Why so little genfic?

[author_by_night]

Disclaimer: Entry inspired by a secret on the fandomsecrets community.

Something I've noticed in almost all of the fandoms I'm in or know of -  Heroes, Harry Potter, Wicked the book, Wicked the musical, Rent, Pirates of the Carribean, Supernatural - is that there's a huge emphasis on romance. Actually, often smutty romance, at  that. Meanwhile, in all of those fandoms, save Pirates of the Carribean, the themes of friendship and/or family seem just as important, but they are not given the same amount of screentime. Well, I don't really know if that's the case with Supernatural, but gazing through the comms, it certainly seems to be the case. Also admittedly, Rent is clearly about romantic love, but there's still themes of friendship there too. (Mimi and Angel, Joanne and Mark - a friendship that probably wouldn't normally happen, all things considered - and Mark and Roger.)

I don't have a problem with people's shipping preferences - to each his/her own, right? If you want to write Petrellicest or Wincest, more power to you. Same with if you want to ship Remus/Sirius ( a ship I can see on some level anyway), Harry/Hermione, or Will/Jack. 

But I have  a general question - why is it that in these fandoms, non-romantic relationships, canon or not, do not generally get equal writing time? Even I have to admit that my entrance into the HP fandom came with musings about whether or not it'd be Harry/Hermione or Hermione/Ron, if Remus/Sirius was plausible, etc. I only became a genfic person later on. And even then, I still shipped Remus/Tonks (which wasn't canon at the time) and Ron/Hermione. 

So what is it about romance and smutfics that gains so much more popularity, and why do people see the need to put canon friends and siblings in romantic and/or smutty situations?

Discuss. :)

Comments

[aggiebell90]

Real quick-like, since I need to go back to work...

Another reason for more shippy/smutty stuff than gen being written could be because, at least for HP (and I can't speak for any other fandoms, because I'm only involved in HP), the source material is pretty much gen. There's a little shippyness, true, but it's not the main--or most important--part of the story. I tend to write shippy (although I'm writing a gen Neville fic right now, too), because there *isn't* all that much shippy stuff in the books, but there are tons and tons of Ron/Hermione/Harry friendship moments. So I write to fill in the blanks (for me).

Does that make sense?

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

Yes, and I can see that point. Because also looking at stuff statistically, a book series I read has a ton of fluff and smut; the fics tend to be gen-ish, or at least under an R rating romance. At least, they were when I read the fics.