Fan CULTure: Essays on Participatory Fandom in the 21st Century

by Kristin M. Barton (Editor), Jonathan Malcolm Lampley (Editor), Stephen J. Sansweet (Forward)

Fan CULTure explores how present-day fans interact with the films, television shows, books, and pop culture artifacts they love. From creating original works of fanfiction to influencing the content of major primetime series through social media, fans are no longer passive consumers. They have evolved into active participants in creating and shaping these works. The all-new essays in this collection provide in-depth analyses of how fans interact with such popular franchises as Harry Potter, Supernatural, Lost, Lord of the Rings, Joss Whedon's Serenity, and examines as well non-media based topics like fans of the LEGO building blocks, Disneyland, and NFL quarterback Tim Tebow.

Genres: Nonfiction, Adult, Fandom, Pop Culture, Academic

212 pages, Paperback

First published November 7, 2013

Reviews

[Tara Brabazon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sigh. Another mediocre book on media fandom and participatory culture. This subgenre of cultural and media studies is a theory-free zone. It is almost as if the innovations in popular cultural studies, the political economy and digitization are invisible to fan studies.

To make matters worse, this book is so US-centric that - when reading it in regional Australia - I felt like a child sitting in the naughty corner. The rest of the world seemingly does not have fan CULTure.

Sigh.

The three best chapters in this book, which are worth reading, are on adult Harry Potter smut fanfiction (Don Tresca), social media use by X-Files fans (Bethan Jones) and a great research project on adult users/players/collectors of lego (Jennifer Garlen). For the rest of the collection - give it a miss.

[Danielle]

I read "Spellbound" by Don Tresca and "A New Kind of Pandering" by Anissa M. Graham for research for a project. Hopefully I'll have more to say when I am done with said project.

[C-chan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the first third of the book was quite overwhelming, a lot more interested in explanation without any synthesis, and perhaps not the most relevant to my interests. Starting with Gwynne's essay "Fan Made Time: The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit", however, it started to pick up for me, and I particularly liked Graham's "A New Kind of Pandering: Supernatural and the World" (and, full disclosure, I've never watched an episode of Supernatural in my life, so this is entirely me agreeing with the discussion that took place within).

In short, there are some essays within this book that deserved five stars, and some that perhaps would only get two or three from me. If you are looking for several viewpoints and several fandoms discussed within a single volume, this book may be worth a read. However, don't expect every article to be equally compelling: several fail, in my opinion, to come into their own, but those that do do so well.

[Taylor Ellwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this collection of essays, the authors share how fans interact with pop culture and corporations in order to keep their particular fan interests alive. There are three angles explored: Fan production, which shows how fans create content related to what love and how they get around potential corporate legal issues, the use of social media and how it effects fandom, and finally how fans influence the official content created by corporations. throughout all these essays, you'll get some fascinating insights into fan behavior and why fans do what they do as well as how it creates fan specific culture. Highly recommended if you are interested in pop culture studies or want to understand how fans effect pop culture production.

[Yu · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book really has an eye-catching title -- CULT culture the word "cult" in our "culture". Well, it is just the title. There is nothing "exciting" or appealing to read in the book, instead, a pile of case studies I would say, based on empty theories, or even no theory at all. This supposes to be a scientific book combining various authors on various topics, genres and shows, from tv to podcast and movies, however, each essay feels like authors telling their own fan stories with a super boring storyline. I didn't find any solid base theory or argument, rather, a bunch of out-dated shows that had lots of fans and how they got them. Introduction and conclusion are sloppy too. Would be fine for a background reading.

[Dru Pagliassotti · Rating 3 out of 5]

A variety of papers on fan productions, fan use of social media, and how fans influence content. Among the fandoms and subjects discussed are Browncoats, Dark Shadows, LOTR, X-Files, Lost, adult-themed Harry Potter fanfic, Wincest, recut film trailers, Tim Tebow, LEGO, Disneyland, and the Chuck/Subway dynamic. I liked the fact that it goes beyond telefantasy to talk about a wider variety of fandom. I think the collection contains interesting if specialized information; it's worth a read if you're studying fans/fandom or are a member of any of these fandoms.

[Danika at The Lesbrary · Rating 3 out of 5]

While there are a few interesting essays in here, I found most of them disappointing. They tended to just cover the history of a fandom, without actually trying to make any overarching point. It was the Harry Potter essay that I was most interested in, and therefore most disappointed by. Its ending message seemed to be: "Sexual fan fic... maybe not entirely horrible?"