I was going to post something quick saying that I was going to take an official break from LJ for a while (for realsies this time), but then I found out about this:

Fandom Then/Fandom Now

In the words of the chief investigator, Katherine Morrissey (a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaulkee):

For many people, fan fiction is ( Read more... )

Have you heard about Marie-Pierre Renaud? She's known as The Geek Anthropologist, and she blogs about fandom from the perspective of a cultural anthropologist. I contacted her for my paper on "Fake" Geek Girls that I'm doing for a gender and communication class (and hopefully turning into a conference paper for next year), and I've spent the last ( Read more... )

I've been reading a bunch of French post-structuralists the past couple weeks, and I think I understand the problem with fandom: we over-identify with our favorites (be it ship, character, show, narrative device, whatevs), so when someone insults that ship/character/show/narrative device, we take it as a personal blow. De Certeau* (the guy I've ( Read more... )

One week ago today, I was at CommuniCon, the convention for fans of Community, hanging out with show writer Andy Bobrow.

The night before, I visited the set of Community, where I watched them take five hours to film two scenes. The first has a brilliant Britta line and pop culture reference that will be very relevant in March when it airs, and ( Read more... )

Yeah. When it came time for us to write our fiction piece, I had severe writer's block, and the only thing that came to me was a fic idea I had where Buffy actually is pregnant and Spike actually goes with her to the clinic. The characters are John and Liz (with Danielle as Liz's sister, and her two best friends Alex and Gillian), but they're very ( Read more... )

I know - how can I call it brief if it takes up two posts?

( Behind the cut again )

Here it is. The damn literature review/fandom history I've been working on for something like two weeks. This is completely unedited, and formatted in the MLA manner, so all those numbers in parentheses are page numbers so you can find the quote or whatever, if you ever decided to do that.

( Behind the Cut Because It's Long )

Remember that history of fandom I was going to post a few weeks ago? Still working on it. It's actually the literature review of my application to study human subjects under the jurisdiction of my school's Institutional Board of Review (don't ask), and it's taking forever to do because I continue to read while I write, and I keep on coming across ( Read more... )

So I just spent way too much money on what I'd like to call an investment in my future.

And there are perks:

"SDCC FAN PACKAGE: You'll receive everything included in the previous reward (updates, script, shirt, digital download, poster, DVD/BD combo) PLUS you'll enjoy a reserved seat at our special Veronica Mars Fan Event during San Diego Comic ( Read more... )

"This assessment of fan fiction in terms of realism--and the segmentation of fanfic communities that follows from this--are evident in, as one among many examples, the circulation of Buffy/Spike stories in the BtVS fandom. Stories about a vampire slayer and a vampire allow a great deal of freedom to manipulate or avoid any scripted reality. However ( Read more... )