Fandom
So i'm re-writing my chapter about the basics of fandom. And some things are striking me as, well, off...
In the intro to "Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World" (by Gray, Sandvoss and Harrington) the basic premise is that academic study of fandom has happened in three stages. The first, that fandom is awesome, and inherently political. It is reaction against having no power in the production of media, and the poaching of said media to do what we want with. This is the Henry Jenkins strain of things. The second stage is more about how actually, fans reproduce the hierarchies and social structures of every day life. Here fans are a mainstream idea, everyone is a fan of something, fans aren't necessarily obsessive geeks and what they're a fan of tells us something about their lives. The third stage is the "current" writings on fandom where fandom encompasses fans of anything, and what fans tell us about modern life, eg how we relate to things.
Now to me, those 'phases' are rather indistinct (and partly that's my fault in interpreting what these guys are getting at). But then I've always had a hard time seeing/trusting any large social theories put onto things. Especially when, as in this case, it's to show how wonderful the current research is and how simple the previous research was.
Jenkins himself gives the afterword to this book, and states that fans are everyone now, thus there may be no more fandom.
While I can see where they're going with all this, part of me reads these articles with a growing sense of unease. I suppose part of it is that I want fandom, this thing I know and love and live in, to be special. To be more than just what everyone does in some form or another. The thing that these 'third wave' authors don't seem to understand, when they argue against the first wave of 'fandom is beautiful' is that while some of the 'political' claims of those arguments may be outdated, but the way in which those first authors described fandom is still true and resonated with fans at the time. Fandom is marvellous to be in, not all the time, but it is a huge part of many fans' lives. I love being in fandom, I love the products and the friends and the community. I love obsessing over television shows and characters. I love being a geek. I know a lot of work has gone into removing fan stereotypes, and rightly so, but when it comes down to it? I do obsess over these things, I do spend an inordinate amount of time 'being' in these shows and with the other fans of them. The shows themselves are in the majority sci fi ones. Do i fit those stereotypes? Absolutely. But i'm not going to deny them to be PC, i'm going to show that what those stereotypes are - are not bad.
Is there really nothing special about media fans? Are we the same as sports fans? or opera buffs or music lovers? As the religious right? I understand why the academic literature has come to this understanding, I get that they want to be all encompassing. But there's something missing, for me, in these reports. The unique wonder and obsession and geekiness that is written in those first fan works still ring true to me.
The other really strong idea coming out of this book and other fandom articles lately is that "fandom" means the same thing as "fans". Any fans, of anything, are a fandom.
To this I strongly disagree. I am a fan of many things that I would argue I am not part of fandom for. I love to read, I love to watch certain tv shows and movies, to listen to certain music, to take photographs. None of these things are fandom to me. Fandom is more than the plural of 'fans'. Fandom is a place and a feeling. It is a group of people with a mutual obsession, a mutual adoration. It is a community and friends. It is strange and weird, sometimes unhappy and uncomfortable, virtual but tangible. Fandom, to me, is media fandom. It is the love of mutual television shows, characters, actors. Can there be fandom on other things? Sure - I'd argue that probably the knitters have a knitting fandom (would they? tell me!) because they do more than love to knit. They do it communally, they do it through community and friends, they obsesses over yarn and colour and the joy it brings them. Fandom is more than the sum of its parts.
One article (by Matt Hills) I read talks of a person who obsesses over new music, tires of it, finds new music to obsess on. The article talks of the cyclical nature of fandom. Is this person a fan? Sure. Is he in fandom? I'd argue not. Does he do what fans in fandom do? Sure, some of it. Again, to me, fandom is more than obsession or adoration or being a geek or hell, even writing fanfic.
I still think fandom - our fandom - is unique. We produce things no other fans produce. We have ties that are strong. We sometimes hate what we also love. We are a society and a community and sometimes individuals. We do obsess. We are sometimes political. We are conscious of ourselves as 'in fandom'. We come to this place to play. Perhaps there is also still a feeling of us fans being 'other', being somehow persecuted - even if only in thought of as 'different'. Maybe that's okay, maybe it's true. I don't know. Maybe it's just me? Maybe others think of 'fandom' as simply being a fan or something.
But I worry that this current idea of fandom has forgotten the fans, the fannish experience, and misappropriated the word (our world) of 'fandom'.
Am I wrong? Am I being too narrow, jealously guarding something that isn't particular to my idea of fandom? Should I embrace the idea of the average fan and risk devaluing the experience i've lived for the last 15 years? What do you think?
In the intro to "Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World" (by Gray, Sandvoss and Harrington) the basic premise is that academic study of fandom has happened in three stages. The first, that fandom is awesome, and inherently political. It is reaction against having no power in the production of media, and the poaching of said media to do what we want with. This is the Henry Jenkins strain of things. The second stage is more about how actually, fans reproduce the hierarchies and social structures of every day life. Here fans are a mainstream idea, everyone is a fan of something, fans aren't necessarily obsessive geeks and what they're a fan of tells us something about their lives. The third stage is the "current" writings on fandom where fandom encompasses fans of anything, and what fans tell us about modern life, eg how we relate to things.
Now to me, those 'phases' are rather indistinct (and partly that's my fault in interpreting what these guys are getting at). But then I've always had a hard time seeing/trusting any large social theories put onto things. Especially when, as in this case, it's to show how wonderful the current research is and how simple the previous research was.
Jenkins himself gives the afterword to this book, and states that fans are everyone now, thus there may be no more fandom.
While I can see where they're going with all this, part of me reads these articles with a growing sense of unease. I suppose part of it is that I want fandom, this thing I know and love and live in, to be special. To be more than just what everyone does in some form or another. The thing that these 'third wave' authors don't seem to understand, when they argue against the first wave of 'fandom is beautiful' is that while some of the 'political' claims of those arguments may be outdated, but the way in which those first authors described fandom is still true and resonated with fans at the time. Fandom is marvellous to be in, not all the time, but it is a huge part of many fans' lives. I love being in fandom, I love the products and the friends and the community. I love obsessing over television shows and characters. I love being a geek. I know a lot of work has gone into removing fan stereotypes, and rightly so, but when it comes down to it? I do obsess over these things, I do spend an inordinate amount of time 'being' in these shows and with the other fans of them. The shows themselves are in the majority sci fi ones. Do i fit those stereotypes? Absolutely. But i'm not going to deny them to be PC, i'm going to show that what those stereotypes are - are not bad.
Is there really nothing special about media fans? Are we the same as sports fans? or opera buffs or music lovers? As the religious right? I understand why the academic literature has come to this understanding, I get that they want to be all encompassing. But there's something missing, for me, in these reports. The unique wonder and obsession and geekiness that is written in those first fan works still ring true to me.
The other really strong idea coming out of this book and other fandom articles lately is that "fandom" means the same thing as "fans". Any fans, of anything, are a fandom.
To this I strongly disagree. I am a fan of many things that I would argue I am not part of fandom for. I love to read, I love to watch certain tv shows and movies, to listen to certain music, to take photographs. None of these things are fandom to me. Fandom is more than the plural of 'fans'. Fandom is a place and a feeling. It is a group of people with a mutual obsession, a mutual adoration. It is a community and friends. It is strange and weird, sometimes unhappy and uncomfortable, virtual but tangible. Fandom, to me, is media fandom. It is the love of mutual television shows, characters, actors. Can there be fandom on other things? Sure - I'd argue that probably the knitters have a knitting fandom (would they? tell me!) because they do more than love to knit. They do it communally, they do it through community and friends, they obsesses over yarn and colour and the joy it brings them. Fandom is more than the sum of its parts.
One article (by Matt Hills) I read talks of a person who obsesses over new music, tires of it, finds new music to obsess on. The article talks of the cyclical nature of fandom. Is this person a fan? Sure. Is he in fandom? I'd argue not. Does he do what fans in fandom do? Sure, some of it. Again, to me, fandom is more than obsession or adoration or being a geek or hell, even writing fanfic.
I still think fandom - our fandom - is unique. We produce things no other fans produce. We have ties that are strong. We sometimes hate what we also love. We are a society and a community and sometimes individuals. We do obsess. We are sometimes political. We are conscious of ourselves as 'in fandom'. We come to this place to play. Perhaps there is also still a feeling of us fans being 'other', being somehow persecuted - even if only in thought of as 'different'. Maybe that's okay, maybe it's true. I don't know. Maybe it's just me? Maybe others think of 'fandom' as simply being a fan or something.
But I worry that this current idea of fandom has forgotten the fans, the fannish experience, and misappropriated the word (our world) of 'fandom'.
Am I wrong? Am I being too narrow, jealously guarding something that isn't particular to my idea of fandom? Should I embrace the idea of the average fan and risk devaluing the experience i've lived for the last 15 years? What do you think?