Act 5 - Spin the Faygo
I fear it would be a crime if I didn't talk about the fandom that made Homestuck infamous. Even if people haven't read the comic and have no clue what Homestuck is about, there's a solid chance they've at least heard about the fandom (and some of the absured things they've done)
A large group of Homestuck cosplayers at a convention in the UK
Because Homestuck has a lot of references to real world things, a running joke exists in the fandom that everything is a Homestuck reference. This has gone so far to which there was a tumblr blog called the Homestuck police that simply added an image to the end of a post if it starts veering a little too close to being a Homestuck reference.
Fantrolls
The trolls in Homestuck are some of the most iconic characters in the entire comic. The world building and the nonsensical differences between troll and human culture made them characters the fandom quickly latched onto. As people became invested in the trolls and Alternia, they also started making their own original characters to fit in the alien troll society. These Fantrolls largely followed similar guidelines to match canon as closely as possible and were largely meant as ways of interacting with the story.
In September of 2012, a Kickstarter campaign was started to create a "Homestuck Adventure Game" (this would later become Hiveswap, 2017). With the kickstarter, there were rewards based on how much one donated. This included at $10,000, getting your fantroll canonized and have them appear in the comic proper.
SympathyPlan and Jedediah Long both donated $10,000 dollars to the Homestuck Kickstarter and did infact have their fantrolls become canon!
…
For one panel.
The higher donation tears guaranteed the fantroll would live longer than a single page, as well as making them an important character in Homestuck. While these higher tiers were available, they were mostly meant as a joke and those tiers were never selected by an individual backer.
Andrew Hussie has also joked that all fantrolls are canon to the Homestuck universe, however only SympathyPlan's and Jedediah Long's trolls were given any distinction.
Fandom crashes the internet
In its heyday, Homestuck had a massive fandom that took over many social media websites. Whenever a new Homestuck update would get posted, Homestuck and up8 would be trending as people rapidly discussed the latest. After a notable month and a half pause with no updates and hearing little from the author, [S] Cascade dropped. A 13 minute long animation acting as the conclusion to Act 5. Because this update was highly anticipated, the moment the update was posted, the Homestuck homepage crashed. Hussie then uploaded the animation to Newgrounds, Megaupload, and Dropbox. Those sites also crashed. Every website Hussie tried to upload Cascade to, resulted in downtime as no site could handle the shear impact of the Homestuck fandom all visiting at the same time. It goes to show just how dedicated and massive the fandom was and the affect it had on the internet.
Jadesprite and Davesprite from [S] Cascade
Love and Hate
Within Act 6 of Homestuck, we are introduced to two characters, Caliborn and Caliope, both cherubs who share a body. When one falls asleep, the other wakes up and takes control. Caliborn is a control freak and very violent, angry and destructive. He represents the side of fandom that only ever critiques or gets upset at the latest update to the story. The people who think they know better than the writers and that their story is so much better. On the flip side, Caliope is the opposite, incredibly sweet, kind, and creative. She represents the fanartists and fanfic writers. The people who truly love the characters and the world and make their own in order to show their appreciation.
Caliborn with flashing Xs appearing over the authors insert character
As Act 6 progresses and we learn more about Caliborn, Caliope, and the state of the game Sburb, the cherubs are shown to be a metaphor for the Homestuck fandom. Caliope representing the creative side of fandom; the fanartist, fanfic writers, those who kept the fandom alive and well during the giga pause (a x month period of no Homestuck updates). Caliborn ended up representing the negative fans, those who thought they would do a better job writing Homestuck and hated the story. This is shown through Homosuck (Act 6 Act whatever) when Caliborn took control of the story and started breaking everything around him. Caliborn later becomes the villain Lord English, an unbeatable boss, unable to be prevented as you can't stop what's already here. (Another tie in with the fact that Caliborn is a representation of the fandom. You can't stop people from being fans or engaging with your work even if they cause more harm than good).