fan service
n.— «Fan service is anything in media that is there because the creators think it will please the fans, not because it advances plot, theme, character, or any other overall value of the work.» —“Re: What’s a Fan Service?” by Slithy Tove (slithy@pobox.com) Usenet: rec.arts.anime.misc Dec. 1, 2000. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...