Fame and Fandom: Functioning On and Offline

by Celia Lam (Editor), Jackie Raphael (Editor), Renee Middlemost (Editor)

Celebrities depend upon fans to sustain their popularity and livelihood, and fans are happy to oblige. With social media they can follow their favorite (or least favorite) celebrities’ every move, and get glimpses into their lives, homes, and behind-the-scenes work. Fans interact with celebrities now more than ever, and often feel that they have a claim on their time, attention, and accountability. In Fame and Fandom , the contributors examine this tumultuous dynamic and bring together celebrity studies and fan studies like never before.

In case studies including Supernatural , Harry Styles, YouTube influencers, film location sites, Keanu Reeves, and celebrities as fans, readers find new approaches to fan/celebrity encounters and parasocial relationships. This is the go-to volume on the symbiotic relationship between fame and fandom.

Genres: Nonfiction

242 pages, Paperback

Published November 29, 2022

Reviews

[Roxana Chirilă · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whenever you have a volume that collects the work of several people, you have a high chance of getting a mixed bag. And that's the case here.

The volume contains 10 chapters split into 4 parts. I'll say a few words about each of them. You'll have to excuse my levity; I'm writing this when I'm a bit tired.

Part 1: Expanding theoretical boundaries. Chapter 1. Diversifying Fan Methodologies and Inquiries: An Affective Decolonial Framework.

I'm starting to feel like the diversity introduction is becoming a staple of certain academic books. While there's nothing wrong with it per se, I'm not sure how to respond to it. Is it an apology for previous work? A commitment to do better? Or an apology, on the contrary, that this work might touch on diverse topics?

Anyway. The first chapter lampshades the fact that we're fed a lot of white media, and it shapes the way we see the world and what we find attractive. I would normally say "white US Hollywood media", because nobody, absolutely nobody, not a single soul that I'm aware of, has ever developed a fetish for white people while watching Romanian art movies, but, well. I guess "white" is used as shorthand.

I'm not sure what the author expects us to do about it other than notice it (and "decolonize", though that's easier said than done), but it's a good point.

Part 1: Expanding theoretical boundaries. Chapter 2. Fan Creator Personas in the Niche Creator Industries

This chapter is very, very dry, and to top that off, it's trying to make its acronyms a thing (such as "NCI" - Niche Creator Industry/ies). It has passages such as "The niche is not an idyllic conceptual space. The niche is a lived material reality where fan creator personas must negotiate the precarity of fan-based content creators." Or "The creative industries emerged out of the cultural industries in the 1990s as part of a systematic reformulation of creativity within an economic policy framework."

It's very fancy, and expressed in a very academic, very theory-oriented style.

The problem is that I spent half this chapter wondering what "niche creator industries" actually means. Were we talking about Pokemon crochet sold quietly on Etsy? Artisanal ice cream? M/M indie romances? When I was finally giving up on figuring out the topic, it turned out this was about people making miniatures - and other people who create nerdy objects *related to* companies without being *a part of* those companies! Ok.

Part 2: Parasocial Interactions and Relationships. Chapter 3. Sign of the Times: Generation Z, Transmedia Activism and Female Identity Formation through Harry Styles Fandom.

This was an interesting one. I know very little of Harry Styles (other than that the's famous), but the essay points out that he's so quiet and mysterious that fans can project all sorts of ideas onto him. More to the point, fans discovered activism thanks to him, his LGBTQ-friendly image, and other fans. It's an interesting exploration, though not very deep.

My only nitpick about this is that it's not about Gen Z, but about 12 people all over the world who are Gen Z; we don't know how they were chosen. But the author seems to think Gen Z is the same all over the world, describind the generation as Gen Z being marked by things such as "mass shootings". I'm not sure I agree; mass shootings are a very US thing, while some respondents are from the Netherlands, Germany and other countries that aren't anywhere *near* as gun-happy as the US.

Part 2: Parasocial Interactions and Relationships. Chapter 4. #AlwaysKeepFighting: The Legacy of Supernatural

This chapter is pretty great. It offers a decent history of Supernatural activism as done by both actors and fans, leading to the creation of helplines for depression (inspired by one of the actors on the show who struggles with depression himself). Fully recommended, it's clear, to the point, and interesting.

Part 2: Parasocial Interactions and Relationships. Chapter 5. Youtube Celebrities: Parasocial Relationships toward a Digital Influencer Career.

This chapter, on the other hand, feels like it's repeating some of its ideas over and over, and going nowhere. It could almost have something to say about Brazil's Youtube scene, but despite mentioning that it's huge and important, it barely goes into the topic. It feels like a wasted opportunity - I would have loved to hear more about the parasocial relationships at work on the Brazil scene (but the author probably wrote about that elsewhere, as interviews are mentioned, but barely touched upon).

Part 3: Fan Interactions. Chapter 6. Too Vulnerable to Fight: Protective and Agentive Digital Housewives and the Dataficated Fame of the Victimized Young-Fresh-Meat Idols.

This is another exciting one, about fandom in China. I'm not sure how it reads to someone who's in the know about the Korean and Chinese idol scenes, but for someone who isn't, it's clear, informative, and interesting, describing the system of becoming an idol, cultural expectations about what is proper, the power of fans, a bit of how idols work in China... it's fascinating.

Part 3: Fan Interactions. Chapter 7. Close to You: Film Fans' Visitation to Film Location Sites.

Another chapter about China, this time about physical film locations and actors - with very clear explanations of what fans expect and are able to do when visiting. More to the point of the chapter itself, it has insights about the relationship between fans, places and actors that are pretty good.

Part 3: Fan Interactions. Chapter 8. The Foundation of Continuity and Canonicity in Asimov's Shared Universe.

On the one hand, I love seeing Asimov mentioned in a fandom studies book; on the other, the chapter seems almost to regret that Asimov's expanded universe written by other authors for his estate isn't taken as seriously as canon.

I guess it's interesting to explore why; but the answer given here feels incomplete. Yes, I guess that Asimov became a sort of celebrity whose very celebrity-ness pushed other authors away from being recognized when they wrote Foundation/Robots stories; also, the fact that they couldn't write anything to forward or recontextualize canon is also a problem. However, there are other series (Wheel of Time, Dune) who also have outsider authors who are treated differently than the original ones.

I think the topic could be better explored from the perspective of ideas of originality and authorship (as starting from Romanticism), but also in relation to style/plots/etc. But that would take a whole book, not a single chapter.

Part 4: Transforming Celebrity Identity. Chapter 9. Murray Stories and Keanu Memes: The Role of Offline Encounters in Online Celebrity Identity Construction.

Really nice article about Bill Murray and Keanu Reeves' online fandoms and how their personas are constructed. Just like Harry Styles, they are easier to project onto because they don't say much online, and are thus not-quite-blank canvases for projection.

Part 4: Transforming Celebrity Identity. Chapter 10. Celebrity Fans Courtside: Trash Talk, Twitter and Teaming Up.

Re-reading the title, I'm not sure where the trash talk was mentioned - maybe I simply forgot. Anyway, this is about celebrities who are sports fans and how they influence and are influenced by attendance to sports. I'm not that excited by it.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for offering an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Nev · Rating 4 out of 5]

Am I an academic specializing in fan studies? Nope. But I’ve been having a great time reading different books from the Fandom & Culture series from University of Iowa Press just for fun. Fame and Fandom touches on the ways that fans interact with celebrities, social media and fandom, parasocial relationships, and so much more.

As with any collection some chapters will be stronger or more interesting than others. While I’m not personally a Harry Styles fan, I did find the chapter about young women who are fans of him and how that type of fandom is so routinely pathologized or looked down upon to be pretty interesting. It reminded me of being a BTS fan, especially the parts about how fans are exposed to social issues and broaden their horizons through what the celebrity stands for. I also really enjoyed the chapter about Bill Murray stories and Keanu Reeves memes and how that fan created/promoted online content creates a mythology or continued popularity for the celebrities.

Overall I think this was a really interesting read and is definitely accessible for people who aren’t scholars in the field. If the topics in the description look interesting to you then I say to give it a shot.

Thank you to the publisher for providing an advance copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Kate Lucas · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you’re like me, someone not working in the field of celebrity studies but interested in the history and anthropological meaning of celebrity-fan interactions around the world, this book is the best resource out there. Fame and Fandom covers not only the fan culture of film celebrities but also sports stars and online influencers, even going so far as to discuss what happens when a celebrity actually participates in fan culture rather than being the object of it.

The culture of fandom shapes both the celebrities’ experience of fame (i.e how they’re perceived and even how much they can excel in their field) and their impact on the world (there is a whole chapter centering on the charitable campaigns of the cast of Supernatural, on which the fans were an enormous influence). It can be dense reading at times for the layman, but the research is really fascinating.

Something I appreciated about this book was that it didn’t just focus on American fan and celebrity culture; this research spans the globe, from the film megastars of China to the reigning YouTube celebrities of Brazil. It’s a well rounded approach to the subject and a great introduction to the field of celebrity studies.

A big thank you to NetGalley and University of Iowa Press for sharing a galley with me.

[J Earl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fame and Fandom, edited by Celia Lam, Jackie Raphael, Renee Middlemost, and Jessica Balanzategui, is a collection of essays that works on broadening the interdisciplinarity and diversity of fan studies and closely associated studies.

A couple of quick notes, I am no longer in academia so while this is something I would have been reading at the time I am no longer current on the theories or methodology. That puts me somewhere between the primary readership, academics, and those who will likely have an interest in the topic, namely fans (or perhaps PR people?). My main interest, other than simply wanting to know what is going on, is to better understand a type of fandom that is remarkably different at first glance from what someone my age thinks of. There are, however, many similarities at the core, but with different ways in which to express being a fan, the world of today's fans is very different from what I knew.

Some of the essays may well only be of interest to those in the scholarly fields surrounding this topic. I am thinking primarily of the ones that concentrate on methodology and definitions. These are still interesting but if you're reading this to see where you stand within this larger picture they likely aren't going to be of much interest. The essays that serve as the case studies explain their own definitions and methodology, so skimming the dedicated chapters won't affect your understanding of the case studies.

As a reader who isn't invested in any particular approaches I was able to read this strictly to learn and not to judge whether I liked or disliked an approach. That said, some things still grated on me. Saying research is about "Generation Z" then having a dozen interviewees and specifically all born within a four-year period of the time generally considered that generation just seemed a bit off to me. I can't speak for what is happening in research in this field and at this time, but if I had claimed I was going to look at Baby Boomers' reaction to some cultural phenomenon then limited my research to 12 people born between, say, 1954 and 1958, I would have been sent back to do more research. But that would have been cultural studies and about 15 years ago, so things have changed. Interpolation can be much broader than it once was.

I would say this is essential reading for anyone in the field or anyone working peripherally to the field. I also think those who might never do such research but can benefit in their discipline from some of the findings here will also find this a useful read. While not quite as enthusiastically, I would recommend this to readers who are fans and want to better understand the world in which they are operating. This includes, broadly speaking, influencers and other niche social media personalities.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[aliteraryarchivist · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actual Rating 3.5stars

Fame and Fandom was an intriguing introspection into society's realtionship with the internet, but more specifically with Fandoms. Social media plays a huge role in our society and has altered the communicative interactions between humans. As a result, people have more opportunities to interact with one another. Arguably, this accessiblity has caused an increase in parasocial realtionships with celebrities and fandom culture. I think this book does an excellent job discussing this topic. I also admire how the authors transformed fan culture into an academic study. As an academic it is discouraging to see people pushback against fan culture because it is such a critical aspect to our society.

Thank you to Netgalley and University of Iowa Press for allowing me to read this book.