The Fandom Project

Well. I've been very very busy. I'm very excited about this paper and can't wait to show it to you all!

Unfortunately, that's going to be a little longer than I expected. *sheepish*

My prof and I decided I am going to give her my paper when I get back from CT in about a week. She and I both agree that since I intend to work further on it to present at the College Research Conference (and perhaps beyond), I should take more time to make it better. That and I'm in end-of-finals, nervous collapse, holy-christ-just-get-it-done-cause-I'm-so-FUCKING-STRESSED!!!! mode and that's not the best place to be to get a solid paper out. :)

I intend to have the paper posted to the community for discussion by the end of the week of the 27th.

In the meantime, however, I am opening up posting access to all community members. So feel free to discuss meta-fandom amongst yourselves while I'm gone.

This is still a meta community. Posting questions or polls or topics for discussion about Fandom involvement is permissible. Posting fic and rants and other such things is not.

Please play nice. I will not be able to monitor with a fine-toothed comb since I will be largely without computer access (I can check in on family and friends' computers) for the next week.

Take care everyone and I hope you all are having a happy holiday season.

Hi all,

In the interest of furthering interest in fandom studies...here is an article from Nerve.com that some of you might find interesting about women and yaoi fandom. It even mentions LJ! I'll be replying to comments and such very very soon. Today is my last day of work before four whole glorious days off...*wiggles*

Hello!

What are some "fan" stereotypes? (Meaning the stereotypes the "general public" has about fans, rather than the stereotypes fans themselves have.)

Are there different stereotypes for female and male fans? Is the stereotype "gendered"?

Are there different stereotypes about different types of fans (comics fans, media fans, sci-fi fans etc)?

Do you think these stereotypes affect other's perceptions of you as a fan? Do they affect how you think about yourself? How so?

How do real fans differ from or compare to the stereotype? How do you differ or compare in particular?

Well it's crunch time for me. These next three weeks are going to mark the beginning of my writing process for this project. I'm going to rapid-fire some questions at you over the next week and a half or two weeks and then completely disappear for a while. Before I disappear, however, I'm probably going to open up posting access so that all members may post.


That last question's responses were so fantastic. Thank you all. Based on those responses (I was afraid of being accused of "tricking" you all but you're way too smart for that)....

~~~~~

Would you define fandom as a female space if we tweak the previous definition a bit and say a "female space" is "a space in which women can be whatever they like without fear of or having to fight against being silenced, attacked, intimidated, dominated or otherwise disempowered by others in that space for any particular female state of being (thanks to minor_ramblings for the working).

In addition, is it your experience that fandom is largely composed on one gender or another? If so, please define your "type" of fandom (ie TV, movie, book, comics, anime, etc), ETA2: whether you participate in that fandom on LJ or other places on the internet and toward which gender it skews.

ETA: "Female state of being" simply means "identifying as female or being seen by others as female." Meaning do you think people are silenced, attacked, etc because they are female?

So...*rubs hands together in a sinister way* here's a short one. Not a simple one. But a short one :).

~~~~~

Do you think LJ fandom is a "female space"? Why or why not? How or how not? Tell me about your experiences, please give details or examples if you can. :)

My loose definition of female space can be found here.
"I'd define "female space" as a space in which women can be whatever they like without fear of or having to fight against being silenced, attacked, intimidated, dominated or otherwise disempowered by others in that space. This definition doesn't exclude men (though other more 'separatist' feminist scholars might disagree with me) or even say that men are doing the attacking. (It is often other women who enforce societal "norms" about gender more stringently than men.) "Female space" doesn't mean "entirely composed of women."

You're the best! *hugs to all*

ETA: I just have to say...these answers are great.

I'd also like to clarify, now that I've gotten home from work and reread what I wrote, that I am not "looking" for an answer here. No one has asked me about this or implied it but I realized that the definition above could be considered "leading".

There will be a follow up post based on your answers.

Hey all! Well here it is. Moment of truth. Behind the cut you'll find my Literature Review for this project. I want to hear what you all have to say about it! This paper is a short outline of the theroretical approaches I'll be using in my final project. It doesn't contain any information that is terribly specific to this community or even all the sources I'll be using for the final paper. It's really quote-heavy but it's supposed to be. It's also only loosely beta-ed. I unfortunately had to hand it in before I could have someone else look over it for spelling, grammar, typos so please forgive me. I'm particularly interested in hearing from the academics among us. I feel like this is pretty wild theorizing.

I hope you like it! And please do feel free to discuss anything in it with me or amongst yourselves. Ack! I'm so nervous. *deep breath* OK, here goes....

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(x-posted to personal journal)

Hey ya'll. I'm up to my ears in secondary sources for The Fandom Project. I mostly want to die...

I am awaiting delivery of the Jenkins and Bacon-Smith books which are like VITAL and I have an 8 page literature review due Tuesday (TOMORROW!!!! EEEEK!) at 2pm. I have nothing written and I think I broke my brain this weekend with the reading. I have to wade through like 20 books about 5 different types of theory to have a prayer of applying any of it to this project. This is what I get for taking interest in a brand new subject. There is exactly ONE anthropological theoretical article on internet culture - Arturo Escobar's "Welcome to Cyberia". And it doesn't deal with fandom. In The Cyberculture's Reader there is one essay by an anthropologist - and it's "Welcome to Cyberia." And one article about women in online fandom - and it's in Wired Women as well. Therefore I have to apply lots of interdisciplinary theory to an anthropological case study. *whimpers*

The following are the theoretical perspectives I am applying to my project:

Queer Theory - "queering" fandom, if you will
Feminist/Female/Women's Space
Internet Culture
Fandom History and Culture
Communication/Language on the Internet

None of these are actually all dealt with in the same texts. Yup. Brain definitely broken. I know I've reached a research apotheosis because everything/one I'm reading is quoting and citing everything/one else I'm reading. That's good news at least.

I will post the finished lit review paper here by the end of the week - I'd love to hear what you all have to say about it! :)

One of the unique things about internet fandom is that we all must use written, typographical language to communicate....

1) When you first entered online fandom or online culture in general - what was your experience of the use of language?

2) Did your or other's unfamiliarity with net-/fan-speak ever cause any misunderstandings? Did you stay in "lurk mode" for a while, etc?

3) How did you learn net-/fan-speak? Asking people? If so, how did they respond? Looking for online fan dictionaries? Context? All of these?

Thank you all for your interesting responses :). Participation seems to be key to people feeling like they're part of a fandom community. "Participation" is defined in various ways by various people but as I'm interested mostly in the concept of "participation", here is my next question...

1) Several of you have mentioned in passing how you perceive certain fandoms to be more difficult to "get into" participating in and thus, being part of the community. Why do you think this is? Size of the fandom? Amount of disagreement?

2) Once you were interested in a "text"/"medium" (book, show, author, movie, etc), have you ever felt intimidated/wary of beginning to participate in a fandom? Have you stayed away from a fandom b/c of this? If so, why? Did you participate anyway? What were the results?

I thought you all would appreciate this :). Gacked from tafkar.</span> More fandom questions coming soon! Thanks to those who responsed to my frenetic brainstorming mess of a last post. *hugs* 

Dork Tower (fairly large pic in link)