Today I launch an online survey to gather people’s anonymous and confidential stories of their experiences dealing with other fans.
This survey is part of my ongoing research into the phenomenon I call fractured fandom. Primarily, with this story, I want to hear people’s real problems of dealing with fans, whether they were fans of the same thing, fans of different things, or just fans in general. I want people to think of this survey as a place to share their concerns and problems openly, honestly, and without fear of reprisal.
I want to hear from people who are sports fans, anime fans, wrestling fans, Star Trek fans, Sherlock fans, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fans, food fans, music fans, video game fans — any type, make or model of fan, I would love to hear from you.
The survey asks you to recall a specific experience of having a problem, conflict, tension, argument, harassment, fight or simply unpleasant experience with another fan, with other fans, or with an entire fan community or fandom. I ask you a series of questions about this situation to understand what happened and what you experienced.
Anything you tell me will be de-identified so that nothing you say can be traced back to you. I want you to feel safe in telling me what happened, why you think it happened, and how you responded to it all.
You may say as much as you like in this survey, so how long it takes to complete it will ultimately be up to you. You should plan to spend, on average, 15-25 minutes answering the questions.
Please feel free to spread the link to the survey via social media, to other fans you know, so that more stories of these issues can be told.
At any point, if you have any questions, please contact me here or via email at creinhard@dom.edu.
Here is the link for the survey: https://dom.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_6gtYqiT4nG8fjPn
And thank you so much for your help.
It's Playing, Just With Research 