Week Two - Fans, Communities and Hierarchy

The community aspect of Fandoms is that of a complex one. For me, the idea of a shared community was one of the main attractions to becoming so invested in a Fandom. However, it was one of the, possibly mandatory, aspects of that community that was my prime motivation for distancing myself from the Fandoms – the hierarchy within that community.

When I was younger I would be involved with Fandoms for many rock and metal bands, and often broadening by taste through the shared interests with the Fandom members. One particular artist I was a fan of was the band Fall Out Boy – initially through a close friend’s investment – which would involve sharing sourced media of the band on sites such as Tumblr and Twitter, showing a popular opinion and knowledge-span of the band, and occasionally producing my own fan content. As I became more comfortable in the Fandom and started to be more heavily involved, I would gain satisfaction from other users gratification, acknowledgements and compliments – even indirectly, such as reaching a large number of followers or likes on a shared post.

However, once I started to not have the time to participate as regularly, or would post something that is outside of the popular opinion or attitude of the Fandom and their practices, I would be criticised, ‘unfollowed’ or posts ‘unliked’. This links in with Busse’s work around policing fandom boundaries and defining what is the right level of investment (Busse, 2013, p. 75). At first, just the novelty of having that shared space where I could learn and consume even more of the band was enough of a social satisfaction, but the experience of the binary to this when criticised or excluded showed me another side of the Fandom that I didn’t particularly want to be part of – it gave me the sense that the social interactions I was gaining satisfaction from previously were actually rather fickle and weren’t as valuable as real-life interactions and practices.

Giddens encapsulates my sentiment in his work in Modernity and Self-Identity, saying a person’s identity is found in their “capacity to keep a certain narrative going”. (Giddens, 1991, p. 54). Personally, I found it was more effective to be distant from the Fandom but still consider myself a fan, to try and find a balance between being involved in the clique of the Fandom, to gain satisfaction from the social community aspect, but possibly feel disheartened when excluded or policed, and being a fan to whichever level I desire and in whichever way I desire, but possibly on my own, without the Fandom community. This links to Jensen’s idea of the two dominant archetypes of fans as “the obsessed individual and the hysterical crowd” (Jensen, 1992, p. 9) due to me recognising the two and trying to find a point between them.

My Fandom in question has been represented as both aspects of these fan types in different occasions/situations. It is often represented as a hysterical crowd by media at band events, or fan forums, with the community choosing to portray a creative community front to outsiders. However, to those that know of more controversial fan practices, it is common for them to be seen as the obsessed individual also. An example being when even the band themselves publicly parodied ‘confession’ from fans in a staged Youtube video and reading FanFictions they had written aloud on Radio. Even though I did not participate in these fan practices, this was criticised by myself and many other fans, with one posting “I’m aware that the fanfic some people write is an outlet and to have Fall Out Boy come up and possibly read it and then make fun of it is just… really gross” (User1, 2015). Here, even the band that the Fandom is surrounding are pathologizing fans and policing boundaries for fans.  

Reflecting on my experiences and observations in this Fandom, to exist well within a Fandom community is only possible by finding the right balance for your position in the community. Being involved and liked enough to not be ‘and obsessed individual’ and maintaining your individuality within the community, to not become a member of ‘the hysterical crowd’. This concept is addressed further when considering work on ‘good-enough’ fans, discussing how successful fans “have a sense of inherent self-enoughness and authenticity while engaged in their fandom actions” (Blommaert & Varis, 2011 cited in Staps, Milan & Spotti).

 

Bibliography

Busse, K. (2013). Geek hierarchies, boundary policing, and the gendering of the good fan. Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies, 73-91.

Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and Self-Identity. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Jensen, J. (1992). Fandom as a Pathology: The Consequences of Characterisation. In L. a. Lewis, The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media (pp. 9-29). London: Routledge.

T. Staps, S. M. (n.d.). A Good Enough Fan Within an Online Community of Game of Thrones: An E-Ethnographic Enquiry.

User1. (2015, January 2). Retrieved from dslyl-ordr: http://dslyl-ordr.tumblr.com/post/106950714109/a-mini-rant-in-regards-to-fall-out-boy-fanfic