In 2009 femslash exploded rapidly. Glee was on the air, and was promising lots of queer representation — only it was primarily guys getting their gay on. The Brittany and Santana relationship, that would come to dominate much of the Glee fandom conversation, was born out of one throwaway line about two featured extras and a group of women's yearning to see themselves on TV.
It was fandom willing a pairing into canon.
And fandom's reason? Queer women deserve representation.
The cry for representation wasn't new, but Glee fans had, at the time, unprecedented access to the creators of their show. They didn't have to mount letter campaigns, or ship hot sauce to a studio. They could bombard Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk directly via Twitter, and they could bombard them constantly.
It wasn't a campaign, as much as an irate and well-meaning mob shouting through the ethers. And it worked. Murphy and Falchuk saw the the Twitter trends and the Tumblr hashtags, and acquiesced. "Brittana" went from a "crack" ship to a major narrative driving force of the show.
A key reason, besides young fans' ability to bombard the Glee cast and crew with tweets, was that they had a very noble cause beyond wanting to see some genital grinding. For the first time, the majority of the fans begging for a couple to be canon were actual members of the community they wanted represented. Their call for expanded LBGTQ representation carried with it not just fans' desire to see fictional people get together, but sincere social activism.
This set a precedent that quickly became thorny in the community itself. Now any queer gal pairing was the right pairing to have on a show, because of representation. Fans of male slash glommed onto the idea as well — and suddenly Sherlock had to be gay for Watson, and Dean had to love Castiel because gay guys need to be on TV too (which is, you know, a totally valid concern). And if a showrunner failed to meet their demands? Then their show was a homophobic monstrosity, best consigned to the cancellation column.
