- The question of how fandom works has been popping up in the media. Entertainment Weekly used the finale of True Detective to raise the question: ‘Does modern TV fandom actually make it harder to understand TV shows?’ “I wonder if the conversation around True Detective made the show seem more ambitious than it actually was. I wonder what it would be like if we could have those conversations about shows that do have a deeper point beyond ‘Good vs. Evil.'” (Spoiler warning for the series).
- At The Mary Sue, Rachael Berkey used the return of Veronica Mars to look at changing fandom. “I was seventeen when I joined my first fandom. It was 1999, and Rent was kind of a big deal…Fandom feels like a completely different beast in 2014. There’s a lingo to it you have to translate until you really go native.” She believes that “Fandom has hit its stride in the second decade of the new millennium. Thanks to successful fan-funded projects like the Veronica Mars movie, the great things about being a part of a fandom are being pulled right out into the open.”
- Bronies for Good posted a podcast of Feminism and the Fandom. “One of the core aspects of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is how it strives to provide empowerment for young girls through a medium that is typically unfavorable to women. As part of the content blitz for International Women’s Day discussed in more detail in our previous post, and in collaboration with The Round Stable, we have invited fellow fans to discuss femininity, feminism, and women’s issues in the context of MLP:FiM and its fandom.” (No transcript available).
- NPR’s Code Switch transcribed their discussion of race in World of Warcraft. Although the interview began by saying “Don’t worry, this isn’t about racial disparities between black, Latino and Asian players”, in fact the discussion does end up there. “DEMBY: So there were no, like, guilds full of young Latino kids? SCHELLDORF: I never met a single person with a ‘Hispanic-sounding’ accent on the game. But I can say that those who sounded Asian or black were less welcomed…HERNANDEZ: I wish I had found a Latino guild! It would have made things way easier. A friend actually joined an Australian guild one time on accident, so there are definitely some guilds with national or racial identity out there. For us it was about finding a good raiding guild, and eventually a good raiding guild that didn’t hate on our accent.”
What factors about how fandom works have you noticed? Write about them on Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans.
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