Numlock Sunday: Adam Bumas on fanfiction's ascent to mainstream

Photograph by Sabrina Lantos/HBO Max

By Walt Hickey

Welcome to the Numlock Sunday edition.

This week, I spoke to Adam Bumas from one of my favorite news organizations and newsletters, Garbage Day. Adam is the mind behind the weekly Garbage Day Media Intelligence, which is an especially statty and deeply interetesting look into what’s moving digital media. Adam is recently out with a new article, 2026 was the year fanfic became big business, on AO3 statistics and the series that brought fandom to the mainstream, Heated Rivalry. Here is what I wrote about it:

Archive of our Own, the vast repository of fan works, has released the 2026 edition of the Ship Stats, which reveal the most popular romantic pairings in fan works. What makes this year particularly interesting is that it’s the year that the fan ships have finally entered the mainstream and the canon. Ordinarily, the most popular romantic pairings among fans don’t actually exist in canon; Kirk and Spock never actually paired up on scre…