A conclusion of sorts

So what do we do with all of this? All of the photos, drawings, stories, music, videos, and animations? Are these re-iterations the effect that the internet has on literature? I would conclude that, yes, this is the case. The internet is a highly tribalizing form. McLuhan always warns/lauds about the 'wave' that electric technology would have on society due to it's increase in speed. The internet - not the internet of the 1990s but of the 21st century - is the current apotheosis of that speed up. To expand on Paulo Virilio a little bit, I would argue that it is not the city that becomes the 'district' to the 'meta-world' but the computer terminal. Through the computer and the internet, people can edit and remake anything (limited possibly by the sophistication of policing) and put it up on the internet. Harry Potter is no exception. As you can see, fanfiction goes beyond merely writing stories around the original literature (although it is a significant portion of it) but extends into any media that a fan can create. Some can even achieve a level of fame (or infamy) from their creations.
If this blog is any indication of what the internet is capable of doing to literature, I would say that the effect of the internet on literature is to transform a highly 'hot' medium into an intensely 'cool' participatory one - where participation is the very attempt at creating something in relation to the primary source.

McLuhan would probably shun me for wanting to bring an ethical standpoint to it all, but I would also argue that this transformation is a good thing. Literature still 'fragments' the readers with their different reading and interpretations of the text but that leads to the diversity of recreations in different media that they then can host on the internet.

Fin!