? Just being 18 years old–really? Here in the United States, where the legal age of adulthood is 18, you still can’t even buy alcohol until you’re 21. Even at 28 years old, I’d still hesitate to label myself a “mature adult,” and I’m sure there are 17-year-olds out there who are living on their own, holding down jobs, paying taxes–maybe even caring for younger siblings or for their own children. Are they not considered mature adults?
Anyway, the takeaway from all this is that FF.net doesn’t really care about having a clear and logical rating system for the benefit of readers and writers alike. When FF.net overhauled its MPAA rating system years back and replaced it with this FictionRatings.com garbage, the message was clear: We, the owners and administrators of Fanfiction.net, have hereby sold out.
It’s just that simple–FF.net had decided to go mainstream. In order to attract more readers and–more importantly–more advertisers they needed to clean up their image. In other words, they needed to “get rid” of the smut.
They knew this wouldn’t go over well with the existing authorship and readership, so they carried out this flimsy parlor-trick of a ratings system change to try to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes. Needless to say, much like if you were to put a pig in a dress and call it a lady, nobody was fooled.
But I digress. The outcome of all this nonsense was that under the new ratings system, smut fell under the category of “MA,” which FF.net subsequently and conveniently banned, thus sparking a witch-hunt that continues to this day.
Of course, FF.net is too lazy nowadays to carry out this persecution themselves, so they leave it to the community to bring so-called violators to their attention. Didn’t read the warnings the author took the trouble to post at the VERY BEGINNING of the M-rated fanfiction? Caught reading a yaoi romance scene by your mom and looking to share the pain around? Just jealous of an author whose stories are getting more attention than yours? No worries–simply report them to the FF.net authorities for content violation and that person’s work will almost certainly be found guilty thanks to the totally CLEAR and UNAMBIGUOUS ratings system!
Which brings me to another point of extreme irritation. Namely that, like many of the prudes I have encountered in real life, FF.net is a shameless hypocrite. Here’s the thing: if they really cared about having a squeaky-clean, pr0n-less image, wouldn’t they police their site themselves? Of course not, because that would take time and money and dedication. And they really don’t care that much. At the end of the day, all they care about is the image itself. They just want to put on a show of having a smut-less site.
Here’s the real kicker, though: FF.net still allows smut to be advertised on its site! Don’t believe me? Here’s an example that came up on my computer screen within about 1 minute of clicking around:
This rant has gone on for long enough, so I’ll try to wrap it up. To be perfectly honest, I don’t have a problem with FF.net setting rules for what can and can’t be posted on their site. That’s their prerogative, and rules aren’t in of themselves a bad thing. We need rules in our lives or we’d all still be sitting around in the dirt scratching ourselves and gnawing on animal bones.
What I DO take exception to is FF.net’s half-assedness at communicating and enforcing their content standards. What we are left with at the end of the day is a bunch of ratings that don’t really mean anything and a system that is easily misused or even exploited at the whims of whoever is interpreting it at the time.