Customer-Fans and the Happily Exploited

Time for another story (I appear to have a lot to tell!); this time, about the experiences I had at the biggest comic book convention in the world, San Diego Comic Con International. When I graduated college, I moved to Los Angeles and ended up working at an agency that represents writers, directors and producers. […]

Echo Chambers and Fandom

Okay, first, let’s talk about echo chambers. You may have heard this term, especially since the 2016 presidential election. In media studies, an echo chamber is a community, usually one that is online, where the members of that community all have the same interests, values, and beliefs. This group of like-minded individuals talk with one […]

Call for Papers: The Fan Studies Network conference 2016

Originally posted on The Fan Studies Network:
THE FAN STUDIES NETWORK CONFERENCE 2016 25-26th June 2016 University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK Keynote Speaker: Professor Henry Jenkins (University of Southern California, USA). The fourth annual Fan Studies Network Conference is returning to the University of East Anglia for a two-day programme in June 2016. The…

The Pop Culture Lens: Fan Harassment

I have been talking about this idea of fractured fandom on this blog for awhile now, because I have been concerned with the problems and tensions fans are facing in contemporary fan communities and fandoms. Across the Internet and around the world, it seems that hardly a day goes by without another story, another anecdote, […]

The Pop Culture Lens: Episode on the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Fandom

On a special episode of The Pop Culture Lens podcast, Christopher Olson and I discuss a subject that has been one we have debated numerous times in our private lives and has become one that I have been focusing on as a research project: fandom, is it good or bad? http://ThePopCultureLens.podbean.com/mf/web/4kuzg8/Ep9FandomGoodBadUgly.mp3 We begin the conversation […]

Fandom as Repeatedly Returning to What Matters Most

Being a fan can mean many different things to many different people. It may mean a person likes to collect memorabilia for a favorite sports team. It may mean a group like to wear costumes and reenact an important event. It may mean individuals compete with one another to test their knowledge in trivia contests. […]

On the Nature of Being a Fan

I have an idea. An idea for how to look at fans, fandoms, fan communities, being a fan. It’s an idea in its early stages, one I need to ruminate over and let gestate and grow. It’s an idea that relates to my fractured fandom thoughts, but it goes beyond that, into a view on […]

Fractured Fandom and Contemporary Issues in Fan Communities

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 […]