Category: Fandom
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When Audiences Collide: The Fractured Fandom of My Little Pony
This post comes from a presentation I will be giving at the Popular Culture Association conference in Chicago on April 18th, 2014. This presentation comes from the beginning of the research I am doing with the help of my research assistant, Elizabeth Robinson. It is also an expanded version of the presentation I gave at…
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Support Grayson and All Young Bronies
If you are a My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fan, and you have not heard of Grayson Bruce, then you need to do some reading. And not just about Grayson, but about all the other young male fans of the series who are being bullied, by kids and adults alike, just because they have…
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The Fandom of Food
This blog post originally appeared on Clearance Bin Review. My main reason for including it on this blog is because of my interested in seeing foodies as a particular type of fandom, one that is related to both pop culture and high culture, as well as online culture. I still hope to do research on…
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Equestria Girls Sequel: Rainbow Rocks
The first was apparently a big enough hit (in home video sales at least) for the hit animated series that a follow-up is coming this fall. My Little Pony‘s Equestria Girls are returning in a sequel called “Rainbow Rocks.” The trailer went out online a couple days ago, and Hasbro released it on their MLP:FIM Facebook…
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Everypony is Somepony
This April is going to be all My Little Pony all the time, as I present my research on the fractured MLP:FIM fandom over the Equestria Girls movie. A long time ago — a year before the movie was released — I started looking into the fandom and the phenomenon of bronies. This post originally appeared over at Clearance Bin…
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Adventure Time, BMO and the Networked Self
Chris Olson wrote this initial take on the representation of BMO in the cartoon series Adventure Time for a class paper. In the paper he argues that BMO\’s representation in the series demonstrates the fluidity and hyperreality of identity and the idea that we come to develop our sense of self via our interactions with our online…
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Doctor Who Theme Week @ In Media Res
Chris Olson and I kick off the In Media Res theme week to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who. This piece, with a wonderful video produced by Chris, is based on the conference paper we recently presented at MPCA. You can see the post and the video via “I AM the Doctor”: Polysemic rhetoric and…
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Fractured Fandom
The full version of this article first appeared at the Clearance Bin Review. Given the importance of the concept, fractured fandom, to my work on Doctor Who and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, I am bringing the specific elements from the article here. Now, first and foremost, let it be said that I think these thoughts we…
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“I AM the Doctor.”: The Historical Trajectory of Doctor Who
“I AM the Doctor.”: Polysemic rhetorical flexibility and non-traditional audience reception in Doctor Who By Christopher J. Olson, DePaul University & CarrieLynn D. Reinhard, Dominican University This paper was presented at the MPCA 2013 Conference in St. Louis, Missouri. This is the longer version of the presentation, and thus it represents are full current thoughts on…
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A Real Virtual Haunted House
If you have the time and the wherewithal to go into the virtual world Second Life for Halloween, then I have the place for you: the Haunted House in Halloween Town. Now, I cannot take credit for finding this place. Last week I took my digital communication technology students into the social virtual world for one of…
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