ship war

English

Noun

ship war (plural ship wars)

1. (fandom slang) An intense and sometimes hostile disagreement between shippers of rival ships in a fandom.

   Oh, no, not another ship war between members of Team Edward and Team Jacob.

   • 2008, Melissa Anelli, Harry, A History, Pocket Books, →ISBN, page 236:

     They seemed fascinated by my and Meg's absorption in the Harry Potter culture, so we told them stories of the ship wars […]

   • 2013, Mark Duffet, Understanding Fandom: An Introduction to the Study of Media Fan Culture, Bloomsbury Academic, →ISBN, page 248:

     'Ship wars' are discussions, usually between female fans, about who the best partner would be for their favourite character or artist, a classic example being the debates over whether Yoko Ono was good for John Lennon.

   • 2013, Emily Regan Wills, “Fannish discourse communities and the construction of gender in The X-Files”, in Transformative Works and Cultures, volume 14:

     Habermas may not have imagined ship wars as a context for practical discourse, but fandom is in fact an excellent space in which to engage in the forms of contestation he describes.

Anagrams

• warship