Shipping is a general term for emotional and/or intellectual involvement with the ongoing development of romance in a work of fiction. Though technically applicable to any such involvement, it refers chiefly to various related social dynamics observable on the Internet, and is seldom used outside of that context.

Shipping can involve virtually any kind of relationship- from the well-known and established, through the ambiguous or those undergoing development, and even all the way to the highly improbable and the blatantly impossible. People involved in shipping (or shippers) assert that the relationship does exist, should exist, or simply that they would like it to exist.

Etymology and usage of terminology

Though ship is undoubtedly a derivative of the word relationship in some way, where and when it was first used to indicate involvement with fictional romance is unclear. A common belief is that the term originated in the fandom for the anime series Pokémon, with two American fans who, in discussing their belief in a romance between series villains Jessie and James (known as Team Rocket), hit upon the pun RocketShipper as a way to combine Rocket Ship and relationship.

However, the archives of the newsgroup alt.tv.xfiles show that the word shipper was already in established use among fans of The X-Files as early as May of 1996 [1]—just three months after the first Pokémon games were released in Japan. It would not be until 1998 that any of the Pokémon games, manga, or anime would be translated to English, where the relationship/rocket ship pun would exist. It seems clear that the Pokémon fandom was not the first and sole inventor of shipping, as is sometimes claimed; but regardless of that, it may have well played a larger role in the etymology of the term as is known today by separately developing and popularising it (a firm date for the first use of the term in the Pokémon fandom, mentioned above has long been established with the coining of the name RocketShipper by RocketJessie on the Team Rocket Headquarters (TRHQ) forum, some time in mid-to-late 1999).

Regardless of its origins, the term ship and its derivatives in this context are now in wide and versatile use. Shipping refers to the whole phenomenon; a ship is the concept of a fictional couple; to ship a couple means to have an affinity for it in one way or another; a shipper is somebody significantly involved with such an affinity, and so forth.

Various naming conventions have developed in different online communities to name the couples themselves, probably due to the ambiguity and cumbersomeness of the "Foo and Bar" format. The most widespread appears to be putting the slash character (/) between the two names (Foo/Bar), but many other methods exist—taking only the first letter of each name (F/B); Morphing the names of the two participants into one word (FooBar, whereas the names of the characters are—for example—Foolhardy and Barbeque), which is common mostly within fan communities of anime (Having been taken from the naming conventions for couples used in the equivalent Japanese fandoms); and even the distinctive methods used in the Pokémon fandom, with distinct semi-descriptive names for each ship, and the Harry Potter fandom, naming the couple as if it were an actual marine vessel, HMS Foo Bar, where Foo and Bar are usually derived from the couple's characteristics rather than outright from their names).

Influence in online society

Popularity

Though it takes many forms and influences different communities in different ways, the phenomenon of shipping is practically ubiquitous. Searching any forum discussing an ongoing work of fiction is bound to yield comments, discussion threads and even whole active forums and communities dedicated to the subject.

There are several factors which are believed to be responsible for the high popularity of shipping:

• Sympathy. People often see potential for romantic relationships in fiction and project the relationship they wish they could have upon them, or similarly identify with a certain character (often, but not always, of the same gender) and hope this character gets with who they deem would be the most appropriate for themselves.
• Resolution. Often the authors behind the pieces of fiction in question knowingly create situations, foreshadowing and open plot threads that seem, for all practical purposes, to be headed towards a resolution involving characters connecting with one another and becoming couples. Often the theme of romance will be introduced and toyed with, teasing the fans and leaving them speculating as to "where this is going".
• Prediction. In somewhat of a feedback loop, the popularity of shipping leads many people who otherwise wouldn't have much interest in the subject to attempt predicting the eventual outcome, if only because they are much more likely to find somebody willing to discuss this subject than any other.

The influence and prominence shipping has on a specific online community will, mostly, be the projection of two factors: The way the author of the work-in-progress at hand treats the subject of romance in their work (intentionally and unintentionally), and the preexisting tendencies of the specific target audience likely to both come in contact with said work and discuss it online. The many combinations of those sole two factors possible already make the actual manifestation of shipping in online communities amorphic and hard to define, sometimes to the point of hardly being recognisable as different instances of the same phenomenon. Teenagers, in general, appear to be the most eager target audience to engage the subject, while a roughly equal mixture of males and females in the work of fiction will lend itself to more prominent shipping discussion than otherwise (and even more so if these characters are all coming of age, which is one of the most powerful ship discussion stimulator). These sorts of differences are the factors which shape how "shippy", and in what ways, an online fan community will be.

Non-conventional ships

Though they certainly tend to be the most commonly encountered, heterosexual relationships are not the be-all and end-all of shipping. The most prominent example of this is the wide support of homosexual relationships (also known as "slash" or the borrowed Japanese terms Yaoi (Male homosexuality) and Yuri (Female homosexuality)), with stories of male homosexuality, thanks to their large female fanbase, being by far the most prominent. There are even online groups affiliated with romance that is considered taboo by many, such as incest, and even bestiality.

Discussion and debate

One of the more universal manifestations of the shipping phenomenon is the degree to which the subject is discussed and debated. Much like the extent of shipping in general, the extent of ship debating in an online community is the product of several factors, though more specifically the amount of romantic conflict and potential in the relevant fictional work influences the amount of involvement in ship debates more than any other aspect. Both couples with no potential and conflict whatsoever and perfectly happy, "outed" couples with no conflict left to be resolved will tend to get little debating attention. Fictional potential couples with clear driving forces that are counter-balanced by obstacles tend to get the most attention in that area, especially if two such possibilities are mutually exclusive, thus making one's driving forces the other's obstacles.

Ship debates almost always basically occur on two levels- on the "what should happen" level, where the real issues behind the participators' preferences, and therefore the argument, float to the surface; and on the "what will happen" level, where dry, neutral prediction is attempted. These two plains of reasoning are almost mutually exclusive, but not quite- the latter may subvertly affect the former, as in somebody resolving that a relationship the author is portraying as positive must be positive by definition, and changing their point of view accordingly; and much more commonly, the former may subvertly affect the latter, with personal preference creating a skewed vision of the available evidence.

Thus, ship debate has a reputation of containing much unnecessary vitriol resulting from conflicting emotional luggage, fallacious logic, outlandish theories and pointless going in circles (since nobody could ever be convinced to the contrary of what is really just the projected form of their own inherent ideals). Most people who have been participating in ship debate for long enough tend to be aware of this to some degree and often keep debating for the sake of sportsmanship, their faction (see above) or "spreading the truth"; newcomers, on the other hand, tend to step in blissfully unaware of this situation, share their opinion and be shocked at how a part of the community heartily agrees while the other part resentfully takes their point apart and claims it to be "long-refuted".

Another main reason ship debates tend to go in circles is the non-application of Occam's razor. This creates a situation where every possible point- no matter how solid- in favour of one theory or against the other must have infinitely many possible counterpoints, each in turn also having infinitely many possible counterpoints, and so forth and so on, due to underdetermination. This makes ship debate, by definition, something that can never reach any sort of conclusion. Furthermore, as the two competing sides slowly accumulate points and counterpoints in this manner over time, theories created for the purpose of ship debating become more and more incoherent- full of ad-hoc hypotheses and, in extreme cases, even self-contradictory. The whole collections of these points and counterpoints often go on to be considered the whole theory behind the support of one pairing or another, any solid collection of theories that may have been noticeable earlier being lost in the process.

Fan works

In fan fiction circles, authors often let their shipping tendencies influence their work and espouse a certain romantic pairing between two particular characters in their fiction; in fact, the pairings found within are considered such a defining factor that story summaries in fiction archives often notify the potential reader of them while neglecting other important features. The extremity of this phenomenon can be found in certain sections of the fanfiction archive fanfiction.net, where fanfiction is searchable by rating, length, genre, date, language and pairing.

Though to a lesser degree, this influence still exists in other fan works. Since fan art, for example, is by nature more focused, less "modular" (so to speak) and allows for less flexibility in terms of theme integration, it is usually either without shipping influence at all or wholly a tribute to a certain pairing.

External links

• The (In)Complete List of Shippers - List of 'Ship' names in the Pokémon fandom on the Bulbapedia Wiki.
• [2] - List of Ship Names in the Harry Potter fandom.