Fandom 2.0: Rethinking the “Non- Particpatory ” Fan

1. Fandom 2.0: Rethinking the “Non-Particpatory” Fan Internet Research 14, Denver CO Rhiannon Bury, PhD Athabasca University rhiannonbury.org Twitter: @television2pt0

2. Fans…organize their schedules to insure that they will be able to see their favorite program. Confessions of missing an episode are almost automatically met with sympathetic offers from other fans willing to “clone” tapes to remedy this gap. The series becomes the object of anticipation: previews are scrutinized in fine detail, each frame stopped and examined for suggestions of potential plot developments; fans race to buy TV Guide as soon as it hits the newsstands so that they may gather new material for speculation from its program descriptions. Secondary materials about the stars or producers are collected and exchanged within the fan network….[T]hese activities provide the fan with the information needed to participate fully in the critical debates of the fan community. (Jenkins, 1992: 57-58, emphasis mine)

3. Do you consider yourself a fan?(Minimal activity: watching the majority of episodes of at least one season of a particular series.)

4. Do you visit online discussion forums set up by the networks who broadcast the series, or independent sites such as Television Without Pity? Do you participate in the discussions?

5. Do you read fan fiction? Have you written any fan fiction and shared it with others?

6. Do you watch fan videos based on any of the series? Have you made your own fan vids and shared them with other fans?

7. Interview data (n=72) and analysis • 34 = participatory fans • 38= non-participatory (NP)fans • Primary Relations (viewing only) • Secondary Relations (information seeking through secondary texts) • Oral/Online Culture (discussion, interaction and community)

8. Viewers only (sort of) Interviewer: With the shows that you are currently watching do you find that you go and explore further information about them online with other people? Kate: No. Interviewer: Have you ever done that for any TV show in the past? Gone online to interact with people around them? Kate: No. Interviewer: Nothing like Facebook or Twitter to follow TV shows? Kate: I think I get updates on Dancing with the Stars when it’s on because I went and ‘liked’ it one time and now they keep feeding it to you. But that’s probably the only. Or no, I see I get Dexter show up there but that’s been awhile too. So I guess I am. Interviewer: Do you respond to the comments at all? Kate: No.

9. Information Seekers • I do go online to get information about the shows. So news about the actors and plots. (LWR Jacobs) • Every time I see that there is a season finale I go online to see if something happens next. Actually, sometimes I follow also what happens with the actors to make sure that they will be in the next one and stuff like that. (Madlene) • Once or twice while I was watching The Wire because I had seen it before, I did go to a few sites and read just some general like Wikipedia type generalities about the series. But yeah, mostly I actively avoid doing that because I don’t want spoilers. (Nomdeplume)

10. I wanted to find out who was playing Drogo [in Game of Thrones] because he was so enormous and I was like, who the hell is that guy? So I tracked him. He is an Hawaiian actor who has been in Stargate Atlantis. I know him; he’s the big dreaded guy….It’s him! (KhalDrogo) For the Real Housewives shows I am a big fan of the blogs on BRAVO. I like to read the cast logs and then BRAVO hired this outside blogger for one of the series who is just really funny. I like the recaps on this website, Gawker.com. They are just really snarky. I [go online]I would say for extra features. Whether it’s a behind-the-scenes thing or little outtakes. Some sites are better than others obviously. And then sometimes, yeah I am curious what people are writing or saying. A lot of times that’s true for reality TV shows, where I will want to see how people reacted to a particular episode. (Max)

11. Lurkers: A Bad Rap? • No, never. As I explained earlier, I will [talk about TV] part face-to-face. At work, at school with friends but it’s not the thing I will do online….I may sometimes if I am amazed or if I am really touched by something, communicate it on Facebook and then if some people respond I will respond to them. But that’s as far as I will go. (Phillip) • I occasionally read online discussion boards. Usually they have too many spoilers or shippers honestly, and I don’t want to read it. They get annoying, especially if you watch Bones. The Bones shippers just really make online space nearly uninhabitable! (Libby) • I have been reading recaps and going to forums on Television Without Pity for 8-9 years. That’s sort of my primary forum site….Also I tend to go to the [TWOP] forums for whatever sort of shows I am currently watching that are currently airing and sort of checking out real time responses and things like that. So I’ve spent a lot of time lately on the Pretty Little Liars board. (Margene)

12. I like to read the comments. Again, I just, maybe it’s my inner high schooler or something. I don’t think I have ever commented. That’s a lie. I commented once. There is a site called Pandagon and there is this blogger, Amanda Marcotte. She is a feminist blogger and she does the blogs on Mad Men when it’s running. (Farah) • I used to go on [The Hills sites] a lot because that was a show…I don’t have much of a community, like friends watching that show or something. So I will seek it out in other ways…. Now that I am talking about it that kind of makes sense because other shows like ones where my partner and I watch them, we can talk to each other or I have other friends watching the same shows….I think I am a bit of a lurker. I definitely probably prefer reading more than contributing. I have contributed. Not as much lately. Again, just more time. (Tasha)

13. Boundary Fans • Yeah, you know what probably got me started doing it was Lost. I mean, Lost was the first show where I realized there was this huge internet community building up around it where people actually wanted to blog about it or they wanted to write Wiki articles about it, make podcast about it. And the show to me was so interesting that it kind of drew me to go find what else was online and then that experience was rewarding so then it caused me to kind of look for ways to do that with other shows as well. (Camden) • [Refering to L-Word]: No other show has really enough meat and been as personally striking or personally engaging I would say. I am not going to look for the community for Nikita or whatever. (Courtney)

14. One thing that I did find is that in comments sometimes if I would direct a comment to a particular person and they would back and we would have a little mini conversation on a blog….So I kind of got to the sense where their particular identities of people online that would come up again and again and I could get to understand their tastes in television and know that it was kind of similar to my tastes. (Camden)

15. Fan Creativity • I am not a creator so I am not writing fanfic, I am not producing vids. I very rarely, outside of my professional interest, end up engaging with much in the way of fandom produced content. Not because of a desire not to but simply because of the fact that I don’t have enough time as it is to watch the content that I am trying to get to see! (William)

16. Conclusion • “Non-Participation” is not a very satisfactory categorization. • Reductionist and homogenizing. • But more importantly, it is sells such fans short. • Move beyond this hierarchical binary understanding of fans and move to a concept of the participatory continuum, that includes RL as well on online engagement and community.