This article provides a narrative overview of research on online fan practices for language and literacy learning, use, and identity work. I begin with an introduction to online fan communities and common fan practices found in these online affinity spaces, the best known of which is fan fiction, fictional writing that reinterprets and remixes the events, characters, and settings found in popular media. I then look to other online fan practices that have been explored in language and literacy learning research such as fan-subbing and scanlation, amateur subtitling and translation of popular media carried out by individual or teams of fans. Finally, this article concludes by looking to research that has begun to explore the integration of fan practices found in the digital wilds into the language classroom as a way to illuminate how our growing understanding of online fan practices can motivate the design of computer-mediated tasks or the integration of social media into formal language teaching.