Fandom: The Subculture and its Social Significance
The internet has allowed for fan culture to become more widespread and accessible than ever before. This participatory culture relates to fans acting as consumers, producers and creators. According to “Fandom and Participatory Culture”, an article featured on Grinnell College’s website, fandoms are “communities built around a shared enjoyment of an aspect of popular culture, such as books, movies, TV shows, bands, sports or sports teams” (Grinnell College). Henry Jenkins, American Scholar and Professor of Communication coined the term. Jenkins contrasts participatory culture with consumer culture, while focusing on folk culture and neofolk culture. Jenkins mentions in “Quentin Tarantino’s Star Wars? Grassroots Creativity Meets the Media Industry” fans are the most active segment of the media audience. He states, “Fans have always been early adopters of new media technologies” (Jenkins). This new culture encourages broad participation as well. In fact, Jenkins explains, “The emergence of modern mass media spelled the doom for the vital folk culture traditions that thrived in the 19th century” (Jenkins). In folk culture, there is no clear division between producers and consumers. Because of this, the web has led to many unauthorized and unanticipated ways of relating to media content.
As Aja Romano states in her article featured on Vox, “At the start of this decade, ‘fandom’ wasn’t a word most people knew, much less fully understood” (Romano). Although this term is relatively new, it is important to understand its rise to fame and how it differentiates itself from “fans”. As previously stated, a fandom is a relatively niche number of people who self-identified as being part of a community of fans. On the other hand, a fan is someone who has an intense liking and enthusiasm for an organization, person, group of persons, or trend. According to Romano’s article, “Throughout the 2010s, fandom found its way into politics, and politics found their way into fandom, from call-out culture to Gamergate” (Romano). Since then, “fans” themselves became divided into several more aggressive tiers, from “superfans” (really intense fans) to “stans” (really intense, possibly toxic, fans) to “antis,” fans whose identities revolved around hating other fans or even parts of their own fandom.
This relates to how companies and organizations respond to the growth of fandoms. To date, the prohibitionist stance has been dominant within old media companies, including film, television, and the recording industry. New media companies including internet, games, and to a lesser degree, the mobile phone companies, are experimenting with new approaches which see fans as important collaborators in the production of content — known as collaborationists (Jenkins). These approaches are synonymous with the response to growth fandoms and their social significance.
Fandom is slowly but surely changing the way businesses create and share information with its publics. The media industry is having to rethink their marketing techniques to interpret their fandoms and keep them happy. One of the most famous fandoms globally is the Harry Potter fandom and Beliebers. It is these fandoms that spark change. In need to adapt, many shows have now shifted their language and marketing strategies to target their fans. Q&A’s, images and quotes are just some examples of the ways fandoms create hype. Fandoms have an immense impact on whether or not a series gets renewed as well. Whether you’re aware of it or not, it is evident that fandoms and their presence heavily emphasize this idea of social change.
