Global Fandom: Libertad Borda (Argentina)

A handwritten note (The Peronist Box) advertising cheap items in an anime convention in Buenos Aires (Photograph: Gerardo del Vigo).

Although it has become more and more difficult to establish a clear correlation between fandoms, practices and national roots, mainly for online researchers, I am going to speak from the perspective of the Argentine context. But in the first place, I would like to summarize the hypothesis built in my PhD dissertation (2012), which was a theoretical input for other researchers whom I was honored to tutor in their graduate and postgraduate works. In dialogue with the different trends within fan studies literature, I ventured the idea that the fan phenomenon [fanatismo] has become a true pool of diverse resources (comprising attitudes, expectations, practices, and relational modes between peers and with institutions) which increasingly contributes to the creation of individual or collective identities. I borrowed this expression from E.P. Thompson (1990) with the intention of addressing some of the criticism directed at previous academic approaches and moving away from the reference to a condition corresponding to a certain “type” of consumer. In these observations I made a provisional list of the items in that pool, which is constantly growing or being restructured. Among many other items, the list included elements such as enunciative and textual productivity, the building of community and reciprocal ties, modes of performance.  The main objective of this enumeration was simply to highlight the fact that there were no a priori hierarchies among items: against any prescriptive or normalizing notion of fans, this hypothesis proposes that we cannot predict whether they will be “textual poachers” like the DeCerteausian consumers, industry watchdogs or any of the multiple possible grades between the two. 

Which will be the combination of ítems and the direction the fandom or fan in question will go? Will they appropriate the text in an escapist way? Will their reading be resistant? Will they form a subculture with their peers? Will they be functional to industry interests? Will they generate new practices opaque to the eyes of that same industry? There are no answers previous to field analysis, as it will all depend on the specific configuration of the historical context, industry conditions, former fan experience of the members and, very importantly, some other cleavages like gender, class, or race. 

Another key aspect of this proposal is that though this pool of resources was firstly sketched by fan actions, today it is also available for the industry itself.  Industry always took fans into account, providing them with material and taking advantage of their networks. However, this was a relationship with fans who were already self-identified as such, because the main aim was to gain bigger and bigger mass audiences, and they considered fans as enthusiastic, though eccentric, disseminators, who helped in this process.  

Today, though mass production is still an intrinsic drive for industry, fans clearly stopped being the marginal helper who knocked at the back door to become a key word in marketing lingo, not only in entertainment but also in all economic fields (“turn customers into fans” is today’s marketing mantra). Thus, fanification of audiences is another step in the process of commercialization. Industry strategically selects resources, discarding those which do not guarantee control over the activity they encourage. 

As from this general theoretical basis, my research group has been able to find common grounds for local studies on very different fandoms such as music fandoms (cumbia and romantic music fans), media fandoms (comprising such diverse objects as global franchises and local TV genres), and soccer fandom. 

Now that I have outlined theses general premises, I would like to make three specific observations:

1) Nominalization issues: In the so called peripheral countries (as opposed to central ones,  but mainly to US central position), fan studies researchers experience an extra challenge which is the linguistic mismatch as regards English lexicon. For decades, in Argentina the term used was “admiradores” [admirers], and when “fan” began to get used, it was only restricted to club membership. To add further confusion, “fanático” was also used, and this probably contributed to fuel both the religious overtones in media representations, stressing the negative aspect of the practices.  It was approximately around 2000 that “fan” started to encompass a more neutral meaning. In the sports field this mismatch is even larger, because “fan” was only incorporated in recent years and its use is still limited. Soccer fans (Argentina’s most popular sport) are named “hinchas”, and the fandom is “hinchada”. These terms tend to refer more to bodily practices and do not easily travel from offline to online. This fact may have influenced the special isolation of scholars who study soccer fans (a field with an important development in Argentina. Pablo Alabarces’s work, for instance) from other fan-related object researchers. Up to a point, the rejection of many soccer fans to be named as such is also found in scholars of that area, who avoid interacting with fan studies literature. We could also hypothesize a gender bias here, because “passion” for soccer is seen as a legitimate feeling whereas “adoring” a singer or an actor is still rejected as teen feminine irrationality (though with much less aggressiveness today) and, much more often, unproductive expenditure. 

2) Transformation of objects and fandoms: Fandoms have always been prone to change, but sometimes the change in fandoms derives from transformations in the object itself. Such is the case of the Latin American TV genre knows as telenovela.  As it has very often been remarked, melodrama is the Latin American cultural pattern par excellence, permeating languages, genres and even political and religious discourses. Telenovela has been its main exponent for decades and the online reactions of its audience was the focal point of my PhD work. Years ago telenovelas showed locations of nearby countries, such as Brazil, México or Colombia, and old telenovela fan forums (today practically non-existent due to new social networks such as Facebook or Twitter) brimmed with questions on the meaning of certain words not used in Río de la Plata (Argentina and Uruguay) Spanish, or of slightly different local habits. Currently, this situation has changed, mainly in Argentina, where very few telenovelas are produced today (even before pandemics) and the genre is no longer the transgenerational object it used to be–now it is relegated to lower income, older demographics. To make matters worse, new industry players made their way into the market, such as Turkey (today you can watch four Turkish soap operas a week in Argentine broadcast TV, and none from Argentina). So the old melodrama has moved to some very restricted spaces within streaming platforms, mainly Netflix. These platforms have a much lower share among the lower income sectors, which traditionally formed the core telenovela audience even when it was watched across different social sectors. On the other hand, the panorama of streaming platforms is completely different from that of television. US and other central countries shows take up the overwhelming majority of the options available, and local offerings face a David-Goliath fight, so they have to adapt to different production modes from those of the old national products. Thus, one of challenges facing melodrama fan researchers is to enquire how the sociocultural profile of this new fan has changed and which of the old fandom practices still prevail. 

3)              National peculiarities. Whereas fandoms tend to have common features worldwide, there are always peculiarities. Argentinians are often considered very politically minded, and youth plays an important part in political participation. So (party) politics is part of everyday social discourse and consequently it can crawl its way into many situations involving fan practices. For instance, six years ago when a new telenovela was announced starring actors and actresses who sympathized with Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (aka CFK, former President and today’s Vice-president), many genre fans who hated her announced an anti-fan campaign against the telenovela. So many CFK supporters took it as a sort of duty to watch it as part of its political obligations, and to advocate it in Facebook and Twitter. Unknowingly for most, they acted like a very vocal fandom. 

To give an example from a very different fandom, we can see party politics also making its way into local anime conventions. The use of Peronism as a synonym for cheap and popular (image 1), or the offer of “Otaku and Peronist” pins (image 2) are indicative of tensions within society in general but also within this fandom, which has, in the last two decades, witnessed the surge of new fans from a different social sector than that of upper and middle classes who used to form most of the fandom. This use is probably ironic for most Otaku, but there might be newcomers sincerely identifying themselves as Peronist. 

Paradoxically, mainly due to the fact that fan studies are only beginning in Argentina, the questions posed by the link between fandoms and party politics, which are arising in other parts of the world, are still an unexplored field. 

Libertad Borda holds a degree in Communication Sciences (Universidad de Buenos Aires, UBA) and a PhD in Social Sciences (UBA, 2012). Since 1998 I have been a faculty member in UBA, where the course name is Popular Culture and Mass Culture. The title of my doctoral dissertation was Bettymaníacos, luzmarianas y mompirris. El fanatismo en los foros de telenovelas and I coauthored with Federico Álvarez Gandolfi a collection of research works on fandom (Fanatismos. Prácticas de consumo de la cultura de masas, Editorial Prometeo, in press). 

A pin sold in an anime convention in Buenos Aires. 

Global Fandom Jamboree: Wikanda Promkhuntong (Thailand)

An image taken at Angkor Wat in 2019 at a possible spot where Chow Mo-wan (Tony Lueng) whispered his secret into the wall.

My engagement with fan studies began with an exploration of contemporary auteur culture, in which crossover fans play a key part in sustaining the reputation of East Asian transnational filmmakers such as Wong Kar-wai. With the revival of cinephilia and the diversity of works in fan studies, I have been interested in the meeting point and divergence between these two strands of thinking. In 2016, I presented a paper at the Association for Southeast Asian Cinemas Conference in Malaysia on cinephile pilgrimage to Angkor Wat featured in the final sequence of In the Mood for Love (2000). A magic moment happened during the Q&A as a professor in Theology stood up to share his experience of doing a reenactment in Cambodia just before the conference. From there, I had an opportunity to co-edit a special issue on Fandom and Cinephilia in Southeast Asia for Plaridel, a Philippine Journal of Communication, Media, and Society, with the help of Dr. Bertha Chin. With these beginnings, below is my humble reflection on fan studies in Thailand where I am now based.

1.     When we set out to gather works for the special issue in 2017, I thought we would be flooded with submissions. What I soon realized was that despite the public and academic interests, not many had existing research ready to publish. There were a number of Master’s students in Anthropology writing about specific fandoms but it would take some time to develop their papers in English. At least two works I encountered at local conferences also did not engage with theoretical development in fan studies at all. Having asked around for any books related to fan studies in the Thai language, Assoc. Prof. Natthanai Prasannam, who was writing his own monograph on Thai yaoi fandom at the time, pointed me to an edited collection published in 2015, with a chapter suggesting the arrival of fan studies in the country. The chapter by Assoc. Prof. Kanchana Kaewthep is important in at least two ways. First, it introduces fan studies to Thai readers, with references to Jenkin’s works amongst others. Second, the writer includes a list of 40 theses published between 1992-2010 that reveal the transition from audience studies to the interest in fan cultures from around 2006 onwards. From Kaewthep’s list, there are works that explore fans of different television programmes (several theses focused on fans of the singing contest/reality TV called ‘Academy Fantasia’ broadcasted in 2004-2015). As expected, there are works on fans of South Korean and Japanese popular culture, football fans and fans of local singers. Apart from these, a particular account that stands out for me is a comparative study of ‘mae yok’ in Bangkok and Phitsanulok (North of Thailand). The term mae yok is commonly used to describe female fans of local staged performances (mae means mother and yok means to lift up something). In my memory of growing up in the South of Thailand, mae-yok were/are ladies who buy garlands to offer to the performers during the shows and offer monetary support to their favorite performers. The reference to the mother-child relation also suggests the role of these fans in nurturing young talents. 

2.     Reflecting on the use of local terms, I am also reminded of works on transcultural fandom that unpack different types of fan culture through cultural-specific terms such as idol (aidoru) and otaku. Kaewthep’s chapter is titled Fan jah chan ma laew ja or I’m coming, my fan. The phrase is from a well-known song ‘Fan jah’ (2002) by one of the Thai legendary pop singers. In this song, the term ‘fan’ refers to a common English word appropriated by Thais to describe someone as a boyfriend/girlfriend (sometimes to casually refer to a husband/wife). The double meanings of ‘fan’ as being a media fan and someone in a relationship means that Thais often use other related words to talk about being a fan/part of a fandom. In the early 2000s, the term fan pun tae or an absolute fan was used to refer to someone who is a serious fan of something. The term came from a TV show, which contestants have to answer questions to show their expertise on a particular subject to win prizes. At the height of the popularity of South Korean TV drama, the word thing was used in the media as a pathologizing way to describe young female fans who were ‘crazy’ about Korean related-things. The term thing, in this context, is shorten from thing-hu or the edge of ear lopes, a required length of haircut that public Thai high schools girls have to comply to. Countering this generalized view on fans, Mary Ainslie’s article on Thai fans of K-drama (2016) importantly highlights the use of Korean associations as a way for young Thai fans to assert their own sense of selves within the dominant Thai identity. To date, the term thing has been replaced by ‘dom’ or ‘fc’ which does not have such negative connotation. 

3.     It is important to note that since the 2014 coup d’état and the growing totalitarianism in Thailand, fandom has been associated with youth democratization movement and regional solidarity. The notable case is the #milkteaalliance, which started in 2020 in relation to a Thai boys’ love TV star, Vachirawit ‘Bright’ Chivaaree, who liked a tweet containing images of cityscapes in different places with the description indicating that Hong Kong is a country. This led to strong negative reactions from his mainland Chinese fans, and further criticism towards his girlfriend ‘New’ who, at some point, made a remark deemed unfavorable towards China on social media. As these stars faced intense situations, fans from Thailand, Hong Kong and Taiwan (places that commonly drink tea with milk) subsequently ‘united’ to express solidarity to Bright and New. The hashtag #milkteaalliance has since been used to show solidarity with those going through political struggles against repressive regimes (the subject which a Thai colleague Metaveevinij is working on). With the pandemic and public enquiries on the management of the situation and the vaccine procurement plan, there has also been demands by fans of film stars/celebrity figures to ‘call out’ and put pressure on the military-led government. Hence, the previous circumstance in which Thai stars rarely expressed political views for fear of losing their fan base has drastically changed. This development also coincides with the growing micro-celebrities via Facebook and TikTok whose political commentaries attract extensive fans/followers and sponsorship from pro-democracy brands. The relationship between media fans and activism also extends to different forms of participatory culture. Notable examples are the use of The Hunger Games’s (2012) three-finger salute and the use of the term ‘Parasite’ with and without a direct reference to the South Korean film to express discontent with the socio-political situations. 

: A photograph taken a university rally in 2020 before the Covid-19 pandemic to express discontent with the current repressive political regime. Many references to popular culture were used to express fannishness and solidary including the Hunger Games’s three-finger salute.

4.     Apart from these developments, there are many types of fan engagements in Thailand that would benefit further exploration and the exchange of frameworks with colleagues outside the country. In relation to Thai cinema, the Thai Film Archive has been doing great works in bringing inter-generational fans of legendary film stars together to celebrate anniversaries, discuss their memories, exhibit archival finds that could generate further research. In my brief exploration into fans of the 1960s Thai actor Mitr Chaibancha, I was made aware of many different fan groups who celebrated Mitr’s legacy in many ways. The figure of Mitr as a legendary national star resonates with Trinidad (2021) work that explores fan-star relations in the history of Filipino cinema that worth a cross-cultural exploration. In terms of historical transcultural fandom, prior to the phenomenon of Japanese and South Korean popular culture, the star-fan relations between Thailand and Hong Kong and Thailand and India is another large area to explore, along with reflections on inter-Asia cultural links via migration and film/media distribution networks. With the revival of classic films through online streaming platforms, conversations on long-term/former fans of various imported movies have also emerged.

Guests attending the ‘Mitr-Mythology’ exhibition at the Thai Film Archive. The legendary Thai actor Mitr Chaibancha (1934-1970) has extensive inter-generational fans who gathered annually to celebrate his life and work. The screen in the photograph projects footage from the star’s funeral, where hundreds of thousands gathered to mourn the death of their beloved star, who tragically fell from a helicopter while shooting the movie he also directed. The memory of the funeral has since been revisited in the film October Sonata (2009). There has also been various shrines set up with his statues. 

As media and film studies in Thailand are largely part of Communication Arts faculties (with the focus on practical side of things), there are a lot of room to grow fan studies (as well as critical studies of film/media/screen cultures itself), both in terms of supporting emerging scholars and bridging interested parties (including the growing network of cinephiles, artists, curators and critics) interested in the subject together.  

The house of one of Mitr’s long-term fans at Petchaburi’s province where Mitr came from. The owner turns his personal memorabilia into a mini exhibition for interested tourists

After completing her PhD from Aberystwyth University, Wales, Wikanda Promkhuntong joined the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia, Mahidol University, Thailand where she teaches in the Cultural Studies programme. She has published on auteur stars and their fans and different aspects of film cultures related to transnational East Asian cinema. In recent years, she has been exploring the subject of fan tourism/cinephile pilgrimage in relation to vernacular cultural memories and local/regional politics of space. Her engagement with fan studies is a hybrid between auteurs and fans, paratexts and palimpsests, digital engagements and physical cultural sites. 

Global Fandom Jamboree Conversation: Camillo Diaz Pino, Dima Issa and Wikanda Promkhuntong (part 2)

Camilo Diaz Pino

Round 3

Dima, I think your noting of the idea of “normalcy” is fundamental for our field to grapple with. Because while as investigators it is often incumbent on us to emphasize the “news” – that is to say, the novelty – of either the phenomena we are investigating or the angles we are investigating from, part of what I’ve been consistently impressed by in my own experiences looking at the Chilean and wider Latin American media landscape is precisely how normalized these diverse trajectories of media flow have become. And likewise, it is in instances such as these that what we might assume are idiosyncratic processes can be seen likewise as more “normalized”. I find your mentioning of  Grendizer’s popularity and use as a means of illustrating debate surrounding the Syrian war fascinating insofar as it corresponds with what I’ve seen as a terrible oversight in the dominant narratives surrounding anime’s broader global history. Namely, that anime’s circulation as a “cheap” alternative to animation from the US and Europe made it incredibly spreadable throughout the Global South (and beyond the Iron Curtain) to an extent that we could consider Japanese animation’s global, transnational circulation a precedent to a whole variety of contemporary media phenomena that are considered otherwise unprecedented.

From my own perspective as a scholar of anime’s global circulation in Latin America, I would be very interested to see and participate in more transversal scholarship that emphasizes anime’s global cultural impact before and outside its eventual integration with mainstream Anglo-American pop  culture. I see this as a line of investigation that, while not ignoring or downplaying Japanese animation’s  transnational ties with the Anglo-American sphere, can also speak to anime’s popular history from the imaginaries of the global south. 

To this end, and also in accordance with what you’ve touched on, Dima and Wikanda, I was also wondering if you could speak a bit to how the transnational nature of the media phenomena you study corresponds with other parameters of popular quotidianity. For example, while K-pop’s popularity in Chile has been discussed as a broadening of the popular imaginary breaking with certain Anglo/Eurocentric principles (I myself discuss this in my own work as mentioned above) there also something to be said about how such shifts intermingle with entrenched ideologies and demographic tensions.

As noted by Wonjung Min for instance (“Mis Chinos, Tus Chinos: The Orientalism of K-pop Fans”, International Communication Gazette, (83)8, 2021, 1-19) K-pop’s success in Chile, while broad, has done little to either minimize the exoticizing and/or othering of Korean Chileans, nor has it really affected the all-too common conflation of all East Asians in the region colloquially as “chinos” (Chinese).

Along similar lines, the integration of Turkish TV (Fig. 1) throughout Latin America, while indeed making many Chileans more interested in Turkish culture itself, has arguably only further confused things with regard to the broader population of Chileans with Middle-Eastern roots. As with the synecdoche conflating Chinese people with all East Asians, Middle Eastern people in Chile are often referred to universally as Turks – a confusion first created by a wave of Palestinian immigration that arrived in the country in the early 20th century bearing Turkish passports. As with your noting of Shakira as an unacknowledged Lebanese global icon Dima, I’m wondering where we may see the “limits” of the phenomena we are looking at, and how we can go about understanding, negotiating and integrating these into our perspectives of them?

Fig. 1 - Chilean ad for the Turkish drama Is it Fatmagul’s Fault? (2010)

References

Min W. “Mis Chinos, Tus Chinos: The Orientalism of K-pop Fans”, International Communication Gazette, (83)8, 2021, 1-19

Wikanda 

Camilo and Dima, I really enjoy learning about the Latin American and Arab contexts of media flow and fandom from your exchanges. I have limited knowledge on these geographies, except in certain areas of cinema that I came across via my work on transnational film reception and authorship (i.e. the reception of Indian and some Thai martial-art films in the Arab world or the shared situation of film festival funding for independent cinema in the case of Latin America.)

Camilo asked me about notions of cultural proximity and history that might have shaped the landscape of media flow in the context of Thailand. The areas of historical fandom and transnational media distribution should definitely be expanded more from research on Thai fandom which focus largely on the fan phenomenon of the day. I think the historical aspect and cultural proximity can be explored in terms of the cultural ties shaped by stages of political domination by various hegemonic powers. There are some interesting work that are related to this i.e. Thanes Wongyannava’s (2009) discussion of hybrid Italian food in Thailand and stages of cultural contact.

In the area of film and media distribution, scholars have begun exploring the localization of Indian films in Thailand through various methods. In the Cold War period, the first wave of Indian Films were dubbed with added local poetic style as well as political ideology (see Ingawanij 2012). The second wave emerged recently with the growth of digital TV. Interestingly the majority of content is highly curated by distributors with the exclusion of musical sequences and the selection of well-known religious myths and classical epics (see Suwansukhum 2018).

One of my students is currently looking at the import of Hong Kong films to Thailand and the mediated roles of dubbers in the 1990s in making these content nationalistic (changing the jokes and contexts in the films to the local ones). In the process, the dubbing can also reveal a kind of internal class resistance that responds to internal colonialism. In the case of diasporic Hong Kong media fans, the reception and appreciation of Hong Kong 1980s and 1990s stars has recently emerged via social media. This coincides with the circumstances of changing policy, economic success of the Chinese diaspora and cultural acceptance that led to the revisit of various subcultures.

A poster of the 1965 film Black Dragon, a Thai-Hong Kong co-produced film.

Through Camilo and Dima’s exchanges, I’d also like to reflect on something which has been in my mind. It is about the way fans of Japanese/Korean media I came across sometimes used their interests in Asian/Eastern popular culture (primarily Japanese, Korean, Chinese) and their desire to learn the associated languages and cultures to counter the frustration/limitation with the English language and Western ideologies. There seems to be a divide in the sense of self formed through the West (largely American cultural products) and the East (Japanese and Korean culture). Hence, there is almost a kind of personal chosen center(s) adopted to navigate one’s own identity. I like the quote Camilo mentioned from Hamid Dabashi. I think with the media landscape today, there are definitely coexisting multiple centers at once and the colonized world has been navigating it, not only from the macro political level but also the micro identity politics.

Dima, thank you for your reflection on mae-yok. I agree that the term allows us to expand from limited perceptions on fandom when thinking through English-language terms such as groupies. Your discussion of the case of the October 17 uprisings and the soundscape in Lebanon is fascinating! Apart from the borrowing of Japanese and American popular culture, the recent political movement in Thailand is also driven by music and performance arts. The band ‘Rap against Dictatorship’ is one of the leading groups which has been incredibly active in releasing their works and performing at rallies. Their single Prathet Ku Mee 🇹🇭 (My Country Has) was made inaccessible on YouTube if viewing from Thailand, but was later made available again, now with over 100 million views.

The band and their songs have also gained international recognition; receiving the 2019 Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent in Oslo. Responses through audience comments also reveal praises and solidarity from Myanmar, USA, India, Bhutan, Australia amongst many countries. Prathet Ku Mee’s music video, which reenacts a scene of a lynch mob, draws connections between the current struggle for democracy with the struggle by a collective of students, farmers and workers, which led to the 6 October 1976 massacre by the authoritarian government. Remnants of the Cold War soundscape also come back today with the military-led government releasing their own songs and commissioned new cover of old nationalistic tunes. This has led to mockery comments by netizens as well as the repercussions of deporting a long-term expatriate, a French singer/business owner who created a parody version of a junta song.  

On a final note, I’d like to make a point on the need to include the notions of the global south, inter-regional and cross-cultural links via media flow as part of Thai education. When I was growing up, kids learned to navigate English vocabulary in everyday names of things and Japanese culture with manga and animation. Yet, the school-level curriculum was (and still) highly nationalistic (shaped by the historical context of the country insistence on having never been colonalized, although various accounts have explored how Siam/Thailand was part of the colonial economy and adopted its own version of internal-colonialism led by the ruling class). Apart from the dominant nationalism, there is also a complex relation of positioning the global north of America and north Asia (Japan, Korea, China) at the center of cultural and ideological power when they are seen as the successful Other, which led to privilege and stereotypes. While there has been a media campaign of #realsizebeauty and #reallifebeauty, the ‘white’ skin beauty is still the standard promoted in commercials and celebrity culture, which shifted from the 1990s Thai-Western mixed look aka Luk khrueng to today’s ‘Japanese’ or ‘Korean look’. 

Upon entering Thailand at the Suvarnabhumi International Airport in 2017, the Korean Snail White whitening skin cream can be found greeting passengers.

Hence, in the context of Thailand, fandom for empowerment (through the appropriation of their objects of interest for identity negotiation and political expressions) also exists hand in hand with the trade and commerce targeting media audiences and fans that continue to reproduce certain problematic ideologies.

Dima

Camilo and Wikanda, I have really enjoyed these rounds of discussions, as they open up so many interesting topics that allow for a more transnational and cross-cultural understanding of fandom. At times these topics diverge, but quite often experiences seem quite similar. This ‘countering frustration’ with the English language and Western ideologies is something that you speak about Wikanda and is also something that I have found in my years of research. Funnily enough Camilo, my Master’s thesis was on Turkish soap operas and the lives of Arab diaspora in Doha and in Peoria, Illinois a, town in the US and so I just want to bring that up, because it touches upon some of the points you both made in the last round.

Firstly, Turkish soap operas were and are still popular across the Arab world and in my conversations with participants; I found that it was mostly because their plotlines appealed to more conservative audiences. This cultural proximity that you spoke about Wikanda was prevalent. The people I interviewed made references to the commonalities in culture and this focus on the family unit, whereas they saw Western soap operas as removed from quotidian experiences. I remember speaking with an eighteen-year-old girl, who was just starting college. As someone who was from a Muslim background, she was really struggling to position herself among the sorority college life of drinking and casual sex. So the soap operas allowed her to feel a sense of belonging that she otherwise did not feel in her environment. Another interesting example is when I spoke to two women from Armenian backgrounds who were fans of the Turkish soap operas, although as Armenians they harboured political tensions with Turkey. The women brought up the cinematography and framing of the landscape and how it reminded them of Armenia, something they felt was enjoyable to watch.

Main characters from one of the first Arabic-dubbed Turkish soap operas Noor (Gumus)

Secondly, even though a number of soap operas are produced in the Arab world, namely in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, they found the production quality of the Turkish soap operas were at a much higher standard. They were also impressed with the acting and the costumes. Thirdly, these soap operas are dubbed in the Syrian dialect, which made it appealing for pan-Arab viewers, since they felt the language was easy to understand and listen to.  

Camilo I also wanted to quickly touch on what you were saying regarding anime and how it is overlooked in much Western research. Anime was a huge part of our lives in the Arab world. I mostly grew up in Qatar and my husband grew up in Lebanon. Anime took over most of our afternoons after school. The shows were dubbed in Arabic and at times they were the only forms of animation we were exposed to and so I completely agree with the fact that they need to be given importance, especially in terms of cultural identity and global impact. Unfortunately, I don’t have much data regarding K-pop and its influence in Lebanon, since it is a relatively new phenomenon, but I do agree that it is something that should be looked into and researched. When my students talk about K-Pop it’s mostly contextualised within their general acquisition of popular culture, but there have been cases where they have used K-pop as signifiers to navigate certain gender and sexual dynamics.

 Navigating gender and sexuality through K-Pop 

Finally, I just wanted to clarify my point regarding Shakira. Shakira is definitely recognized as Lebanese and the Lebanese are proud of her accomplishments. However, unlike Fairouz she is not seen as a pan-Arab figure, most likely because she does not appeal to the more conservative audiences in the Arab world.

Global Fandom Jamboree Conversation: Camilo Diaz Pino, Dima Issa and Wikanda Promkhuntong: (part one)

Wikanda Promkhuntong:

I am thrilled to read Camilo Diaz Pino’s reflection on the Japanese media flows in Latin America. The situation very much resonates with the case in Thailand where Japanese popular culture has also become ‘the quotidian reality’. When I grew up in the 1980s-90s, the J-Wave hit the teen markets with shops of manga cartoons for rent in every city, along with dedicated TV programmes of Japanese cartoons and all kinds of merchandise. I remember that a group of high school friends traveled to an island to follow their favorite Japanese singers during their stay in Thailand with many stories to share at school. The phenomenon resonates with the growth of K-pop stars in recent years. 

What is interesting in the case of Japanese media flow is that this early fandom has evolved into everyday culture. Today, one can find modified/localized versions of Japanese food (sushi, Takoyaki, Japanese green tea) in local markets similar to the local version of French fries, steak and spaghetti. This localized dimension and the way American and Japanese popular cultural products exist alongside one another resonates with Camilo’s remark on the process of localization to the extent that audiences view the imported products on the same level as local media/pop culture. 

Old LPs and film posters of imported products that were popular in Thailand in the past, taken at Suksasom Museum, one of several collector-owned pop culture showrooms that opened to the public in the last two decades around the edge of Bangkok.

Captain America toy/decorative shield is amongst other everyday items that can be found at local night markets. Image taken at a Khon Kaen Night Market in Northeast of Thailand. 

The integration of imported media content and popular culture into dimensions of everyday life including political protests can also be found in the case of Thailand. This includes the use of the Thai version of Hamtaro manga series soundtrack by high school students in 2020 to protest the military-led government. The Thai lyrics of the manga was modified to address the exploitation of tax money while the gesture of a hamster running is adopted into a performative protest run. Another manga called One Piece and the South Korean film Parasite were also drawn on by protesters to criticize the position of elite groups who sided with the military-led government. One of the key figures that pushes for public dialogue on reforming the constitution and monarchy is a human rights lawyer currently under arrest. His performance and speech at a Harry Potter-themed protest is one of the widely-discussed moments of the Thai democratic movement in recent years. The street protests that took place in 2020 in Thailand were multicultural in nature similar to that in Chile with transgender groups, indigenous rights and feminist protesters alongside one another. While the mood and momentum of the protest has shifted with the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, local popular culture and imported ones remain the source for creative civic engagements amongst young people. 

Dima Issa’s opening statement on the fandom of Fairouz is also fascinating in many ways. The importance of Fairouz as a public figure reminds me of certain cases associated with fandom in the context of Thailand and Asia. With the growth of East Asian cinema in the global context, the figure of Wong Kar-wai has been the subject of my interest for several years. A number of fan works from different countries have revealed the impact of his films for a range of communities from pan-Asian artists, diasporic Chinese communities and those associated with the sense of alienation and loneliness in global cities. Around the 2010s when I was writing about Wong Kar-wai fans on YouTube, one of the most recurring types of videos found were mashups of sequences from his films with indie music tracks from bands based in the U.S., the UK and Europe revealing the kind of transnational taste homology. In other cases, the association with Wong Kar-wai evolved based on specific geographical contexts of fans. In Thailand, the period of time after the coup when the military was drafting a new constitution and postponed the general election, the term kra-tum-kwam-wong or doing Wong was adopted to describe the mood and feeling of being in a Wong Kar-wai universe with cyclical time and uncertain future. A Facebook page with the same name was created with the mood shifting from expressing individual loneliness through photographs in sepia tone or saturated colors and dim lighting to expressing political discontent.

A pre-screening talk discussing kra-tum-kwam-wong at House cinema in Bangkok before the sold-out screening of the 4K re-release of Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love.

The sense of occupying different spaces and in-betweenness that Dima mentioned also resonates with a recent revisit of Wong’s film texts by a group of artists in Australia through an online stage performance ‘In the Mood: A love letter to Wong Kar-Wai & Hong Kong’ which weaves together the themes of cultural heritage and ‘ancestral homeland’ and the sense of longing and intimacy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Affective fandom can stretch across times and spaces, as Dima mentioned in terms of the visit to Fairouz’s home by French President Macron after the port explosion in Beirut. In recent years, I have also delved into the subject of auteur, cinephile and fan pilgrimage which centers on the idea of affective engagements and socio-cultural implications of specific star-auteurs over time. The cross-over subjects of fans, stars and public memory is fascinating, particularly in the era where the past can be collectively retold and reshaped much easier than before.

Camilo Diaz Pino

Thank you Wikanda and Dima for this glimpse into your work and the overall areas of investigation you have been delving into! I’m struck by the many continuities and parallels our perspectives share across the sites we’ve been looking at. Most of all, I’m interested in talking about the ways in which the particular “objects” of fandom mentioned have been contested and/or mobilized within the wider movements, conflicts, and cultural contexts we’ve been looking into. Dima, as the investigation you cover focusses in particular on the work and public presence of a singular artist/persona, I was wondering if you could speak a little more into how Fairouz’s fandom has been negotiated by the political/cultural actors you’ve been looking at? That is to say, given her quotidian pervasiveness, how exactly are different agendas and groups ‘claiming’ Fairuz and her work as their own? Similarly, What rhetorical angles and justifications are given for their claims over her? Do you see some groups as having more of a legitimate claim than others? I ask these questions because I find your description of Fairouz’s impact in the Lebanese and wider Arab diaspora’s cultural/political landscape fascinating for the ways in which it appears to be significant cultural object of political/discursive identification and consolidation, and yet similarly “up for grabs” as it were by virtue of her widespread adoration and quotidianity. I am compelled to think in your description about the ways in which, during the 1970s, 80s and Early 90s, Latin American dissidents were suddenly turned into a transnational diaspora by the wave of CIA-backed dictatorships that overtook the region. During this time, the work of exiled, assassinated, and otherwise censored popular and folk music artists such as Mercedes Sosa (Fig. 1), Inti-Illimani, Victor Jara (Fig. 2) and Silvio Rodriguez were shared as common currency by dissident diasporic communities from Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Uruguay, among others. Even with the return of formal democracy to much of the region in the 1980s and 90s, love of these artists’ carries with it a distinct political fingerprint that cannot so easily be claimed by those not visibly affiliated with Latin American leftist circles. This is true to such an extent that even covering or collaborating with these artists demarcates affiliations that are just as much political as cultural (see for instance Shakira’s duet with Mercedes Sosa, covering a song by Silvio Rodriguez in 2008: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxzPPQvHIZo). Given this situation in Latin America, I’m fascinated by the very different, but related scenario you describe, and the relative polysemy you identify with respect to Fairouz.

Fig. 1: “Google Doodle” paying homage to Mercedes Sosa, 31 January 2019

Fig. 2: Homage to Victor Jara in leftist Chilean Street art

Wikanda, thank you for speaking to such distinct and concrete points of affinity with regard to our research agendas and the objects, behaviors and movements we are looking at! I’m particularly interested in the ways in which you describe how these cultural objects/commodities from Japan and Korea have become aspects of everyday popular culture in Thailand, as well as how they have been so pointedly mobilized as aspects of locally-oriented activism. I wonder to what extent the negotiations and friction (to borrow the term as conceptualized by Anna Tsing) involved in such flows and processes of transculturation are affected by notions of cultural proximity and history. With regard to the Latin American context for instance, part of what I’ve been trying to highlight in my own work is the growth of an increasingly multi-polar transnational media landscape in the region. While certainly still existing within the parameters of a global neoliberal system predominated by Anglo-American actors, the interaction of media vendors and distributors who operate at a “secondary” level in the global media market has made it so that Latin America has in the lat 30 or so years experienced an explosive level of cultural exchange, interaction and hybridity with regard to the flow of cultural commodities and their integration into local popular imaginaries. By this point I would indeed argue that Latin America’s quotidian media landscape is far more cosmopolitan than that of the still relatively insular and largely “self-sustained” Anglo-American cultural landscape. To reiterate and recontextualize Hamid Dabashi’s eloquent observations with regard to the effects of colonialism on the wider world, subjects in the colonized world

[...] grew up compelled to learn the language and culture of our colonial interlocutors. These interlocutors have never had any reason to reciprocate. They had become provincial in their assumptions of universality. We had become universal under the colonial duress that had sought to provincialise us. (Dabashi, “Fuck You Žižek!”, https://artafricamagazine.org/fuck-you-zizek/).

It is with these asymmetric relationships in mind – those that allow and oblige the margins to be well aware of the center while the center can choose to ignore the margins – that quotidian meaning-making becomes so important to take into account when attempting to grapple with how neoliberal globalization has both cemented and exploded these dynamics. The question that I keep coming back to however is what supposed margins (and aspiring “centers”) make of each other when compelled (for whatever reason) to interact amongst themselves?

I’m curious to what extent comparable levels of cultural interaction, hybridity and syncretism are at play in Thai experiences with the media imports you mention. Because while I imagine Thailand must surely share many continuities with other South-East Asian states with regard to the influence of Japanese, Korean and Chinese actors, it has also undergone an entirely unique history with the European colonial project and its continuities in the contemporary global landscape. As such, there is probably much to be said about how processes and effects of media globalization have manifested there.

References

Sosa M, and Shakira, “La Maza” Concierto ALAS, 16 September 2008 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxzPPQvHIZo

​​Dabashi H. “Fuck You Žižek!” Art Africa

https://artafricamagazine.org/fuck-you-zizek/

Dima Issa

Round 2

Camilo and Wikanda, I really enjoyed reading both of your statements, they open a number of trajectories that tackle fandom identity and positioning amidst ‘glocalised’ dynamics.

Camilo, your research on Japanese cartoon media flows is so relevant especially with the increasing diversity of media content that is shifting from ‘Western’ dominance, or media imperialism. Your discussion on Dragonball 2 in context with a collective political agenda reminded me of the use of the animated show Grendizer[1] (an anime character popular in the 1980s and 1990s) to narrate the struggles of the Syrian war[2], further research on this has been done by Omar Ghazzi, who looks at the shows as a form of ‘nostalgic defiance’[3]. 

Grendizer

This appropriation of anime to tackle and understand events that deviate from the banality of the quotidian, such as times of war and violence, but at the same time, the way these texts have ‘integrated into Chile’s popular imagery’ and the way they ‘comingle and coexist’ provides an almost paradoxical dichotomy that showcases the ways in which fandom allows for a sense of comforting normalcy. These ‘intimate’ understandings of texts are essentially affective, drawing on individual and collective interpretations that are intergenerational.

Your discussion on K-pop really struck a chord with me (no pun intended). I have been lecturing in Lebanon for almost ten years now and the number of students who are obsessed with K-pop is increasing exponentially. It was mostly evident in my race, gender and sexuality class, where students looked at K-pop as a lens through which to explore and understand sexuality. The presence of these transnational groups provides for a different understanding of sexuality that moves beyond Western perspectives and allows for a less invasive and polarizing definition of sexuality that students from younger generations can identify with.

Just to quickly answer your questions Camilo, with regards to Fairouz and her music, this negotiation of meaning is very dependent on the political groups that listen to her. Through her music and her sheltered persona, Fairouz is able to straddle multiple political and cultural identities, because she has not affiliated herself to just one ideology. Her stance on Palestine is a key constituent and places her at the helm of understanding ‘Arabness’, but even then she never explicitly mentions the Palestinians by name, so her listeners are able to interpret her songs freely. As a ‘figure’, Fairouz takes on multiple meanings. There is a fluidity to her songs, which allows for a relationship with various vantage points.  It is also interesting that you mention Shakira, because I discussed her in my PhD thesis. There is an article by Maria Elena Cepeda, who talks about Shakira as a ‘transnational citizen’ who exudes ‘Latinadad’, allowing for South American diasporic audiences to connect with her. It is significant to note that while Shakira is half Lebanese, she is not seen as an ‘Arab’ singer. Obviously, this may be for many reasons, from generational to ideological, but it brings to the forefront this notion of identification and representation in forms of fandom that are founded in culture and beliefs.

Screengrab of Shakira from her halftime show (via https://www.arabamerica.com/shakira-personifies-a-multicultural-identity-in-a-globalized-world)

Wikanda you have given such wonderful insight into different types of research going on in Thailand. I especially loved your explanation on the terminology used among fans, creating this sense of ‘solidarity’ among them. I also found the definition of ‘mae-yok’ extremely interesting in terms of gender politics and the way music fandom translates according to culture. Initially, I thought you were talking about what the Western world would call ‘groupies’, but the maternal and nurturing attributes assigned to the term highlights this shift in understanding forms of fandom that move away from the sexual implications associated with ‘groupies’. The ways in which ‘mae-yok’ are depicted as supportive and cognizant of talents is almost selfless.  It is also interesting to see how fandom is linked to ‘youth democratization and regional solidarity’ and the utilization of the ‘#milkteaalliance’ hashtag to draw supporters. I found that not only fascinating, but incredibly witty of the youth who organized and put that together. It also brings to surface notions of inclusivity versus exclusivity in fandom, especially with the involvement of politics.  In Lebanon, music played a huge role during the October 17 uprisings and the soundscapes heard across the country. This was significant on a number of levels. Firstly, older music by more classical artists were sampled, mashed up and juxtaposed by activists on social media platforms and by DJs on the streets during the protests. These were younger perspectives on notions of identity that at times deviated from those of older generations. The biggest example is when the local Lebanese death metal band Kimarea covered a famous Lebanese song by Majida Al Roumi, ‘Beirut Set El Donya’[4], (written by Nizar Qabbani), causing controversy among Al Roumi’s management and fans who were appalled by what they labeled a ‘blasphemous’ take on the song with its ‘death metal fundamentals’. These sonic disputes highlight themes revolving around nationhood and its representations among different generations of fans. Secondly, the soundscapes during the uprisings were also contested, further showcasing the lack of ‘unity’ among the protesters. As a country divided on so many religious, political and ideological fronts, Lebanon is unable to unite under a common narrative and the way that this is evident, is by exploring the ways in which various forms of fandom intersect, collide and oppose each other.    

Death metal band Kimeara featuring Cheryl Khairallah performing “Ya Beirut”

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibaeQieYFdo

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36884058

[3] Al-Ghazzi, O. (2018). Grendizer leaves for Sweden: Japanese anime nostalgia on Syrian social media. Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, 11(1), 52-71.

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc2OmHp5V9U

 Gk

Global Fandom: Dima Issa (Lebanon)

Fairouz street art in Beirut

The thing with Fairouz is that you can never really pinpoint the exact moment in time when you become a fan of her work. She seems to have always been there, lurking in the shadows of your morning coffee, or on the radio as you commute through the streets of Beirut or blaring from the old transistor your dad used to listen to during the war that has miraculously found its way unscathed to the kitchen of your house. In whatever way, Fairouz has always been part of your life as an Arab, whether you were conscious of her presence or not. Although my research has primarily focused on Arab diasporic responses to Fairouz and her music, her impact and relevance within Lebanese households and across social media platforms cannot be ignored and must be discussed before delving into her role as an icon among broader Arab audiences. 

Image 2: French president Emmanuel Macaron meeting with Fairouz at her home after the Beirut port explosion. Photograph: Soazig de la Moissonniere / Présidence de la République

 After the Port Explosion in Beirut on 4 August 2020, which killed over 200 people and displaced thousands, French President Emmanuel Macaron paid a visit to Lebanon, already reeling from years of corruption and political turmoil. One of the first places he went to was Fairouz’ home[1] where he bestowed upon the singer France’s highest award, the Legion of Honour. Social media was aflutter with images of the visit, mostly because of the rare sighting of Fairouz, who is known to be elusive and private. Macaron’s visit was no accident, as he relayed to the press the symbolism of Fairouz for France and what she represented to the former colonizer, the so called ‘golden era’ of Lebanon, which was flourishing, economically, socially and culturally. 

 It is important here to turn to John Fiske’s concept of the ‘figure’. According to Fiske (1994), a ‘figure’ is a ‘human simulacrum’ (p. 68). It is the notion that certain people transform into ‘hyperreal’ versions of themselves (Fiske, 1994, p. 69). As a ‘figure’, Fairouz possesses ‘infinitely reproducible signifiers’ (Ibid.), which can be interpreted by her fans and non-fans alike in various forms. Those ‘signifiers’ are based on ‘historical fortuitousness’, but are not necessarily produced solely through the actions of the ‘figure’ (Ibid., p. 72). As Fiske (1994) argues, ‘the body of the individual is comparatively powerless in determining the way he or she is to be figured’ (p. 71). Although it can be argued that Fairouz’ ‘figure’ was one which was strategically created and produced by her writing, management and production team, she has transcended beyond those constructs through the versatile reception of her music and also by the ‘social structures and cultural practices’ of a ‘participatory culture’ (Jenkins, 2019)[2].

Fairouz has never meant only one thing. The best example of this is the ability of a politically polarized country like Lebanon to appropriate her music equally with each party claiming her songs as their own. In addition, and through my research among members of the Arab diaspora, Fairouz as a ‘figure’ signifies a range of things that move beyond her nationality as a Lebanese singer. Linking this with Walter Benjamin’s (1935) concept of ‘aura’ is important here. Benjamin asserts that due to the development of mechanical reproduction technology, works of art have lost their ‘aura’ because they are no longer experienced in the physical and temporal environments that are encapsulated in. However, I argue, through the framework of fandom and with the increase of visibility and availability, the ‘aura’ of Fairouz takes on different forms and is strengthened among her listeners in the diasporic community, away from the environment in which she is commonly associated with. In other words, Fairouz is not only significant in Lebanon, but her ‘aura’ is fortified in spatio-temporal settings that move beyond the borders of Lebanon.

Image of the port after the explosion alongside a statue showcasing a Lebanese immigrant

A poster of Fairouz by artist Achraf Amiri seen on the streets of London

 With the expansion of social networking sites and the increase of content creation among users coupled with the uprisings and revolutions across the Middle East and North Africa, since January 2011, Fairouz, her music and her videos, have gained diverse contextual visibility. At the onset of the uprisings in January 2011, I was a graduate student at the University of Southern California. Geographically distant from Tahrir Square and Sidi Bouzid, I spent a lot of time consuming news sites, contacting friends, and trying to access any information I could find.  It was my Facebook page that mostly caught my attention and specifically the newsfeed, which was decorated with Fairouz images, lyrics and songs. Videos of the protests from around the Arab world were edited, using her songs as the audio track. Scenes from some of her plays were also uploaded, as were verses from her songs.

Regardless of the format, the presence of Fairouz as an aural and visual narrator at such a pivotal moment in the Arab world is significant. Although her songs about patriotism and resistance are decades old, fandom in this context needs to be seen as what Tarik Sabry (2012) calls ‘territorialisation’ and ‘deterritorialisation’. It is the ability of Fairouz to ‘dislocate’ from a certain ‘discourse’ and to occupy another (2012, p. 13). It is a way in which through fandom, Fairouz can shape shift to take on new contexts and exert new meanings. It can be argued that this fluidity Fairouz possesses is catalysed through her ability to create and occupy affective space. For Tomkins (1982), affect is the ‘primary innate motivating mechanism’ in the human body (in Scherer & Ekman, 2009, p. 163). It is the instigator, which triggers a consequent response in the ‘midst of inbetween-ness’ (Gregg & Seigworth, 2010, p. 1; emphasis in original). In parallel, this ‘inbetween-ness’ gives way for the affective-ness of Fairouz, the voice of familiarity, to take shape, since it is dependent on socio-political, cultural and economic dynamics.  

 During the October 17 2019, uprisings in Lebanon and after the August 4 2020, port explosion, it was Fairouz who provided the soundtrack to cater to the helplessness of the situation, while also providing the voice of hope. This is an affective form of fandom. Similar to the way in which superheroes are called on in times of distress, Fairouz is there with her nostalgic melodies fighting for accountability of those in power and describing a more peaceful time. It is as Ahmed (2004) writes an ‘affect of the circulation between objects and signs’ (p. 120). This ‘circulation’ of ‘signs’ allows for the ‘aura’ to ‘dislocate’, creating a ‘figure’ of Fairouz that is malleable and discursive.

 Fairouz has been around even before newer technologies took over soundscapes, her music has been remixed and reworked for years in nightclubs, bars and sound studios across the world. However, newer technologies have given opportunities for her music to be shared and appropriated to a wider generational and globalised audience. Talking with communities that varied nationally, spiritually, circumstantially gender and circumstance, themes of identity and social positioning showcased how Fairouz was able to transgress boundaries of nation, religion and political affiliation to create space that was affective and accessible to her listeners and fans. 

 Although these new technologies allows for Fairouz to centrifugally navigate across a spectrum of audiences, it can be argued that her music also operates at a centripetal level, especially in discussions with diasporic audiences. Drawing on Heidegger’s concepts of ‘Worldliness’, as a ‘totality in which media is constituent’ and an ‘ontological experience of being-in-the-world’ and ‘equipment’, as an order of examining ‘the total system of equipment and practices which gives sense to…Worldliness’, Sabry and Mansour (2019) explore how, through ‘equipment’, such as media technologies and programming, children are able to ‘extend’ the ‘spatial, the temporal and the imagination’ (Sabry & Mansour, 2019, p. 99). Using these notions of ‘Worldliness’ and equipment, it can be argued that Fairouz offers such an extension. As equipment, Fairouz is the soundscape of ‘being-in-the-world’, but also she is able to transport audiences spatially as well as temporally, she is a reversion back to ‘Worldliness’ through an acknowledgement of its existence in its current form, an almost paradoxical inward globalisation that her audiences refer back to through affective fandom.

References

Ahmed, S. (2004a). ‘Affective Economies’. Social Text, 22(2), 117 – 139.

Benjamin, W. (1935). The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Retrieved on 2 May 2011, from http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm

Fiske, J. (1994). Media Matters: Everyday Culture and Political Change. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. 

Gregg M. & Seigworth, G. (2010). ‘An Inventory of Shimmers’. In Gregg M. & Seigworth, G. (Eds.), The Affect Theory Reader (pp. 1 – 25). USA: Duke University Press.

Jenkins, H. (2019, September 4). Back to School Special: Fandom, Participatory Culture and Web 2.0. Confessions of an ACA-Fan. Retrieved on 4 September 2021, from http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2019/8/28/back-to-school-special-fandom-participatory-culture-and-web-20-h66e3

Sabry, T. (2012). ‘Arab Cultural Studies: Between ‘Reterritorialisation’ and ‘Deterritorialisation’’. In Sabry, T. (Ed.), Arab Cultural Studies: Mapping the Field (pp. 1 – 31). London, New York: IB Tauris 

Sabry, T. & Mansour, N. (2019). Children and Screen Media In Changing Arab Contexts: An Ethnographic Perspective. London: Palgrave.

Tomkins, S. (1982). ‘Affect Theory’. In Scherer, K. & Ekman, P. (Eds.) (2009), Approaches to Emotion (pp. 163 – 194). USA: Psychology Press.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/01/emmanuel-macron-visits-lebanese-singer-fairouz-in-bid-to-change-political-soundtrack

[2] http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2019/8/28/back-to-school-special-fandom-participatory-culture-and-web-20-h66e3

Global Fandom: Camilo Diaz Pino (Chile/New Zealand)

My interest in fan studies in particular first came from necessity: I was trying to understand the industrial impact of Japanese cartoon media flows in Latin America’s media production cultures. I had for a while been able to get a good read of these dynamics as they applied to the Anglo-American and European mediascapes by looking at a combination of industrial phenomena and lay media discussions, as well as through textual analyses of Western creative works influenced by Japanese and other East Asian media. When it came to the impact of similar flows of Asian media in Latin American popular cultures however, audience and fan dynamics suddenly became much more central to the discussion. Most of what I wanted to understand was happening away from the “mediated center” (to borrow Nick Couldry’s terminology - Media Rituals: A Critical Approach , London, Routledge, 2003, pp.41) represented by media industries, news coverage and the emergence of anime-influenced Western works. Anime and Japanese media were indeed having a tangible impact in Latin America’s popular spheres, but this influence was largely latent, and was only legible visible through a different perspective. 

While Latin America’s “otaku” Japanophile fan communities were active in similar ways to those embedded in the Anglo-American popular sphere, there was also a different, wider ¾ and to my mind more pervasive ¾ set of transcultural influences at play. I came to see the dominant analytical frameworks of transnational Japanese media fandom, entrenched as they have been in Anglo-American (and European) understandings, as inadequate for understanding the artform’s impact in Latin America. This was for two primary reasons. The first is concerned with the fact that Japanese media fandom in the Anglo-American sphere necessarily occurs within the wider landscape of the latter’s extraordinary insularity and solipsism. The importation of media from other languages and cultures is an exception in the Anglo-American mediascape, rather than the quotidian reality it represents in Latin America ¾ and the majority of the rest of the world for that matter. Anglo-American (and to a lesser extent, European) anime fans have historically been marked as engaging with objects seen as distinctly foreign, exotic, and often esoteric and/or even transgressive, even as they are often infantilized in their association with cartoon cultures. While Latin American Japanophile media fandoms do share some similar histories in this regard, they are also engaging with media that exists in a field in which foreign media imports are ubiquitous, even and especially now from the wider Asian mediascape, with anime currently coexisting in Latin America alongside Korean and Turkish TV dramas, Indian films, and of course K-pop, which for its part may be seen as having a longer popular history here than in the English-speaking world (For some more detailed discussion of this, see Min W, Jin DY, Han B, “Transcultural fandom of the Korean Wave in Latin America: through the lens of cultural intimacy and affinity space”, Media, Culture & Society. 2019, 41:5, 604-619).

The second factor involves the role of standardized language in Latin America’s (Spanish speaking) mediascape itself. Despite incorporating a variety of national and regional dialects, Latin America’s Spanish-speaking countries are pervaded by a standardized form of neutralized Spanish that is ultimately placeless, belonging only to the wider region’s media itself. This is the language of the vast majority of locally produced TV, radio, and film content aimed at a regional audience, as well as that of the region’s multiple capitals of media importation, redistribution, and dubbing ¾ a process itself which virtually all media undergoes when imported to Latin America through official channels. This process thus has two notable consequences, on the one hand making it so that anime feels less distinctly “foreign” to audiences (not just being spoken in Spanish, but a Spanish that feels like it could be from anywhere in Latin America given its neutrality), but also less distinct from media imported from other countries as well. After all, the same person voicing any given anime character may just as easily be heard as the voice of a Western cartoon character, or even live-action TV shows and films dubbed for Spanish audiences.

The dimensions of Asian media fandom in Latin America I was looking at then were not those of the Japanophile, “otaku”, or even necessarily people who would identify themselves as fans strictly speaking. Rather, I found myself interested primarily in the types of latent social affective relationships people have with media that occur in communal quotidian life ¾ common cultural references, familiar narratives, and shared verbal and iconographic lexicons. For me, what was interesting about anime’s fandom in Latin American popular cultures then was how anime characters, narratives and other references were so easily integrated into both popular culture and “ownership” as it were, to the extent that, for example, any given soccer team merch  sold on street corners (non-official of course) may just as well include Pikachu or Goku as Homer Simpson or Spider-Man (Fig. 1). This syncretic “flattening” of anime alongside Western media into popular control may also certainly be seen in Anglo-American popular culture as well, but Latin American audiences did it earlier, and more integrally. My mother’s family, including her parents and adult brothers, would gather together every Sunday during the original Chilean run of Heidi, Girl of the Alps (Arupusu no Shōjo Haiji) in the late 1970s. And this was not exceptional. Heidi and its anime contemporaries were often seen as appointment television, understood both by distributors and the public at large to exist on the same level as any local telenovela. 

Quotidian dynamics such as these often elide the boundaries of fandom as it is often studied ¾ particularly when discussing media such as anime, which is so often discussed as a disruptive influence, whether it be to dominant media flows (to use the term as coined by Daya Thussu – “Mapping global media flow and contra-flow”, in Daya Thussu (ed.) Media on the move: Global flow and contra-Flow, 2007, London, England: Routledge. 11–32), the “centrality” of Western culture and industries, or as a boogeyman exposing Western children to different standards of violence, sex, and/or sexuality. They can be difficult to study, because their impact is often latent, with the depth of their influence only becoming visible when they are called upon to consolidate wider cultural identities and agendas. My last two publications (“Weaponizing collective energy: Dragon Ball Z in the anti-neoliberal Chilean protest movement”, Popular Communication, 2019, 17:3, 202-218 and “K-pop is Rupturing Chilean Society”: Fighting With Globalized Objects in Localized Conflicts, Communication, Culture and Critique, 2021, tcab047) focused precisely on the latent dimension of Asian media’s integration into Latin American (specifically Chilean) popular imaginaries, and how these are evoked. Both dealt with the ways in which Asian media integrated anti-neoliberal activism in the last decade. In the first case study I looked at how a massive 2011 student-led protest demanding an end to the Chile’s educational privatization used a climactic moment from the anime series Dragon Ball Z to narrativize the collective political agenda and add an element of nostalgic play to the event (Fig. 2).

What was most notable to me about this particular performance was how it both expected and received widespread popular recognition of a very specific narrative moment in this show, which may have indeed been popular worldwide, but which was also clearly intimately understood by the wider Chilean popular sphere to the same extent that something like Star Wars would be in the US. To me this evidenced the depth of this texts’ integration into Chile’s popular imaginary, and by extension the extent to which it can now be seen to “belong” to these popular subjects. My second and most recent work on this topic focusses on the ways in which, in the face of continued and even more wide spread anti-neoliberal dissidence, the Chilean government attempted to externalize the issue and blame Chile’s social rupturing on K-pop as a foreign entity, only to face both widespread mockery and the appropriation of K-pop as a symbol of Chile’s vast, syncretic activist movement. This movement for its part has grown rapidly to embody not only anti-neoliberal reforms, but also incorporates long-overdue feminist, transgender, and indigenous rights agendas. By assuming popular ownership of K-pop music and idols alongside such figures as Pikachu, “Pareman” and “Stupid Sexy Spider-Man” (look him up, he’s great), Chile’s activists are again demonstrating not only the extent to which these objects coexist and comingle in the wider imaginary, but also the ways in which their popular significance is something that can (and should) be participatory in nature, just as much a “collective” resource as ones being debated in the political realm (Fig. 3). 

Camilo Díaz Pino is an Assistant Professor of Communication and Media at West Chester University. He holds a BA and MA from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and a PhD from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His research interests include peripheral media flows, activist cultures of the Global South, transperipheral cultural hybridity, emergent production cultures, kids media, and cartoon cultures. His current book project focuses on Japanese media’s history to and throughout Latin America, and how these flows have influenced Asian media’s wider cultural presence in the region’s contemporary popular culture.

Global Fandom Jamboree Conversation: Clara Cisneros Hernández (Mexico) and Pablo Escandón Montenegro (Ecuador) (Round Two)

Replay 

Pablo Escandón Montenegro - Quito, Ecuador

The Mexican and Ecuadorian communities show similarities regarding their dynamics, since the calls to action have to do with corporate proposals, that is, to reinforce or grow the community itself and its activities, but not as proposals to follow a thematic or discursive line in which its own members can deepen or develop as individual subjects, since in this way, they generate competition or rivalry between digital spaces and their administrators.

The use they make of the different media and platforms is limited, since they are exclusively centralized on Facebook and do not have web spaces, but their activity address is the fan page. From there the administrator proposes topics and activities, which makes their Followers participate to some extent. The fandom culture is not so free and is completely nucleated by administrators, who work under a traditional media publishing logic, since digital culture is important for the dissemination of content, but not for the creation and cohesion of new audiences.

In this sense, the generational difference in the use of platforms is decisive, since with them the intentions of control and administration of content and knowledge between members can be seen, which does not prevent the exchange of knowledge, but does limit the initiative to build new complementary spaces that converge in the centralized one.

Replay – Round 2

Clara Cisneros Hernández – Mexico City

It can be affirmed that the participation in social networks of followers and fans of both Ecuador and Mexico for select niches, have managed to preserve these virtual spaces in order to share affinities, as well as learning about cultural and media content. The digital public space on ocial networks such as Facebook, summon similar profiles that find convergence from a reinforcement of value systems and recreational motivators.

In the case of Mexico’s La Frikiplaza, applied advertising maintains a huge interest in preserving the flow of users in its networks. Therefore, the segmentation of themes has always had as a target audience various social groups such as gamers, otakus (fans of products derived from Japanese culture), geeks (people who focus their interest on technology and digital devices) , cosplayers (subjects dedicated to the creation and use of costumes for the representation of fictional narrative characters) as well as fans of the Asian music industry and collectors of any plurality of consumer goods from the global content industry.

As described, this legitimized space seeks to reinforce the links and interests of the user, without neglecting effective solutions to make visits to the site, as a necessary variant to stimulate commitment and broaden the spectrum of commercial transactions, which is why the administrators direct their advertising to praise the consumer goods attached to the square.

 Another motivator to keep users encouraged to visit is the offer of free workshops open to the public — for example, sessions to practice the illustration of various visual styles or the teaching of basic levels in the interpretation of languages, as well such as the organization of cultural events with media figures, or the realization of tributes to authors of the popular content industry. In the same way, this space gratifies and grants a space for the relief of social practices, through contests aimed at gamers, cosplayers and choreographic groups, as well as amateur karaoke singers, among others, that manage to encourage free competition, formats cooperation and recreation.

In conclusion, in Mexico it is observed that the practices of followers and fans, specify the social affinities online that, transform the captive socio-cultural exchange in digital activity, are transferred to a landscape of physical social interaction in a very similar way to Ecuadorian photography groups on social networks, which have taken advantage of the Facebook group space to establish learning communities that also manage to break the virtual barrier from coexistence in guided tours of the city of Quito, as previously explained.

In both countries, despite the difference in practices and interest in hobbies, proactive and recreational interaction has been achieved beyond the social environment, giving space to the manifestation of artistic practices in a collective and collaborative way (online and offline) that enable creative expression, knowledge enhancement, and personal transformation.

Global Fandom Jamboree Conversation: Clara Cisneros Hernández (Mexico) and Pablo Escandón Montenegro (Ecuador) (Round One)

Replay 

Pablo Escandón Montenegro - Quito, Ecuador

The fandom culture, who participate in the creation, transformation and dissemination of cultural or media content, in Ecuador is completely linked to the participation of users who contribute to social memory with their knowledge and life stories around the possession of a photograph, knowledge of the scene or the recovery of material that becomes patrimonial, when valued by users.

In social media, mainly on Facebook, there are more than twenty spaces dedicated to the recovery and dissemination of old, historical and everyday photographs and images, which are shared on the pages created for this purpose. On more than one occasion, the same image has recirculated between several pages, because those who make up the community of that digital space, also integrate the others and consider that this contribution should circulate between the different pages in which they are registered and actively participate.

Digital communities, such as Cita con la Memoria, a fan page with restricted access, and managed by a university professor of more than 60 years from the city of Portoviejo, on the country's coast, and the Quito fan page Quito de aldea a ciudad, a free access page, managed by a retired high school teacher of more than 60 years, maintain an authority structure. The administrator is the one who authorizes, guides and promotes user conversations through questions about graphic content.

User participation is relatively frequent. Once the characters or locations of the city are identified, mainly, users stop contributing, and administrators do not generate more comment to revitalize contributions; then they generate a new publication, with the same dynamics.

It is important that the photographs and graphic resources disseminated in these spaces attract the attention of users, who not only share in other groups, but also, in many cases, redefine the graphic document with colorization, if the photograph is black and white, or they tell anecdotes that are related to the official story but delve into the stories lived by the users, or they recover the collective memory, with allusions to stories told by grandparents or relatives.

In this way, the Facebook space becomes a mini learning room about the daily history of a city, its people and the families that are still summoned from the anecdotes in common.

It is important to highlight that Cita con la Memoria, being a restricted group, has a participation of older adult users, on average; while Quito de aldea a ciudad has convened various age groups, since it also promotes guided tours of the city of Quito, with non-tourist circuits, which generates family interest beyond participation in the social environment.

In this way, the communities provide unofficial information about events, people and places that make up the past of Quito and Portoviejo.

Replay – Round 1 

Clara Cisneros Hernández – Mexico City

The communities of followers and fans online for the Mexican Republic, working in a very similar way to how it is assigned in Quito, formalize in social networks a useful and indispensable tool in the dissemination and promotion of virtual spaces for public use that have allowed the linking social and identity affinities in parallel to processes of creation, recreation, socialization and consumption.

Specifically, La Finisterra as a group of researchers dedicated to the creative industries in Mexico City have followed up on the public urban space recognized as the Frikiplaza, a specialized commercial area that, for more than fifteen years, has been positioned as a place of mercantile activations open to the general public in more than 20 states of the country, where young Mexicans meet to share multiple interests and hobbies, enabling the construction of identity values ​​and rituals that consumers adapt to their daily lives.

With the arrival of the pandemic and after the closure and subsequent reopening of public venues, Frikiplaza has given priority to maintaining niches of consumption, identities and cultural processes based on management of various activations in social networks. The physical space expanded to the virtual environment, giving rise to the extension of the identity experience.

Facebook and Instagram are established as the most confluent social networks in the area that, through the use of advertising and marketing models, have allowed the expansion of symbolic systems established as buying and selling models, based on sectors such as video games, animation, comics, music, film and television industries, among others, which provide various commercial supply-demand paths.

In this way, the commercial area is extended to promote a virtual comnunities, where the organizational administrators of the Frikiplaza encourage feedback, providing a continuous communication channel with young consumers between 10 and 35 years old. In their daily activity of expression on these platforms, they help to provide reaction analytics within topics of interest among hobbies and products disclosed by the merchants of their structure. Due to this organizational scheme, the administrators manage to obtain immediate answers to resolve the needs of each of the confluent social groups of the campus. In this way the "collective physical space" breaks limits and is dimensioned as a "virtual public space" that is kept supplied from the advertising application.

Young people prevail as catalyst agents of recreation that carry out the appropriation of symbolic systems in the practice of consumption and socialization,. Decanted through their hobbies, these participants will arrive at a format of convergence of cultures, fostering a space of multicultural convergence. The means of communication, therefore, in the virtual space is triggered by advertising directed at multiple confluent niches, where individual consumers in a dynamic flow re-signify and adopt culturally. In this phenomenon, users and fans in turn can generate a confrontation in consideration of their own culture, where it could be rejected, hybridized or resignified.

As Gilberto Giménez (2000) points out, identity requires a subjective re-elaboration of existing cultural elements. To achieve a social construction, the individual needs to carry out a negotiation with the environment, otherness and its symbolic frameworks, in where it makes a dynamic self-affirmation opposed by external actors and situations, both physical and virtual.

Thus, these enclosures within the most important cities of the Mexican Republic allow the reaffirmation of various social identities. Organizational strategists build specific areas for the construction of activations where local socialization practices are dimensioned that allow the ritualization and manifestation of daily habits of expression, lifestyle and consumption. In this case, the advertising model available in its social networks constantly reaffirms and legitimizes to keep diverse fandoms, recurring users and identity groups paid.

In both Quito and in Mexico, digital spaces aimed at select niches in some way need to be guided by an administration that promotes conversation and that in a certain way facilitates the pathways to address the identity, reaction and cause. of socialization in order to promote feedback, being an essential element to ensure and maintain in the long term, the confluence and the community activity. It should not be overlooked that virtual spaces must maintain constant gratification or motivators that allow the like-minded communities to be maintained.

In turn, it is observed that visual resources for online communities are manifested as symbolic axes necessary to generate responses, as well as guidelines that allow meaning, appropriation and resignification that in parallel derive in the release of intellectual, recreational and learning activities collective that are established as motivators that allow to preserve the recurrent activity of the user.

Global Fandom: Pablo Escandon (Ecuador)

Ecuador, fandom and participation around ancient photography

The study of online communities is important to know the causes and motivations that summon a group of people in a digital space: how is their relationship, how is the way they consume and disseminate information and what are the contents and their dynamics of interactions, but it is also important to know the ages of the members to know how they take on the platform and its relationship with media education. It is also necessary to know how fans feel around a communicative topic, action or product.

Although fans of TV series, movies, music or audiovisual series, as well as video games, are identified and fragmented, the massive number of fans around football and historical photographs on Facebook is not, understood as memory retrieval practices and recirculation of popular knowledge, without the mediation of a curator or gallery owner, much less a museologist or historian, to edit or moderate the discourse.

The dissemination of old photography is a very common practice on the Facebook network and users in Ecuador have made this platform the ideal space to share centralized stories based on the dissemination of archive photographs that administrators of pages such as Quito de aldea a ciudad, Cita con la memoria, Fotos antiguas del fútbol ecuatoriano, Recordando a Quito, Los ladrillos de Quito, among others, are carried out among their followers, with which they propose challenges of identifying spaces, characters, years and practices.

Since 2018, the forms of collaboration, moderation and participation in these digital spaces have been observed, which are managed by people over 60 years old and who have a photographic and newspaper archive, which could well be in a historical archive or as a background of a local museum, but that has decentralized from the formal exhibition and has found in social media the appropriate way to share stories and recreate historical moments, not only with the comments on the platform, but they go further with the proposal of Guided walks through the city, in order to appreciate the urban transformation, as Quito does from village to city, or the radio encounters that Cita con la memoria does, in the city of Portoviejo, to talk about everyday issues of the city, from the photograph of the memory.

The fanatics are in the 40´s and 50´s age. The teenagers or young adults are not the objective public of these digital spaces, because the physical exhibitions can convocate families and schoolars with teachers in urban places where the photographies are displayed.

Likewise, football history spaces resort to the exhibition of photographs taken from printed media and their own files to dialogue with fans about players, stadiums, results of championships and clothing.

This work is about how Facebook pages have become relatively cybermuseums, central containers for various digital and non-digital activities, which enhance the physical visit to a heritage space, mainly the urban one, to verify its transformation. One of the important characteristics of the cybermuseum is to create community and generate forms of appropriation of heritage, from an aesthetic characteristic of the community where it is settled, and that from the evocation generates its own poetics in its speeches.

The generation gap is important when creating content and positioning them on platforms, since the consumption and forms of relationship are different because the administrator marks his identity and has created a particular sociability with the members, which results in share similar aesthetic processes and consumptions, which do not require younger generations or age groups.

The administrator of a page on Facebook sets the aesthetics and rhythms of participation, to which users are assimilated. Therefore, the reputation of the administrators or guides is shaped by the input, moderation and knowledge that they demonstrate in the community. The members contribute to the construction of the story proposed by the administrator, granting it the authority to disseminate and generate content based on the established guidelines, which makes the community have a hierarchical relationship with the administrators of the spaces.

The configured communities look for authority figures who channel their interests, who deliver other types of content that they cannot find in official spaces, for this reason they look for factual constructions that are closer to the aesthetic-poetic that appeals to their subjectivity, that removes their memories and do not stay in nostalgia.

It is important to note that many of the members of each community integrate several spaces, since they find in them the complementarity of information and formats, supported by a methodological similarity in the activities of routes and walks. Therefore, it is thanks to this diversification of members in relation to belonging to networks and communities, that a polarized network structure is presented, which has similar intersections or encounters due to the presence of users in each community.

The online users find that Facebook is the best "medium" for exchange and dissemination, as well as meeting, but they requires more audiovisual content that motivates their consumption, that is interactive and generates interaction between members of the communities, actions that are important to maintain the curiosity and participatory spirit of those who are interested in these topics, with which the proposal hypermedia is aimed at motivating users to establish new walking routes within the city, under a random and / or thematic scheme outside the official tourist conventions.

The fandom culture as we traditionally know it around DC comic productions, Marvel or Disney audiovisual productions have their followers, but they are expressed in the purchase and marketing products, not in permanent or organized communities. The Comic Con is a meeting that takes place in the portuary city of Guayaquil, as an opportunity to generate business among the stores that sell products like merchandising.

Quito de aldea a ciudad: https://www.facebook.com/quito.aldeaaciudad

sell products like merchandising.

Quito de aldea a ciudad: https://www.facebook.com/quito.aldeaaciudad

Ecuador: fotos antiguas colorizadas.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/316318006036425/?hoisted_section_header_type=recently_seen&multi_permalinks=616290999372456

Fotografías antiguas del fútbol ecuatoriano

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1063318734047308

Pablo Escandón Montenegro

Professor at Simón Bolívar Andean University of Ecuador, academic coordinator of posgraduate program in Digital Communication, narrative transmedia researcher and writer of hipermedia.

pablo.escandon@uasb.edu.ec

Global Fandom Jamboree: Clara Cisneros Hernandez (Mexico)

In Mexico City, within the Center for Studies in Communication Sciences of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (National Autonomous University of Mexico a.k.a. UNAM), has been created a space for young researchers for academic discussion and the study of international creative industries, under the name “La Finisterra”, originated on May 14th, 2015. The research focuses are transmediation processes, the study of videogames focused on fandom from e-sports to serious games, geek culture, anime, manga, comics and Lucha Libre mexicana (Mexican wrestling).

The organization was founded by José Ángel Garfias Frías, David Cuenca Orozco, members of the National System of Researchers, and Roberto Carlos Rivera Mata, specialist in Serious games. Also the young academics members are: Clara Cisneros, specialist in anime and transmediation processes; Yisel Caballero, specialist in genre and video games; Emmanuel Galicia, specialist in advergames, Jetzaí Velazco, specialist in audiovisual products; Adolfo Gracia, specialist in communities of gamers; and Patricia Celis Banegas, specialist in Lucha Libre;  among other collaborators; all with postgraduate studies and professors from UNAM.

So far, we have finalized five collective research books with double ruling from other formal academic institutions, being the case of the texts: “Creative industries, Imaginaries, values ​​and ideology in animation and videogames”, (UNAM, 2021); “Creative industries and transmediation processes. Streaming videogames and audiovisual culture”, (UNAM, 2020); "Contributions for the construction of videogame theories volume 1 and 2" (UNAM 2018 - 2019); "Analysis of audiovisual languages ​​in the digital age" (UNAM, 2018). And there are two more books to be published: "Electronic sports. Theoretical approaches to its origin and evolution ”, and “Manual of scripts for video games with a focus on communication ”.

Similarly, we have published in other collective texts such as: "Leisure and entertainment in the digital context", Gedisa, 2021; under the coordination of Roberto Alejandro López Novelo; “Critical digital literacies. From tools to communication management ”. UAM - Editorial Juan Pablos, 2019; among other publications and journals.

Our mission is to position the study of the creative industries and the reception of fandom on the agenda of Mexican academic research, in order to develop research from a multidisciplinary perspective and contribute to the development of national production with applied social sciences.

A broad United Nations definition of Creative Industries specifies that (Unctad, 2008) “they are cycles of creation, production and distribution of goods and services that use creativity and intellectual capital as primary inputs”. In addition, they constitute a set of knowledge-based activities, focused on, but not limited to, culture and the arts, generating income from trade and intellectual property rights. They also include tangible products and intangible intellectual or artistic services with creative content, economic value and market objectives; they are a cross between artisan, service and industrial sectors.

Our research follows fandoms from the creative industry, since we are the Latin American country with the most specialized urban spaces dedicated to commerce and recreational activities in relation to cultural products such as videogames, comics, music industry, television series, animation and anime; among other sectors of international scope. Specifically, we monitor urban spaces that promote geek culture within Mexico City, such is the case of shopping and socializing places such as Frikiplaza, Fan Freak Center, Pikashop and Comic Rock Show, whose particularity is to provide a safe and comfortable environment for the constitution of communities according to hobbies, abilities or interests of various kinds, where individuals have direct exposure to a wide diversity of cultures and signatures to develop a sense of belonging. We also monitor online and offline communities, based on institutional research projects and thesis.

Conference at "La frikiplaza", a specialized shopping place in Mexico City.

Another line of studies predisposes the monitoring of transmediation processes, recognized as the construction of narrative experiences deployed through various media or platforms (Jenkins, 2003). The applied reception process focuses on video games, animation and lucha libre, which are the industries that we have detected, interweave expandable meaning webs within different information systems that surround a nucleus of meaning. Transmediation processes are essential for the study of creative industries since they assemble and design discursive and technical operational problems in order to open their meaning systems in a hypermedia environment, where the axis of action is Storytelling.

 The transmediation processes allow us to define how the fan, the user, the player, reader and perceiver, access not only other platforms to complete the story, but also involve themselves in order to develop with their actions and decisions, the discursive core and meaning that allows immersion, interactivity and a technocultural engagement, which remains based on motivators and gratification formats.

Mexico needs to be up-to-date in video game research, primarily due to its status as the main consumer of such technologies in the Latin American region. The territory also remains the tenth largest market in the world in the consumption of videogames, being the majority in the region with estimated revenues of approximately 2.3 billion dollars for 2021 (Statista, 2021). The Mexican territory is a representative sample, because more and more independent videogame and digital animation productions are being created within our country. Mexico is already beginning to produce its own videogames.

Although we study various styles of animation, we mainly monitor anime and its direct relationship with gamified formats in their transmediation processes, since Mexico remains one of the ten countries with the highest global consumption by the industry (Google Trends, 2020).

We integrate Lucha Libre mexicana into our research agenda, since it is a creative industry of indigenous international scope. Likewise, in 2018, Lucha Libre was declared a cultural heritage of Mexico City, established as a sports activity that encompasses intellectual creation from the continuous generation of new shows, characters, masks, rivalries and fighting skills. The sector involves a formal and informal economic development of great importance for the country, Lucha Libre in Mexico is an activity that is between sport and ritual, where there is a mixture of all these genres, but there are a number of theatrical elements basic, such as the mask, the costumes and the characters who stage dramas (Möbius, 2007).

Conference at National Autonomous University of Mexico a.k.a. UNAM.

Our academic research is committed to the investigation of different media productions, where even the participation of users becomes decisive from its reception, appropriation of meanings, communicative practices and user-generated content. In this way, some companies see the fan as a creator and promoter of cultural products, a cultivator of a true transmedia culture, where the important thing is to generate value from the fact of spreading on the network of users or consumers, since a certain content "If it doesn't spread, it's dead" (Jenkins, 2015: 25).

In summary We study the phenomenon of the creative industries meticulously through three levels:

1. Review of who produces the content, delimiting the intertwined distribution and consumption formats.

2. Analysis of the changes in the narrative structure within hypermediation and transmediation processes.

3. Monitoring of consumers at their reception, studying the forms of appropriation, participation and derivative communication practices.

The three levels are applied to the mexican context from a multidisciplinary approach, taking into account theories and methodologies that range from political economy, to investigate the power relations between media, to the reception and consumption processes, where we investigate the way in which international creative industries are appropriated by consumers, and how they continue to redefine their value.

Our approach defends the cultural perspective, where creative industries are understood as symbolic constructions, which are consumed by users who are subject to their structure, within a media environment where symbolic products are materialized and where symbolic goods are culturalized in a common space (Lash and Lury, 2007).

The analysis of these industries are in relation to the context of production, where the central axis takes into analysis the themes and exchanges between fans. The research we carry out is predominantly from a participatory approach, supported by a process of interpretation with a qualitative and hermeneutical methodological basis in the explicit lines of research.

The analysis of these industries places emphasis on the context of production, where the central axis takes into account the themes and exchanges between fans. The research we carry out is predominantly from a participatory approach, supported by a process of interpretation with a qualitative and hermeneutical methodological basis in the explicit lines of research.

References

Jenkins,  Henry (2006). Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture. New York University Press. 

Jenkins, H.; Ford, S. & Joshua Green (2013) Spreadable Media. New York University Press. 

Lash, S., & C. Lury (2007). Global Culture Industry. The Mediation of Things. Polity. Cambridge. 

López Novelo, R.A. (coordinador) 2021. Ocio y entretenimiento en el contexto digital. Aproximaciones desde la academia. México,  Gedisa.

Möbius, J. (2007). Y detrás de la máscara...el pueblo: Lucha libre, un espectáculo popular mexicano entre la tradición y la modernidad. unam. México.

United Nations (2008). Creative Economy Report, 2008. UNCTAD.

Statista. (2021). Statista.com. Link: https://es.statista.com/grafico/25685/los-principales-mercados-de-los-videojuegos/

Clara Cisneros Hernández – Mexico City

PhD student  in Communication from the Graduate Program in Political and Social Sciences from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Subject professor at the Faculty of Political and Social Science. Subjets of investigation: Videogames, Transmedia, fandom, creative industries, anime and manga.

Email: clara.cisneros@politicas.unam.mx

La Finisterra is a community of young researchers within the Center for Studies in Communication Sciences of the Campus for the Political and Social Sciences from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, originated since 2015 for academic discussion, the creation of their own theories and methodologies for the study of the mexican fandom, videogames, animation, comic and wrestling industries. So far, we have finalized five collective research books with double ruling from other formal academic institutions, being the case of the texts: “Creative industries, Imaginaries, values and ideology in animation and videogames”, (UNAM, 2021); “Creative industries and transmediation processes. Streaming videogames and audiovisual culture”, (UNAM, 2020); "Contributions for the construction of videogame theories volume 1 and 2" (UNAM 2018 - 2019); "Analysis of audiovisual languages in the digital age" (UNAM, 2018).

Clara Cisneros Hernández – México City: PhD student in Communication from the Graduate Program in Political and Social Sciences from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Subject professor at the Faculty of Political and Social Science. Subjets of investigation: Videogames, Transmedia, fandom, creative industries, anime and manga.

Global Fandom Jamboree Conversation Series: Hadas Gur-Ze’ev (Israel) and Miranda Ruth Larsen (Japan) (Part Two)

Fans write messages to K-pop artists performing at KCON LA 2017. (Author's photo, 2017)

Miranda Ruth Larsen: Many thanks for your participation as well, Hadas. I absolutely agree with your point that physical distance is as vital as symbolic distance, and that the realities of fandom are better illustrated with a rich understanding of particular contexts.

As to your question about K-pop fans in Tokyo versus Los Angeles – my response would be that while someone in each locale may be a fan of the same idol group, it is imperative to recognize differences in access, proximity, and so forth. Everything should, in an ideal mode of both academic and fannish engagement, be viewed as interconnected but localized. In other words, only certain statements should fit the bill of “global K-pop fandom,” and even the monikers “Japanese K-pop fans” or “Anglophone K-pop fans” must be broken down further for an accurate representation of how these fans are fans. In doing so, we can do as you suggested – have open conversations about the plasticity of boundaries and the fact those boundaries are often more like a disorganized Russian nesting doll.

I think your study of The Geekery offers an excellent point of analysis, beginning with its platform structure via Facebook. I’m interested in the types of posts shared there, particularly if you’ve noticed patterns as to certain fans taking on defined roles. In many bounded communities, established BNFs might rise to prominence because they always share the latest news, post the most photos, have the most incendiary discussions, and so on. Do you see this on The Geekery? Are Israeli comic fans claiming niche brands for themselves within this community, and do those niches point to the struggles of marginalized members?

I believe that your experiences with The Geekery can also speak well to COVID-19, given that online connection has become a central point of engagement for many fans during the pandemic. In my research, co-presence is not necessarily physical presence; in fact, co-presence is difficult to accurately measure because it forays into the realm of affect. What’s important is the opportunity for that affect. For most fans – but not all – this points to the physical, but there are other means to connect, depending on the context.

Your final question is a tricky one, as it widens out our discussion to transcultural fandom as a whole! Of course the factors of physical location, country of origin, and culture impact ability to take part in global fandom. So do practical factors like internet speed, disposable income, and proximity to a well-stocked library. Wholly acknowledging these factors is a vital framework that must be integrated with every fan studies engagement. Without them, we run the risk of making romanticized generalizations and commit a disservice towards other academics, fans, and students.

ICon 2017

Hadas Gur-Ze’ev: I think we both agree and recognize the plasticity of boundaries that constitute and define fan identity (or opportunities to participate in fandom). With this in mind, we can also ask about the particular power-struggles that shape the boundaries and the biases they hold—ones that stem from practical factors like distance or socio-economic status, but also symbolic struggles over resources and authority between different fans. This will require to look not only at broader interconnections within global fandom, but also how these struggles respond to changing contexts and trends in global popular culture (e.g. representations of gender, race, minority groups and inequality in general). 

Responding to your questions, the platform of Facebook is indeed an interesting space for negotiations around fan identity construction—where participants’ posts often serve, consciously or unconsciously, to define self /in-group identity as a “true” fans. While some users are more active than others (as you would expect on digital platforms), I wouldn’t say it is certain (individual) fans taking on defined roles—but rather a certain type of fans that showcase their prominence by the use and control of the “correct” insider-knowledge. These, as I see it, are again questions of boundaries—and a conflict including specifically gendered aspects (that are both local and global in nature). While some attempt to protect rather limited boundaries and reinforce (masculine) canon, other voices in the group attempt to incorporate new perspectives and audiences, presenting female/feminist voices as equally “authentic”. 

In my study of The Geekery I focused on the struggles of marginalized members based on gender, which is especially crucial in the case of the identity-label “geek” (for its previously perceived masculine hegemony). In this group, claiming ownership/knowledge of “correct” (canonic) niche brands translates into “fan-credit” and helps ensure the exclusivity of those already in power position. Yet, in the current cultural moment we may be witnessing a battle for these positions of power, and a sort of “opening-up” of fandom for more diverse audiences.

Asking ourselves about the factors (and biases) that impact the ability to take part in a global fandom, should we be able to recognize common dominant struggles for representation or participation? And if we do see some former-marginalized members reclaiming a position of power, who are the others at the (new) margins whose voices we might be missing, both at the local and global levels?

Fans watch requested videos in a K-pop cafe in Shin-Ōkubo, Tokyo. (Author's photo, 2016)

Miranda Ruth Larsen: I believe this has been a fruitful exchange; as I’ve expressed to Hadas, I’m quite sure we could continue indefinitely given the fascinating touchpoints between our two perspectives and areas of fan research.

My initial entry for this project was, admittedly, more of a manifesto concerning fandom and fan studies as a field. Throughout our exchanges, Hadas and I have drawn on our research in geographically and linguistically demarcated fan spaces. In doing so, we have both pointed to the vital importance of context and recognized that even those contexts carry limitations; whether it be the platform boundaries of Facebook or the winding streets of Shin-Ōkubo, these settings both inspire networks and bring access into question.

Moving forward, I hope that more fan studies work recognizes the affectively messy, experiential, nuanced, and unequal operations of fans and fandoms. We cannot ignore that fandoms take place under capitalism, that affect drives both collaboration and division, that ‘fans’ as a label often glosses over crucial markers such as race, gender, sexuality, socioeconomic status, age, and so on. Additionally, the digital platforms and physical spaces where fandoms happen are subject to numerous influences.

The observations Hadas and I have raised in our discussion are proof that fandom contexts provide challenges even to a well-informed researcher. The next step – getting our work ‘out there’ – also offers distinct challenges. I would like to conclude by stating that recognizing ourselves in our research remains a divisive topic in fan studies. Academic climates, like fandoms, are also nuanced (nuanced, here, is an attempt at diplomacy). In some circles, identifying oneself or one’s work as fan studies is actively discouraged. I hope that the aca-fan position becomes more accessible and acceptable given the current nature of the world falling apart. As COVID-19 continues to deepen concepts like access, borders, and cultural flows, diverse and outspoken aca-fans are needed to make sense of how and why people connect with media and each other.

Hadas Gur-Ze’ev: This has been a great conversation! We could definitely continue our discussion infinitely, seeing that context and limitations are always relevant and constantly changing. In a way, I think both our perspectives posed questions about the centers and peripheries in fandom; perhaps our exchange can shed light on the common/specific biases for different fan spaces, each with its own center and periphery.

I find these questions particularly interesting at this cultural moment, where struggles of access in fandom can be seen through the lenses of globalization, capitalism, a global pandemic, or worldwide influential movements for more equal opportunities (#MeToo/BLM?). In this broader context, we might even consider our conversations as part of a whole set of new perspectives that are claiming more dominance at the center/mainstream of fandom (and possibly fan studies?)—ethnicities, genders, sexualities, disabilities, minority groups, and diverse identities.

I thank you again for the opportunity to think more about our shared areas of research, and can’t wait to see where else this is going in the future (for fans, aca-fans, and global culture as a whole)!

Global Fandom Conversation Series: Hadas Gur-Ze’ev (Israel) and Miranda Ruth Larsen (Japan) (Part One)

Hebrew section in Israeli comic shop

Miranda Ruth Larsen: As I read Hadas’ introductory statement, I found myself attempting to reconcile the two spaces she so keenly addresses: the physicality of conventions and the digital reach of online fandom communities. Though geographically separated, the resonance between her study of Israeli comics fandom and my own work addressing K-pop in Japan is clear.

Hadas’ consideration of Israel as a fandom context is vital here, one of the place-centric engagements that contributes to the richness of transcultural fan studies. We can read Hadas’ introductory statement as an echo of numerous threads in fandom and fan studies, namely: 1) the ‘purity’ of texts 2) fans versus non-fans 3) localization and globalization 4) gendered fandom practices. The issues themselves are not new, but every permutation of them matters; how we discuss them now will shape future perceptions of media consumption and enjoyment.

I’m curious if The Geekery functions as a fandom police, given the centralized structure of consumption: what of the fans who cannot easily access Facebook, the ones left out of the loop? Are fans on this platform utilizing their real names and identifiable images of themselves (in and out of cosplay), or is a degree of obfuscation employed? Additionally, given Hadas’ observation that fan practices at ICon are gendered, I can’t help but wonder if they’re also generational – are the fans of untranslated, “raw” texts younger, and do they harass older fans for their engrained consumptive habits?

:A rookie K-pop idol group promotes their concert by distributing fliers outside Skinholic, a Korean cosmetics shop. (Author's photo, 2016)

As I’ve written elsewhere, the politics of naming a fan/otaku/fujoshi/pen in Japanese is a paramount linguistic decision (Larsen 2018, 2020). Going beyond K-pop, the employment of one of these labels to describe oneself or others is contextual and often highly gendered. (Fujoshi in Ikebukuro does not land the same way as it does in Akihabara; to use the Korean-derived suffix pen outside of known Korean Wave enthusiasts can result in blank stares.) These terms are, critically, not universally interchangeable or acceptable. There are social consequences for using these terms, even when definitions are agreed upon by friendly parties.

This ties into Hadas’ observation that ‘geek’ offers a particular label for comics fans in Israel, a conscious demarcation to those that don’t “get” fandom and members of other fandoms as well. Yet geek is also a plastic term, as Benjamin Woo explores in Getting A Life: The Social Worlds of Geek Culture. Geeks and other labels “are all social types, or models that are abstracted from particulars” (46). The fans Hadas discusses apparently want geek to occupy an agreed-upon definition, a consensus social model under scrutiny, but this seems like a potent recipe for conflict. Is the “universality” celebrated in centralized Israeli comics fandom a rhetorical strategy to minimize the numerous differences of Israeli fans, like the silencing of marginalized fans by mainstream fans elsewhere?

Works Cited

Larsen, Miranda Ruth. “‘But I’m a Foreigner Too.’ — Otherness, Racial Oversimplification, and Historical Amnesia in Japan’s K-pop Scene.” Fandom: Now in Color: A Collection of Voices. Edited by Rukmini Pande. University of Iowa Press. 2020. 

“Fandom and Otaku.” A Companion to Media Fandom and Fan Studies. Edited by Paul Booth. Wiley. 2018.

Woo, Benjamin. Getting A Life: The Social Worlds of Geek Culture. McGill Queen’s Press. 2018.

Hadas Gur-Ze’ev: Thanks for starting this conversation, Miranda! I can also see the resonance between fandom in Israel (although it still mostly describes sci-fi/fantasy geeks) and your work on K-pop in Japan, or the broader relationship between fans and idols in different locales. 

While Israel (or Koreatown, Japan or Los Angeles) is certainly a vital fandom context, it is still only one in an array of different contexts (among gender, power, or global fan traditions and practices). I agree with your statement that scholarship should better represent the realities of fandom, taking into account critical localized aspects and inequities in access to media and experiences. It seems to me that we should also consider such inequities as intersecting with others—not just a physical distance from an experience, but also symbolic distance—such as a language or cultural gap, access to resources, or, like the case of my study, a gender bias. 

And so, if K-pop fans are not offered the same proximities to their idols in Tokyo as they do in Los Angeles, could they be equally considered part of the same fandom? Do they experience their fan identity differently, and maybe try to make up for these gaps? If we see access as influenced by power struggles (whether the local/global, direct/remote, masculine/feminine, old/new), we can ask ourselves who can—and cannot—be an acceptable “fan”? And similarly, who can—and cannot—be an acceptable aca-fan? As fans and as academics, we can try to better understand these dynamic boundaries and what constitutes them in each community.

The Geekery is indeed the mainstream digital platform for fandom in Israel, and the question of border-policing in the form of access to the group (or to Facebook) is certainly important. Although there is no formal policing (the group is public, the admins present it as inclusive as possible, and participants usually feel safe to use their names and share pictures), the group must leave a lot of fans “out of the loop”. Apart from an evident gendered bias of access (with reported evidence of toxic masculinities), The Geekery also lacks representation of specific sub-groups and minorities in Israeli society (for example, from different ethnic or religious groups). This does not mean there aren’t geeks or fans elsewhere—but that many unique experiences are not widely visible on mainstream fandom circles. We can therefore ask not only how to make these voices heard, but also how to integrate sometimes conflicting values and conceptions of fandom.

I’m not certain that a “universality” celebrated in centralized Israeli comics fandom is a rhetorical strategy to exclude others, but it might provide  the structure, or boundary, in which different identities battle each other. “Geek” or “fan” (and likely, other interchangeable terms in different languages) are certainly contextual, gendered, and dynamic labels—and thus policing these identities, meanings, and borders of definitions could be seen as exclusionary rhetorical strategies. An interesting question is who do these boundaries exclude, and what valued resources are prevented from marginalized members.

Reading your introductory statement, I was particularly interested in the role of physicality in the relationship between fans, idols, and fandom. This question might even be more relevant in the context of COVID-19 and the use of digital substitutes to physical experiences (even within the same local and cultural settings). I’m curious if the co-presence specific to certain locale is necessarily a physical presence? Could there also be other options to connect with fans and idols? And to what extent do the physical location, country of origin or culture determine the ability to take part in global fandom?

Global Fandom Jamboree: Miranda Ruth Larsen (Japan)

A view of the KCON LA convention floor from the Special Guest lounge (author’s photo, 2018)

In the mid‐2000s, I walked into a music‐based pop culture shop in a Central New York mall and picked up a t‐shirt emblazoned with the words “anime freak” in English and the kanji for “otaku” in Japanese. At the time, Japanese content such as anime and manga were circulating widely in the United States and globally, aided by Web 2.0 and the time and effort of industry and dedicated fans alike. (Larsen 2018, 277) This personal anecdote opens my article “Fandom and Otaku” to marry my argument (fan, like otaku, is a contextually determinant term and identity) with my aca-fan position (an identity position that complicates and enriches fan experiences). 

 Consider the following situation as an addendum: in the summer of 2015, I returned to Central New York to visit family before moving to Tokyo for my PhD. One of my cousins was especially eager for me to spend time with her daughter, someone also “into” all the “Japan stuff.” Despite our 13-year age gap, this ‘little’ cousin of mine and I shared interests in numerous anime, video games, and Japanese musicians. She was particularly delighted I knew about Hatsune Miku, as many of her friends didn’t understand the concept of the virtual singer. We then had this exchange:

Me: Well, if you see something Miku that you want to get, I can always send it to you

from Tokyo.

Little cousin: Oh, that’s okay. I can get everything on Amazon.

The sting of rejected good intentions aside, this moment encapsulates a generational difference of engagement with Japanese popular culture and fandom itself. I cite it now in conjunction with my statement in “Fandom and Otaku” as an apt illustration of the many strains found in fandom and fan studies. Transcultural fandom is at the root of global fan practices today, facilitated by international marketing and connections via Web 2.0. At the same time, this focus on the globalization of certain texts and practices often elides critical localized realities. 

 My dissertation, “‘A World Just For You’: Affect, Bodies, and Place in Shin-Ōkubo,” explores this via K-pop. While widely understood as a global phenomenon, the experience of K-pop fandom and idoldom in Tokyo’s Koreatown is vastly different from other locations. Besides a complex historical backdrop and cultures of gendered consumption writ large, categories of ‘fan’ and ‘idol’ are often spatially bound performances. Affective experiences offered as integral components of nascent idol life, such as sharing photos, recording “Five Minute Dates,” and tackling language barriers facilitate co-present co-creation specific to certain locales. Koreatown’sIkemen-dori(“Hot Guy Road”), for example, has idols recruit new fans via hand-delivered flyers in an environment of ethnic tourism clouded by an unwillingness to remember Japanese atrocities against Korean nationals both historical and present (Ahn and Yoon 2020, 179). Critically, this localized model influences idols who go on to operate elsewhere, including participation in production of other idols in For

Rookie K-pop group CIRCUS CRAZY distributes flyers on the streets of Shin-Ōkubo, Tokyo’s Koreatown (author’s photo, 2016).

 The recognition of the global in fan studies often fades to discussions of adaptation, distribution, and objects. My dissertation highlights how numerous fan experiences can’t be purchased via Amazon. Elsewhere, I’ve written about affective hoarding, a phenomenon where fans actively seek to take an affective experience away from another fan (Larsen 2018, On/Offscreen). While adaptation, distribution, and object fandom matter, fan studies has much work to do recognizing the polymorphous. Like the earlier abandonment of purely affirmational, resistance-driven fandom, we must now accept that the digital and global turn facilitates anti-fandom and toxic stan culture on a borderless and terrifying scale.

 I’m interested, then, in how scholarship can better represent the realities of fandom, addressing the non-utopian (racism, sexism, classism, ageism, nationalism, xenophobia) and the complex (transcultural, linguistic, affective, commoditized). Disparities in academia at large and academic publishing guarantee widely circulated texts are often vetted via academia, not fandom. Critical views of BIPOC scholars – and other underrepresented populations – are curated for acceptability by a white majority that gets to represent the field in classrooms and revenue. It’s unsurprising, therefore, that voices offering the hardest truths are often dismissed – and harassed -- if they do not fit the narrative (Stitch 2021).

 Similarly, the aca-fan orientation, outside of many welcoming circles, is criticized as an unethical position denoting excessive attachment. As Lori Hitchcock-Morimoto observes, “we are wont to think of the emotional side of fandom as both incalculable (and thus difficult to account for) and insufficiently critical as a scholarly lens, particularly where positive emotions are concerned” (2017). In my own experience while based in Tokyo, I frequently encountered pointed stares whenever I framed my work as aca-fandom or reported fans and idols as having diverse experiences. Again, this is contextual; white cis male academics engaging with ‘weird Japan’ aren’t undercut in the same manner. There is a marked gender bias as to who is an acceptable aca-fan, among many other factors. This is not discussed enough.

 Returning to my opening anecdotes, I want to stress the rural setting of these experiences as well. Media and experiences may be theoretically widely available, but they are not widely accessible. As I often explain when questioned about my research, K-pop idols do not offer the same proximities – real and imagined – to fans in Tokyo as they do in Los Angeles. And as I told my little cousin back in 2015, utilizing a fannish reference, one does not simply purchase everything on Amazon.

 I believe fan studies, to capture the realities of fandom, must recognize the numerous gaps between fans far beyond the narrative of a global fandom rallying behind a boyband, film, or athlete. We must update – and create new -- models that address the diversity and inequities of fan experiences and then discuss these models beyond the halls of academia. Most importantly, we must reckon with context upsetting generalized assertions.

 Works Cited

Ahn, Ji-Hyun and E Kyung Yoon. 2020. “Between Love and Hate: The New Korean Wave, Japanese Female Fans, and Anti-Korean Sentiment in Japan.” Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia Vol. 19., No. 2: 179-196.

Hitchcock-Morimoto, Lori. 2017. “’First Principles’: Hannibal, Affective Economy, and Oppositionality in Fan Studies.” Fan Studies Network Conference, Huddersfield UK.

Larsen, Miranda Ruth. 2018. “Affective Hoarding.” On/Offscreen.

--- 2018. “Fandom and Otaku.” A Companion to Media Fandom and Fan Studies. Paul

Booth, ed. Wiley-Blackwell.

Stitch. 2021. “Over a Year After the OTW/AO3’s Statement of Solidarity: Where Are We With That Anti-Racism?” Stitch’s Media Mix.

Miranda Ruth Larsen is a PhD Candidate at the University of Tokyo in ITASIA (Information, Technology, and Society in Asia). She previously earned an M.A. in Cinema & Media Studies (2015) from UCLA and a B.A. in English & Textual Studies (2011) from Syracuse University. Miranda’s work focuses on fandom, gender, and transcultural media. She is the author of “‘But I’m a Foreigner Too.’ – Otherness, Racial Oversimplification, and Historical Amnesia in Japan’s K-pop Scene” inFandom, Now in Color: A Collection of Voices(2020), “‘Don’t Adjust Your Life to Mine.’ –Moon Child, Homoeroticism, and the Vampire as Multifaceted Other” inThe Global Vampire in Popular Culture(2020), “Fanservice” in the open-access publicationKeywords: Japanese Media and Popular Culture(2020), among others. She has discussed K-pop fandom on podcasts such as Aca-Media, Reset, and Hello Hallyu and was a three-year KCON LA Special Guest. She can be found on Twitter as @AcaOtaku

Global Fandom Jamboree: Hadas Gur-Ze’ev (Israel)

An ultra-orthodox couple and an ICon visitor in costume on public transportation (private collection).

It was Jewish new year more than a decade ago when I was first exposed to the concept of fandom in Israel. As every year, for three days the streets of Tel-Aviv were packed with teenagers dressed as Spiderman, Deadpool, or other handmade cosplay outfits, waving with big gestures and wishing each other (and the shocked onlookers) “Happy Icon-day!”. ICon (short for ‘Israeli Convention') is not a national or religious holiday (though depending on whom you ask), but rather the annual Israeli science fiction and fantasy fan convention—some would say, the Israeli equivalent of Comic-Con. Despite its growing popularity in recent years, the event is completely volunteer-based, and still takes place in a high-school backyard. 

Unlike other fan conventions worldwide, ICon lacks the impressive number of celebrity guests, panels, photo-ops and signatures. I would not go as far as assuming that this has something to do with the politicization of the state of Israel. The genres of comics and sci-fi/fantasy in Israel are still relatively niche, and fly under-the-radar when it comes to the potential battlegrounds for political conflicts. Another explanation might be related to the fact that Israel is still a small market (with a population of about 9 million citizens), geographically remote from the US and central Europe (although probably less-so culturally). On top of this, the resources at hand of the organizations involved—run by the fans themselves—seem to be much more limited.

My forthcoming journal article (co-authored with Prof. Neta Kligler-Vilenchik), titled “No Geek Girls: Boundary-work and Gendered Identity in the Israeli Geek Community,” focused on the construction and negotiation of identity for comics and sci-fi/fantasy fans in Israel through their main digital platform, the Facebook group ‘The Geekery.’ Asking how gender plays into the negotiations over who can—and cannot—be a geek, this project also suggested the importance of the identification as geeks rather than fans, but still as part of a global subculture.

Don’t say ‘comics fans,’ say ‘geeks’: Linguistic and cultural translations

ICon is one of the best examples of a community where participants express feelings of closeness and intimacy—described through terms like “family” and “home”—values that are traditionally dominant in Israeli culture. But the Israeli fan identity is one that is far less Israeli than it is global. Fan objects and resources are pretty much identical to global popular culture, without any formal local additions to the collective repertoire (dominated by Marvel and DC comics). Most fans prefer to read or watch original versions, without subtitles (dubbing is completely unacceptable)—and so comic books, movies and series are mostly consumed in English. Moreover, the very language of fandom, the vocabulary of names, places, phrases, intertextual references and inside-jokes, remains in English, even while the spoken and written language is Hebrew. 

            An interesting exception is the word “fan” itself, which illustrates the special position of comics and sci-fi/fantasy fandom among other types of fans in Israel. While there is some literature on Israeli sports fans or music fans, the word “fan” (מעריץ), used to label the participants in this cultural practice, does not apply well to comics fans. In its translation to Hebrew, the word “fan” often retains the derogative meaning that originated from the word ‘fanatic’ before its reappropriation by fans; in the context of sports fans it is translated as “supporter” or “follower”, and in the context of celebrities or popular content as “admirer” or “adorer”. In contrast, comics and sci-fi/fantasy fans separate themselves from these other types of fans and describe themselves as geeks—hence the name of the community’s Facebook group, The Geekery.

            Like other parts of fan jargon, the label “geek” has not been translated to Hebrew and is preserved in the original pronunciation, spelled with Hebrew letters (גיק). Similarly, despite their rejection of the word “fan,” the word “fandom” actually retained its place in geeky vocabulary, though used for a very specific meaning. “Fandom” (פאנדום) is only used to describe specific fan communities organized around objects of geeky repertoire, while the word is completely unfamiliar to people outside the comics and sci-fi/fantasy community. This gap may explain the lack of literature on Israeli fandoms—for outsiders, they are not perceived as a community, but rather as individuals or people that “are into superhero stories.”

Globalized fandom and (the absence of) local fan objects

It is no secret that the history of comics in the US is closely integrated with Jewish history. Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, as well as many others, were responsible for today’s most famous superheroes (Superman, Batman, The Avengers and many others). According to recent statistics, 74% of the Israeli population is Jewish (the remainder are 21% Muslim, Christian, or Druze Israeli Arabs, and 5% other minorities). This Jewish sector (mostly the secular or atheist part of it) is the most dominant in the comics or sci-fi/fantasy community in Israel. The cultural proximity to the Jewish roots of comics could theoretically have been an important asset for the Israeli fandom, yet it seems that the universal (or rather, American) traditions are more appealing to the local fandom than the Jewish ones.

ICon festival, the next generation (credit: Dan Ofer)

This tendency towards a globalized fandom can also be seen in the absence of local fan objects. With the exception of a limited number of works and creators that are Israeli in essence (and can’t be comprehensibly translated to other cultures), the vast majority of the content for fan practices is imported. One "superhero" with clear Israeli roots is actress Gal Gadot, portraying Wonder Woman in the DCEU films. The marketing efforts of the films in Israel directly targeted the Israeli national sentiment, and indeed the film gained an impressive popularity among the general population in Israel—but not as much within the comics fandom. Instead of local patriotic sentiment, the local fan community criticized her character and especially her Israeli accent, which did not pass as exotic/authentic enough for a princess of Themyscira. The authenticity of the franchise, as it seems, was put above the national pride. 

The global nature of fandom seems unique to the contemporary, digital age. At least until the 1980s and 90s, the local sentiment, traditions and language were a higher priority, with the names of superheroes and other characters receiving Hebrew translations: Batman was translated to “The Bat Man” (איש העטלף) and Spiderman’s aunt May was called in Hebrew Maya (מאיה), a common Hebrew name. Today, these translations are received with utter ridicule. English, and the direct access to original contents, became dominant along with the rise of the internet.

Local traditions and identities

Israel, as a young 72-year-old state thought to be a homeland for the Jewish people, brought in and integrated immigrants from various different cultures. Even within the Jewish population today, these ethnic tensions remain integral to identities discourse, sometimes subconsciously, and could also be meaningful for thinking about identities within Israeli fandom. The main oppositional identity, according to self-defined geeks, is that of the “ars” —a derogatory term referring to men perceived as ignorant, coarse, and aggressive—which is stereotypically connected to Mizrahi Jews (of Sephardic/Arabic origin), as opposed to Ashkenazi Jews (of European origin).

Multiculturalism? Israeli cosplayers, English signs, and religious participants in the background. ICon festival, Tel- Aviv (credit: ICon festival official).

The perceived uniformity of fandom in Israel (as a universal-secular subculture) seems less homogenous when looking at the more complex relations between different sectors of Israeli society. Many religious communities in Israel (Jewish, Muslim, or Druze) remain culturally closed groups, protecting their own traditions from either local or global culture. On the more extreme end, the ultra-orthodox (Haredi) Jews oppose to television and films altogether, and are religiously prohibited from using the internet (or internet-enabled mobile phones). Despite limitations of access, some religious (though not ultra-orthodox) fans manage to bridge the gaps between their commitment to religious rules and fandom practices, making some adjustments or adaptations (like reading “clean” texts without explicit sexual references, or creating “Kosher” cosplays that adhere to the laws of modest dress).

            In general, the Israeli comics and sci-fi fandom adheres to global trends in terms of the objects of fandom, the language, and the practices. Still, as any local community, it is also uniquely shaped by local cultural contexts. For example, the large amount of activities for young children at conventions (appropriate for the country with the highest fertility rate of all OECD countries, with an average of 3.1 children), or a decision to ban the use of weapons in cosplay, including plastic or cardboard tools (a request put in during a stressful period of terror attacks). The community’s main platforms for interaction (like The Geekery or ICon) appear to be blurring the local, ethnic, or religious attributes, and celebrating the universality of fandom. 

Hadas Gur-Ze'ev is a Ph.D. student in Communication at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (supervised by Prof. Neta Kligler-Vilenchik). Her research interests include popular culture, participatory platforms, and the negotiations of gendered power relations in digital environments. Her current research focuses on feminist trends and misogynistic countertrends in online discussions in fan spaces.

Back to School: Podcasting -- Origin Stories

This spring, I am teaching — for the first time — a course on the history and craft of podcasting as part of an initiative in the journalism school to expand its offerings in this area. As a hardcore podcasting fan, and as someone who co-hosts the How Do You Like It So Far? podcast, I am looking forward to.getting my students to explore the breadth of what’s out there right now, and as a long time radio buff, I want to introduce them to older work which lay the foundation for our current practices. As always, I want to share my syllabi here. This one is especially rich since it has links to the specific episodes I want students to listen to outside of class, though there will be more listening inside class.

Course Description

Podcasting is the new, hot medium that has seen exponential growth over the last two decades. Millions of podcasts have been created, covering an infinite number of subjects and formats -- everything from news and documentary, fiction, conversational series, and educational series. Podcasting has tapped into a cultural phenomenon, reaching listeners on a personal and on a collective level. The medium has its roots in oral traditions, the radio medium, and film and theatre sensibilities, while technological advances allow new definitions of the way audiences and content producers interact.  

Podcasting has become an area of critical examination as well, as podcasting evolves into a key part of the media landscape, reflecting social and cultural touchpoints in society. This course will explore the historical and theoretical underpinnings that have brought the podcasting movement to its current form, roots which take us through commercial, public, grassroots, and underground radio movements across the past century.  Through readings, lectures, and written work, students will situate podcasting in relation to earlier generations of audio technology and identify some key figures in radio history and the ways they continue to influence choices made by contemporary podcast producers.

Above all, we will be actively listening and critically engaging with innovative works, including experimental media texts going back to the origins of radio, as well as works illustrating the diverse functions of the contemporary podcast. This range of material reflects this course’s goal of broadening exposure to current practices and audiences. We will also examine how the emergence of podcasting has impacted the diversity of voices and perspectives finding an audience, and how global access contributes to regionally specific content. In the process of this exploration, the course hopes to sensitize students to the roles which noise, sound, music, and the human voice may play in constructing soundscapes and telling meaningful stories (fictional and nonfictional).

Student Learning Outcomes 

 Map and identify the diverse historical models -- from classical radio drama to underground and pirate radio -- which have informed the development of contemporary podcasting.

 Define the basic building blocks of audio-based storytelling and examine how they are used in different podcasting genres.

 Listen to one podcast across the semester and evaluate how podcasting and radio create different relationships to their audiences and publics.

Assignments 

First Paper: Using examples we have considered so far in the class, write a short, five-page essay describing similarities and differences in the nature of radio and the nature of podcasting. Draw on course-assigned readings to provide some conceptual frameworks for your analysis.  (20 percent)

 Blackboard Notes: Each week, each student will use the Discussion Board feature on Blackboard to post some initial thoughts, reactions, questions, and comments about the materials assigned. These notes should be posted at least three hours prior to when the class is scheduled to meet. (20 Percent)

 Class Journal: Each student will select one ongoing podcast that they will listen to systematically across the semester, making some notes each week about their experiences consuming additional episodes of this material, the content featured in the episodes listened to each week, the ways that the podcast seeks to build listener loyalty over time, and the ways this podcast fits within the histories of the medium we have introduced across the semester. (30 Percent)

 Final Exam: Students will complete a comprehensive take-home final with questions designed to encourage reflection across topics and examples we have explored this term. (20 Percent)

 Class Participation: Students are expected to regularly attend and participate in class discussion. (10 Percent)

Course Schedule: A Weekly Breakdown
Important note to students: Be advised that this syllabus is subject to change - and probably will change - based on the progress of the class, news events, and/or guest speaker availability. 

Week 1  1/11 Noise, Sound, Music, Voice

LISTEN:

From BBC’s Noise: A Human History—

 “Echoes in the Dark “(14:37): https://beta.prx.org/stories/100722

“The Beat of the Drum” (14:20): https://beta.prx.org/stories/100883

“New Art of Listening” (14:33): https://beta.prx.org/stories/103047 

“Capturing Sound” (14:22):  https://beta.prx.org/stories/103056

Columbia Workshop “Broadway Evening” (38:09): https://podbay.fm/p/classic-radio-drama/e/1183454460

Guide to Getting Lost (32:38): https://soundcloud.com/jenniesavage/guide-to-getting-lost

(This piece is designed to be heard on a mobile phone while taking a walk.)

Suspense “Lentigen vs. The Ants” (27:08): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KPIw_4wE8c

READ:

Richard Berry, Chapter 2 in Podcasting: New Audio Culture and Digital Media(London: Palgrave McMillan, 2018)

(Rec.) David Hendy, “Echoes in the Dark” and “The New World of Listening,” and “Capturing Sound” in Noise: A Human History of Sound and Listening (New York: Ecco, 2013).

Week 2 1/18 Technologies of Sound: Radio, Cinema, Records, Podcasts

LISTEN:

Lost and Found Sound, “The Rise and Fall and Rise of Thomas Edison” (22:05): http://www.kitchensisters.org/stories/lost-found-sound/  

99 Percent Invisible, “Bone Music” (16:41): https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/bone-music/  

 Ways of Hearing, “Space” (24:06): https://www.radiotopia.fm/showcase/ways-of-hearing  

 Radio Lab, “60 Words” (1:09:16): https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/episodes/60-words

READ: 

Martin Spinelli and Lance Dann, Chapter 2, Podcasting: The Audio Media Revolution(London: Bloomsbury, 2019).

Week 3 1/25 Bards and Storytellers

LISTEN:

BBC’s Noise: A Human History, ‘Epic Tales’ (14:35): https://beta.prx.org/stories/102879  

 Jean Shepherd, “A Christmas Story” (43:59): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkicEleOiTM 

 Lake Wobegon Stories, “You’re Not the Only One” (26:12): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-ZFo9S_z1k

Have You Head George’s Podcast?, ”A Greenfall Story” (27:00):https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07qtmfs
The Moth, “Residual Effects” (21:20): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANPJz8QKBTw

READ:

Joe Lambert and Brooke Hessler, “The Work of Stories,” “The Stories of Our Lives,” Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives, Creating Community(New York: Routledge, 2018).

Week 4  2/1 Publics and Audiences

LISTEN:

BBC’s Noise: A Human History, “Radio Everywhere” (14:37):https://beta.prx.org/stories/103063

 FDR fireside chat 1 (12:57): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ6FxYl9sRE

 Documentary about Norman Corwin (56:28):https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4668028

Rush Limbaugh (14:45-25:15): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NN vw MFw  

 America’s Town Meeting of the Air, “Should the U.S. Open Its Doors to Displaced Persons Now?” (Listen until 36:00),https://www.oldtimeradiodownloads.com/variety/americas-town-meeting-of-the-air/should-the-u-s-open-its-doors-to-displaced-persons-now-1946-10-31

READ:

Susan J. Douglas, “The Invention of the Audience,” Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004). 

Week 5  2/8 Documenting Ordinary Folks

 LISTEN:

CBS Workshop, “I Was the Duke” (I_Was_the_Duke.mp3  

Studs Terkel with Welfare Mothers (54:55): https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/mothers-discuss-hardships-living-welfare  

 The Promise, “A Beautiful Day in the Projects” (23:39): https://wpln.org/post/the-promise-part-2-a-beautiful-day-in-the-projects/

Story Corps on Stonewall (22:45): https://storycorps.org/stories/remembering-stonewall/

 Snap Judgment, “Map of the Disappeared” (48:36): https://podyssey.fm/podcast/itunes283657561/episode23689191-Disappeared-Snap-Judgment

READ:

Dave Isay, “The Story of Story Corps,” Listening is An Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the Story Corps Project(New York: Penguin, 2008).

Week 6 2/15 The NPR Tradition 

LISTEN:

Sandy Toland, “The Lemon Tree” (41:39):mhttps://freshairarchive.org/segments/sandy-tolans-lemon-tree

 Code Switch, “A Letter from Young Asian Americans, to their Parents, about Black Lives Matter” (23:14):

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/code-switch/id1112190608?i=1000373164987&mt=2  

 The Sporkful, “Aleppo Sandwich part 1” (28): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/10-years-1-aleppo-sandwich-pt-1/id350709629?i=1000491944395

 The Sporkful, “Aleppo Sandwich Part 2” (28): https://podcasts.apple.com/gh/podcast/10-years-2-aleppo-sandwich-pt-2-update/id350709629?i=1000491944396

Heavyweight, Episode 11—Christina (44:03): https://gimletmedia.com/shows/heavyweight/j4hlkd/11-christina

READ:

Scott Carrier, “The Jackie Kennedy Moment;”  The Kitchen Sisters, “Talking to Strangers;”  Sandy Tolan, “The Voice and the Place;” mIn Reality Radio: Telling True Stories Through Sound (Durham: University of North Carolina, 2017).

Week 7 2/22 This American Life and Serial

LISTEN:

This American Life, Abdi & the Golden Ticket (54:00): https://www.thisamericanlife.org/560/transcript  

Serial, “The Alibi” (53:55): https://serialpodcast.org/season-one

 S-Town, E1 (54:00):  https://stownpodcast.org/chapter/1  

 READ:

Rebecca Ora, “Invisible Evidence: Serial and the New Unknowability of Documentary,” in Podcasting: New Aural Cultures and Digital Media, Cham: Springer, 2018.

 Sarah Koenig and Julie Snyder, “One Story, Week by Week,” Reality Radio: Telling True Stories Through Sound (Durham: University of North Carolina, 2017)

Week 8 3/1 Black and Ethnic Radio

LISTEN:

Black Radio: Telling It Like It Was, Hour 1 “In the Beginning” and “Pride & Enlightenment, (51:59): https://beta.prx.org/stories/355118 

Black Radio: Telling It Like It Was, Hour 5 “Civil Rights” and “Let’s Have Church” (51:59): https://beta.prx.org/stories/355822  

The Last Pirates: Britain’s Rebel DJs (59:36): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI1l-CXBuGQ

The Stoop, “The Birth of Solomon” (31:50): http://www.thestoop.org/home/2018/5/1/episode-14-the-birth-of-solomon  

#Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, “Pins and Polls”: https://www.goodmuslimbadmuslim.com/podcast/2016/11/29/023-pins-and-polls   (Listen to the first half hour or so)

 READ:

John Fiske, “Blackstream Knowledge,” Media Matters: Race and Gender in U.S. Politics (New York: Routledge, 1996)

(Rec.) Richard Durham, Golden Age of Black Radio, Archives of African-American Music and Culture

Week 9 3/8 Amateur, Underground, Community Traditions

 LISTEN:

Prometheus Radio (1:00:45): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehcIjYbSsqo

Nancy, “Emma Gonzales Wants You to Vote,” (26:47): https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/nancy/episodes/emma-gonzalez-march-for-our-lives-vote 

Ear Hustle, “The Big No-No” (41:24): https://www.earhustlesq.com/episodes/2018/11/8/the-big-no-no  

 Illuminative on the Air, “We Have Medicine for Each Other” (54:54): https://illuminatives.org/illuminative-on-air-podcast/  

READ:

Lukasz Swiatek, “The Podcast as an Intimate Bridging Medium,” in Podcasting: New Aural Culture and Digital Media, Cham: Springer, 2018.

 (Rec.) Susan J. Douglas, “Popular Culture and Populist Technology: The Amateur Operators, 1906-1912,” Inventing American Broadcasting, 1899-1922(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989).

Spring Break 3/15 No class 

Week 10 3/22 Long Form Reporting

LISTEN

In the Dark: “The Crime” (34:46): https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2016/09/07/in-the-dark-1

 Gangster Capitalism, “The Side Door” (39): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s1-the-college-admissions-scandal-i-ep-1-the-side-door/id1460320573?i=1000519261581

 The Caliphate, “The Recruitment” (33): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/chapter-two-recruitment/id1357657583?i=1000409977536

 The Caliphate, “An Examination” (30): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/an-examination-of-caliphate/id1357657583?i=1000502817283

The Refuge, “Sibling Rivalry” (12:15): https://www.thresholdpodcast.org/the-refuge-e1

Week 11 3/29 Regional Voices: The American South 

LISTEN:

Us and Them, “Hillers and Creekers” (36:04): https://www.wvpublic.org/section/arts-culture/2021-08-12/hillers-creekers

Gravy, “Korean BBQ in Coolsville: A Memphis Report” (20:41): https://www.southernfoodways.org/gravy/korean-bbq-in-coolsville-a-memphis-report/

 Buried Truths, “Pistols” (38): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pistols-s1-e1/id1334250929?i=1000407471797

READ:

(Rec.) Tara McPherson, “Feeling Southern: Home, Guilt and the Transformation of White Identity,” Reconstructing Dixie: Race, Gender and Nostalgia in the Imagined South(Durham: Duke University Press, 2003).

Week 12 4/5 The New Radio Drama

LISTEN:

Mercury Theater, War of the Worlds (57): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUsq3fLobxw  

 Homecoming, “Mandatory” (19:24): https://gimletmedia.com/shows/homecoming

Video Palace, “Somniloquy” (21): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/somniloquy/id1439247558?i=1000421971043  

 Limetown, “What We Know” (31:05): https://twoupproductions.com/limetown/podcast  

READ:

Martin Spinelli and Lance Dann, “Don’t Look Back: The New Possibilities of Podcast Drama” Podcasting: The Audio Media Revolution (Bloomsbury, 2019)

Week 134/12 Joking Around

LISTEN:

Jack Benny, “Christmas Episode” (29:21): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN_FilhFmQ0, 

Stan Freeberg, “Christmas Dragnet” (6:38): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1vJ4sXetw4

 Bob and Ray, “Mr. Science” (2:57):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J96h5viahAA

The Goon Show, “Rommel’s Treasure” (25:01): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuVFFNvyUT8

The Firesign Theater, “Nick Danger Third Eye” (28:09): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwG5c9IsgbA

 Welcome to Night Vale, “A Story of You” (25:33): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqGYhOZONn8

 Thrilling, Adventure Hour, “Sparks Nevada: Marshal on Mars” (24): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/from-the-vault-sparks-nevada-marshal-on-mars-cosmic/id408691897?i=1000473084191  

READ:

David Hendy, “You Are Not Alone: Podcast Communities, Audiences, and Welcome to Nightvale,” Podcasting: The Audio Media Revolution(Bloomsbury 2019)

Week 14 4/19 Listening to Music

LISTEN:

Song Exploder, “Janelle Monae” (19:07): http://songexploder.net/janelle-monae

Dolly Parton’s America, “Neon Moss” (45:15): https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/dolly-partons-america/episodes/neon-moss

Aria Code, “Verdi’s La Traviata” (33:10): https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/aria-code/episodes/aria-code-verdi-la-traviata-diana-damrau

READ:

Susan Douglas, “The Kids Take Over: Transistors, DJs and Rock’n’Roll,” Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004).

Week 15 4/26 Reconsidering the Past 

LISTEN:

You Must Remember This, “Hattie McDaniel” (55:43) http://www.youmustrememberthispodcast.com/episodes/2019/10/23/hattie-mcdaniel-six-degrees-of-song-of-the-south-episode-2

Slow Burn, “Martha” (27:27): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s1-ep-1-martha/id1315040130?i=1000395358934  

Uncivil, “The Paper” (21:01): https://gimletmedia.com/shows/uncivil/z3h6dd/the-paper

READ:

Sarah Larsen, “‘Uncivil’: The Civil War Stories We Didn’t Learn in School,” The New Yorker, October 5, 2017.

My Favorite Discoveries in 2021 Among Older Films

Altogether, I viewed 228 feature films and shorts in 2021 from 2019 or earlier. Almost all of these were watched online. Most of these choices were part of programatic deep dives or film festival experiences, so rather than offering a ranking, I thought I would describe some of my excursions into film history this past year.

50s Science Fiction — I began the year with a yen to watch as many creature features as I could find, a yen fed by several box sets I had gotten for Christmas, which led me to ordering more boxed sets, and finally starting with a year by year listing of 50s science fiction films, seeing how many of them I could find and watch online — mostly through YouTube. I did not get past 1952, so this is a project I hope to continue into the coming year. My fascination was with stories of catastrophe and the different mechanisms by which the filmmakers imagined the society responded to large-scale threat, issues which spoke powerfully to the present moment. And since the world rarely actually ends in these films, these films ultimately provide reassurance and resolution. Some of what I saw were classics that I had seen through the years, but I saw new things watching them in conversation with lesser known titles. But here are some of the discoveries I made — mostly deep cuts from the era that time has forgotten, perhaps unfairly. Most of these are more interesting films than great films, but then I wasn’t looking for cinematic masterpieces. The 27th Day (1957) is one of several films I watched which emphasis global responses — an alien extracts five ordinary people, each from a different global power, and provides them each with weapons that can destroy the planet, leaving them with the choice of whether humanity deserves to survive. It’s a metaphor for mutually assured destruction, released at the height of the Cold War. 12 to the Moon (1960) gives us a multinational space mission, representing astronauts from the super powers and from a range of developing nations. It anticipates the diversity on the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise on Star Trek and the multinationalism of the recent Away television series. Of course, the characters are all stereotypes but it’s fascinating to see how national and gender stereotypes are played against each other here. The Invisible Boy (1957) uses Robbie the Robot, first introduced in Fantastic Planet, to tell a story of a scientist father and his precocious young son confronting a cosmic crisis, as robots threaten to rule over humanity and Robbie, who has befriended the boy, has to decide which side he’s on.

Film Comedy — I returned to teaching American film comedy for the first time in more than twenty years, which led to me watching as many films in preparation before the fall seamster started. So many titles have come out on DVD, especially comedy shorts from the silent period, and many films you would have had to track down in archives are now flowing freely on YouTube. I went back through the classic four silent performers, Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, and Langdon, seeing. many of the later two comics films for the first time. I finally really grappled with the alienness of Langdon’s approach to slapstick and found myself drawn to the films he made after he parted ways with Capra. I realized that my reading Name Above the Title, Capra’s memoir, when I was a teen, had biased my perceptions, but I was especially drawn to The Chaser (1928) where the alienness of Langdon’s persona is coupled with play with gender identity: a judge sentences Harry to wear a dress and do the housework. My students found this a fascinating study in gender fluidity, far more ambiguous than most of the anti-suffrage films I have seen, about women ruling over men. The inter titles in particular seem to play with the concepts of masculinity and femininity in fascinating ways. My consumption of silent comedy led me back to Sidewalk Stories (1989), a film I had taught several decades before, and so it constitutes a rediscovery. Charles Lane, a Black filmmaker, revisits Chaplin’s world — especially The Kid — for a more contemporary representation of homelessness and the way society perceives and treats its “tramps.” It is funny and touching in equal measures and remarkably well done for a first feature made as a student film at NYU. I have long wanted to check out the Crazy Gang — a music hall troop who was the British counterparts of the Marx Brothers. I was delighted to find several of their films online, and was particularly taken by A Ok For Sound, (1937) which has been the most meta of their works I have seen so far. I would describe it as falling somewhere between Night at the Opera and Hellzapoppin, perhaps not as good as the later but in the same ball park. I also worked my way through the surviving feature films of Raymond Griffith, the comedies of Douglas Fairbanks, and as the year draws on a close, the films of Frank Tashlin. Throughout, I was left really admiring what I saw of Hal Roach’s productions and really eager to see more.

Film Festivals — I was able to attend four online film festivals this year, each dedicated to historical films, but with different biases: Bologna, Pordonone, Turner Classic Movies, and Los Angeles Cinecon. I have attended all four in person and missed the range of titles normally offered, not to mention the conversations around the films, and we missed altogether the San Francisco Silent Film festival which has been one of my annual highlights. The highlights of Bologna were Belphegor (,1927) a four part French serial (each part lasting more than an hour) involving a shadowy figure lurking in the Louvre and a crack detective trying to identify the culprit. It is full of the stuff of the pulp imagination of the era. I was also taken by two noir films they featured (the original Nightmare Alley (1947) and I Wake Up Screaming (1941), which has left me hoping to watch more noir in 2022. Pordone brought me Phil-For-Short (1919) a silent film about an independent spirt who today we might call nonbinary, which introduced me to the charming silent screen actress Evelyn Greely. My favorites from TCM were two titles that dealt with threats to democracy — Black Legion (1937), in which Humphrey Bogart joins a white supremicist organization, and The Mortal Storm (1940), which depicts the rise of Nazism from the perspective of a free-thinking academic family centered around James Stewart. I had seen both before, but they spoke to the current moment with particular poignancy. And the joy of Cinecon is its profoundly anti-canonical impulses. I have been enjoyed being introduced to the films of Judy Canova, a broad physical comedian who crossed over to the screen from radio and recoding, with a hillbilly twang to her singing and a wonderful personality. This year, they showed Sleepy-Time Gal (1942) which is my favorite of the films I have seen with her so far. There was so much more that interested me at each of these events and I hope these festivals continue to provide online offerings for those of us who can not be there in person.

Some other highlights: My current research interest in post-war children’s media gave me a chance to watch A Boy Ten Feet Tall/Sammy Goes South, Alexander MacKendrick’s 1963 saga of a white boy who wanders across Africa alone in the midst of the Suez Crisis. It is full of haunting images and a great supporting performance by Edgar G. Robinson and led me to watch Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun, (1987) again, upon which its influence can be strongly felt. I participated in an online conference about 50s and 60s American westerns and a fascinating presentation led me to check out Walk Like A Dragon (1960), one of the few American westerns of the period to deal sympathetically and in depth with the experiences of Chinese-Americans. Its treatment of a cross-racial romance may be problematic in our time, but was progressive in its own, and sufficiently complex to keep one scratching one’s head throughout.

My 20 Favorite Films of 2021

In 2021, I watched 81 current (2021) or recent (late 2020) films. I enjoyed most of them. Since I don’t technically review films for a living, I watch only what I want to watch and am reasonably informed so few turkeys cross my path these days. I have placed these in alphabetical order, but if I had to pick my favorite film this year, it would almost certainly be West Side Story.

Black Widow — This has been an exceptionally good year for Marvel on both film and television. I also really enjoyed The Eternals, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and Spider-man: No Way Home. But somehow, this is the one I landed on as the best of this year’s superhero movies. I love the dynamics between Scarlet Johanson and Florence Pugh (who stole my heart this year here and in Hawkeye). This film demonstrated that superheroes can tell female-centric stories as well as they tell masculine power fantasies, not that this was in doubt after Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel, but I would argue this one did it better than either.

CODA — One of the most heart-felt films I’ve seen in a long time. I was honestly touched by the struggles of this young woman, daughter deaf parents, who finds herself in music and struggles to figure out how she can separate herself from a family she knows needs her. Each character is so vividly drawn and each has their rasons, as the Renior quote goes.

Crip Camp — This is a powerful story of a group of disabled youth, who created an almost utopian world at a summer camp, and then forged a network that working together transformed the laws and policies that impact their lives. It’s remarkable that they have such compelling footage of these activists at various periods of their life and we are able to watch a small group of people lead the way to change the world.

Dune — This is a transformative experience. Sure, it’s a bit slow but it deftly lays the foundations for what’s the come. It is probably the most fully realized world on screen this year, succeeding where other artists have tried and to my eyes, failed to capture Herbert’s classic science fiction saga.

The Father — I have been haunted by this film since I saw it relatively early in 2021. The performances were compelling, but what I really remember vividly are the ways the mise-en-scene gets disrupted in subtle yet unsettling ways to compelling the perspective of the protagonist’s growing disorientation and memory loss.

The Green Knight — A haunting immersion into a mythic realm which puts a fresh new spin on the medieval classic.

Gunpowder Milkshake — I stumbled into this one on Netflix with no expectations and it may be my biggest surprise of the year. If you like John Wick, if you like female revenge action movies, if you liked the gunplay in early John Woo films, then this one is for you.

In the Heights — I saw the original Broadway production and I saw a ground-shaking performance in the West End more than a decade later, so I was primed for John Chu’s big screen version and I was not disappointed. I get the critiques of the film’s color-ism, but I also admire the beautifully staged musical number, especially the revamp of Esther Williams in the pool scene and some of the others which are alternatively soulful and celebratory. This was what I needed as I was coming out from my pandemic cacoon.

King Richard — I don’t like sports, except for fictional ones (wrestling, quidditch) but I do like sports movies, and this was a very compelling one, even if I still have reservations about centering the story of the Williams sister on their father. The film complicates this in so many ways, also offering a compelling portrait of their mother and acknowledging some critiques of their father’s hucksterism and bullying.

Lost Daughter — Olivia Coleman can act and Maggie Gyllenhaal can direct, damn it! I watched this one only a few hours before I am writing this post, so my emotions are still raw and have not settled into a long term perspective. But I wanted to watch every twitch of her face, as the film slow opens up its secrets and forces us to acknowledge the reasons why it sucks to be a mother in a patriarchal culture.

Luca— Disney also had a great year between this, Encanto, and Raya and the Last Dragon. I liked all three and I’ve kept swapping them on and off this list, but ultimately, this story of boyhood friendship across cultural difference — not to mention all of the call back to European art cinema — spoke to my Baby Boom heart.

The Mitchells Vs. The Machines — My favorite animated film this year. It’s imaginative, it’s funny, it plays with genre, and it has something to say about the continuing value of family. (I seem to be feeling a lot of traditional values this year,. It would seem that old ideas can be expressed in compelling new forms.)

Nightmare Ally — I am a big fan of Del Torro and of the original film noir and there’s a pretty decent graphic novel version, also, so I came into this primed and it did not disappoint me. I am a sucker for anything set at a circus or carnival, and this film captures that atmosphere with such vividness. It’s a pretty bleak narrative arc, to be sure, but It also teaches us a lot about how this world operates — how to do a cold read, how to develop codes to signal each other in mentalist acts, and why it is a bad idea to play with people’s faith and memory for money.

Passing — Another compelling period piece — this one set in midcentury Harlem, as two women, childhood friends, reconnect, and play out the consequences of their different life choices. What I found most striking here was the black and white cinematography — the play with light and shadow makes this story about crossing racial boundaries work.

Plan B — There have been three stories in recent years where two women travel together in search of an abortion or birth control. Never Rarely Sometimes Always made my list last year for a dramatic treatment of this same material. . I have-not yet seen Unplanned. But this one earns a spot on this list for its ability to merge raunchy sex comedy, the road trip, the post-feminist female friendship story, and some earnest advocacy into a rich mix.

Power of the Dog — I couldn’t take my eyes off Benedict Cumberbatch who moves through the film like a coiled rattlesnake ready to strike — the embodiment of toxic masculinity. He shed some of the braininess we associate with his on-screen persona in favor of a character who bullies everyone he meets. Again, this is a film where we watch as events gradually uncover what makes the characters tick, and the closing events managed to catch me by surprise, even if the seeds are planted for them almost from the first scenes.

The Sit In — Harry Belefonte was guest host of the Tonight Show in 1968 and managed to book a who’s who in politics and popular culture in the late 1960s. This documentary reconstructs what happened during a transformative moment in television history, which most of us never knew happened, from a fragmentary archive and helps to situate each of these figures for audiences who may not have been alive at the time.

Summer of Soul — Another great documentary about popular culture in the 1960s which taps a long hurried archive of materials and gives them currency for new audiences. Music is always my blind-spot so I did not expect to like this one as much as I did, so I resisted a lot of the hype and came to it late, but damn! I am just getting started with the Beatles documentary series on Disney Plus, but suspect if I had made more progress, it would have had a place on my list as another great representation of 1960s pop culture.

Tick, Tick, Boom — Let me just say that Lin-Manuel Miranda had one hell of a year! I am not a fan of Rent so I did not know what to expect here, but this portrait of a young musical composer was a loving tribute to Broadway and arrived just in time for me to mourn the loss of Steven Sondheim. It was both well-made and well-timed not only in relation to Sondheim’s death but the reopening of Broadway theaters.

West Side Story — Here’s another one which won me over despite some skepticism about remaking what has been a cinematic classic. But then there have been multiple Broadway stagings through the years, as each artist has struggled with the richness of this material and the limitations of the racial stereotypes at its heart. Tony Kushner’s screenplay goes a long way, throwing out most of the original dialogue, providing greater context for the core conflict, providing greater depth to the Puerto Riican characters, introducing rawer, less stylized violence, and demonstrating that a mix of Spanish and English dialogue still conveys the emotional ore of the story even for those who do not know Spanish (a fight with previous Broadway productions). Add to this moral authority that Rita Moreno brings to her part and a heartbreaking performance by Ariana DeBose as Anita. Spielberg’s direction often softens the blow, but this film hits hard, despite the bright colors and lively musical numbers.

Honorable mentions: Beyond the Disney and Marvel films already referenced. Jungle Cruise and Cruela were the only two films I saw twice in the cinema, and I enjoyed them both (no apologies) and will happily return to future installments of these franchises. One Night in Solo is an imperfect and ultimately disappointing film but it’s one that I kept thinking about weeks after I saw it, and that counts for something. Let me toss Ron’s Gone Wrong on the list of animated films which held my attention, but it pales before The Mitchells vs. The Machines in terms of telling stories of digital life.

This list was written without me seeing some of the films that have gotten attention at the end of the year including Don’t Look Up, Licorice Pizza, Meet the Ricardos, and Belfast, so do not read anything into their exclusion from this list. Circumstances have prevented me from seeing them yet.

My 20 Favorite Television Experiences from 2021

I have watched 100 television series (or events) in their entirety this year. All of them I enjoyed enough to keep watching. Some of them were mere distractions. Some felt truly fresh and original. What follows are my 20 favorites that I watched in 2021 — a few of which were catch ups from 2020 or even before — but together they represent a snapshot of some of my favorite media experiences of the year. They are listed in alphabetical order.

Atypical — This family drama-comedy wrapped up its final season, and stuck the landing. This series was heart-felt from start to finish, telling a story about a neuroatypical young man, his family and his friends, as they work together to help him develop the life skills he needs to live on his own terms.

Betty — I am so not the demographic for this half-hour drama about a group of young, female, mostly queer, mostly BIPOC skateboarders, but once I started watching, I could not stop. Betty has the look and feel of an underground movie shot mostly hand held by people riding boards as these women confront everything the world throws at them. If you felt that Mind the Gap used skateboarding to teach you something about working class masculinity, Betty uses skateboarding to teach us about contemporary feminism.

Bosch — I can’t figure out why it took me this long to discover this first-rate police drama but when I did find it, I fell hard. My wife, my mother-in-law, and I watched all seven seasons in a two month period this year, and I would have gladly have stayed for more. Perhaps my favorite aspect was the rich portrayal of Los Angeles, including one episode which took place almost entirely on my block in DTLA.

Dickinson — Between Emily Dickinson and Kate Bishop, Hailee Steinfeld had one heck of a good year. This is such a literate and intelligent comedy, one which reads the New England book culture of the 19th century as if it was a contemporary coming of age series. Some of the best moments in season 2 dealt with the raw emotions surrounding the Civil War and the ways our characters process the fad for opera, both very historically specific, but the glue that holds it together is Steinfeld and the other cast playing characters that feel totally anachronistic in those candle lit parlors. In this same spirit, I am looking forward to seeing season 2 of The Great.

Gentefied — A Mexican-American family — stronger together than they are as individuals — battle gentrification, economic issues, and the threat of deportation, even as they find love and figure out who they want to be in life. What really works here is the particularity of these characters and the locally specific culture they inhabit.

Hacks — I don’t do cringe comedy and this one has plenty of cringe-worthy moments of human embarrassment. Every time the characters start to seem likable and more to the point start to like each other they do something else which is really nasty or otherwise messes up their relationship. But, I still love the relationship between an old school comedy and her very new school gag writer.

High on the Hog: An enlightening account of the historic evolution of southern cooking, tracing its roots back to Africa, through slavery, and into its current revival. I ended up going to Charleston and pigging out on some of the foods depicted here — part of my Southern heritage.

Lupin — This was the perfect getaway series of this year — beautiful locations, smart long-cons and heists, a compelling protagonist, an over-arching revenge saga, witty dialogue, and fast-paced action.

Masters of the Universe - Revelations — Kevin Smith’s intelligent revamp of the He-Man franchise is like the very best fan fiction. It fleshes out the long-neglected female characters, it fills in important bits of back story, it explores the emotional and psychological consequences of the action, it raises the stakes by killing off. (and resurrecting) beloved characters, it asks and answers questions fans have long speculated, and otherwise it offers a compelling drama for anyone who grew up watching the series (or in many case, was a parent who saw the episodes way too many times when it first aired). I liked a number of animated series this year — from Harley Quinn to Star Trek Below Decks to Invincible to What If? and Star Wars Visions— but this is the one which has stuck with me the most.

Only Murders in the Building — Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez are spectacular together, add a supporting cast full of old favorites, toss in a compelling who-dun-it and a deft spoof of true crime podcasts, and shake well. So much fun!

Q, Into the Storm — This is the television documentary series that I have spent the most time thinking about this year — a compelling, unflinching look at Q-Anon, which hit me between the eyes because I recognized that its roots lie in the participatory culture and politics that I have so often embraced through my writing over the years.

The Queen’s Gambit — I waited longer than I should to catch up with this one because I couldn’t imagine being compelled by a television series about chess. I was wrong. Nuff Said. And then I repeated the same kinds of mistakes by being late to the party on Mayor of Easton, Cruel Summer, and The White Lotus, which each packed the drama and brought the feels, but I didn’t find them as compelling as watching this woman kicks on a chessboard.

Reservation Dogs— This remarkable series was more than a breakthrough in representation, introducing us to a range of Native American characters, created by a mostly Indigenous writer’s room, though it is certainly that. It has the surrealism of Atlanta at its best, the character focus of early Master of None or Ramy, and distinctly deadpan Native American sense of humor that can catch you totally by surprise. I also liked Rutherford Falls, especially in its treatment of debates around local history and controversial monuments and its depiction of what happens when the Red world meets the White world. But in retrospective, it felt more conventional than Reservation Dogs.

Sex Education— This is so much more than a teen sex comedy with much of this season centering on the choices the adult parents made, especially the ethical dilemmas which teachers face when the new principal runs roughshod over the rights and emotional needs of the students.

Snowpiercer — A Korean film based on a French graphic novel turned into an American television series produced by a multinational corporation makes the affirmative case for class warfare and ultimately revolution. Daveed Diggs steals the show, but he is well supported by Jennifer Connelly, Allison Wright, and Mickey Sumner, among others. It’s your basic post-apocalyptic saga. See also Y the Last Man and Sweet Tooth for stories which felt a bit more uneven but also had something to say to a world still in pandemic lockdown.

Squid Game — Brutal. yes — that’s the word, brutal. Korean popular media is riding on a high right now. And this is the series that took the world by storm. By now, you have decided whether you want to watch it or not. I watched it. I couldn’t stop watching it. And I would watch more. I also watched Hellbound and could. not look away, but ultimately not as impactful.

Survivor Australia — After a long drought last year of reality competition series, I checked out the down under counterpart of American Survivor, which has long reached my attention from fan discussions but is now legally available at the Paramount streaming site. The most recent season is one of the best in Survivor history, thanks to the “cockroach of Bankstown” — a political operative who always has another trick up his sleeve. I had mixed responses to the new American Survivor with its format and rules changes — some good characters and more or less satisfying outcome, but Australian Survivor ultimately interested me more.

Ted Lasso — soooo good! Maybe not as fresh as the first season, but it brought in some darker moments that helped to round out our understanding of Ted and brought its female characters more screen time. And Roy Kent gets funnier in each new episode, as the gruff, no nonsense baller copes with life off the footy field.

Wandavision — The MTU (Marvel Television Universe) has brought me so much pleasure across the year. This one took two characters — Scarlet Witch and Vision — which had failed to register with me in the films and did something really fresh and compelling. This series put meta in the multiverse with its evocations of the history of American sitcoms and its account of the worlds which people create out of their denial when mourning a traumatic loss. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier had its moments — mostly involving Isaiah Bradley. Loki was amazing in its own way. What if? was hit or miss but when it hit, it draws real blood. And Hawkeye ended the year with a bang! Those scenes between Kate Bishop and Yelena Belova do for superheroes what Killing Eve did for spies, and I can’t take my eyes off Maya Lopez when she’s on my small screen. And I am going to be really intrigued to watch Doctor Strange deliver on all of these trans media hooks and Easter eggs.

We are Lady Parts — This under-rated British series delights with its portrayal of an all-female, all-Muslim punk rock band, with each character giving us a different representation of the ways these women negotiate their faith and their family lives to find room to express themselves when they go on stage.

Honorable Mention (Other than those mentioned above): Bridgerton; The Chair; Doom Patrol; Great Pottery Throw Down; How to; Young Rock, As the new year begins, I am enjoying watching Maid, Lost in Space, Station 11, and The Beatles: Get Back but not far enough along to put any of them on my list.

Global Fandom Conversation Series: Aianne Amado (Brazil) and Simone Driessen (The Netherlands)

Local yet global?

AA: Now, as for the overlapping of localness with international culture consumption, both José Martin-Barbero and Pierre Bourdieu can offer noteworthy explanations: they defend that everyday life aspects such as family, religion, education, social class etc. impact directly how we, individually and collectively, understand each object. When centering “mediation” to the discussion, Martin-Barbero contests those who say that globalization will “kill” local culture and traditions, arguing that local experiences also implicates how those products are target and consumed in different cultures (thinking about so many american artists singing in spanish for the latin audience) and, therefore, it is not as much of a “cultural domination” as it is a “cultural trade” (though, evidently, not equitable). 

In that sense, I also think it is important to talk about how our local cultural objects shape and are shaped by globalization. To start with Brazil, it is visible how American pop culture inspires our content, like the country's main divas such as Anitta and Pabllo Vittar, and also our new TV productions, that are moving away from the telenovela model and approaching the mainstream series format. However, the inspiration does not take over the whole product: even in her english and spanish songs, many featuring international singers, Anitta adds elements of Brazilian music genres (likeBahia’s percussion and Rio’s mpb and, the genre that made her famous, funk); Pabllo Vittar blends perfectly pop beats with regional styles, making even the one and only Lady Gaga sing to “arrocha”; and Netflix’s Invisible City incorporates the platform narrative format to tell the story of local folklore’s characters. And it is not a coincidence that all of these examples have experienced great public reception, since strategies like those captivate even Brazilians who once had a strong preference over international culture.

On the other hand, Brazilian pop culture also has its share of transnational fandoms – avid consumers of productions that, mostly through the internet, discover new texts and interact with other local or global fans. Nevertheless, the “localness” is, once again, very much present: telenovelas like O Clone, Vale Tudo, Fina Estampa and A Escrava Isaura are so well received that they are bought and remade in different countries. Recreations are also common in songs, like the Englishand Spanish version of Ai, Se Eu Te Pego; the various covers of Garota de Ipanema; Black Eyed Peas’ remix of Mais Que Nada; and the Japanese remake of Chorando Se Foi. And I ask myself the same questions you did in your piece: “how were these fans able to follow these Brazilian, Portuguese-speaking and -singing texts when the fans’ main language was different? Moreover, why were those Brazilian contents so successful in such different countries?”

What do you think of those examples? Do you know any of them? I am also curious to know if there are similar cases in the Netherlands that could corroborate this line of thought. Although I am not an expert, I know that your country is responsible for many globally acclaimed reality tv shows like The Voice and Big Brother, for example. Why do you think that genre stands out? And how do you see the fans of such shows differentiate from one country to another? 

SD: You mention how globalization is of influence in Brazil, but not all-dominating. I wonder if Brazil also has a strong media production ecosystem. Like J-Pop or K-Pop, besides so many excellent talents from Brazil (like Anitta), B-Pop or whatever it could be called, does not seem to reach far. Is that partially due to language again? Or because these artists or films also have ‘enough’ by just reaching the Brazilian market? I’m fascinated by the idea of cultural trade and how this is present in both our cases: it is definitely present, and perhaps increasing in the Dutch media landscape. But before diving into that, let me present to you two Dutch versions of Ai, Se Eu Te Pego: one that somewhat follows an original translation of the Brazilian lyrics, and one that is more freely interpreted, even using Spanish in it over Portuguese. The original song was quite popular in the Netherlands, in its original form and people really tried to sing along in Portuguese. So, perhaps that is already somewhat telling of how open the Dutch are to cultural trade. 
            I think we spot a similar pattern in the Netherlands when it comes to ‘somewhat resembling the American / Hollywood formula, but with a local touch’ than the one you mention to be present in Brazil. Yes, also in the Netherlands, because it’s such a small country we have many cultural objects taking after a ‘global’ model. As a music researcher, I think this is very visible in how bands perform and create videos, particularly those with international fan bases (singing in English too), like pop rockers Kensington, or Chef Special, or the more metal/goth subcultural act Within Temptation. 
                        When talking about music, things are somewhat different: here the local is surely influenced by the global. Yet, there are also some unique trends to point to. The Netherlands is a very diverse society, with many cultures living in a small country. And although Dutch hiphop/rap is one of the most popular genres (which comes with its own set of fans…), at times artists singing in another language do have a breakthrough. Currently, singer Rolf Sanchez, who sings in Spanish is quite popular. That is remarkable, for Spanish is not such a common language for the Netherlands. 

            Yet, what all these examples we exchange here also demonstrate, is that yes indeed we are under influence of globalization! But apparently the consumers (the fans!) are also demanding some streak of authenticity or perhaps relatability or recognition in them. Is that then where the local becomes important or, at the very least, becomes visible? Would this be why artists like Anitta or Pabllo Vittar, but for the Dutch also those artists combining music with Dutch lyrics (I will add some examples!) are so popular? And has this always been the case? How do you see that reflecting on our discussion and the Brazilian examples mentioned? 

You briefly mentioned the Reality TV show formats, Big Brother, The Voice... we apparently are also able to inspire other countries to copy those formulas (that sounds bold: but those formulas have become global successes). I wonder how they differ in Brazil: are the fans equally as co-productive and active in indeed engaging with them? I feel that The Voice (when it was broadcasted/ whenever it is broadcasted) gains many many followers, but not really a big hit talent anymore. Is that due to fans being saturated with such shows? Or perhaps the fans are growing younger? 

            Nevertheless, one of the biggest hit shows at the moment in the Netherlands (actually it’s a co-production with Belgium) is shaped very much like an American series, maybe you have seen it: Undercover. So, here the cultural trade is visible once more. But also, this co-exists with our Dutch, very local soap operas. 

AA: So, as I see it, our music industries differ in a few points. It is unusual for us to hear big local songs in other languages (the exception being Anitta’s current international career, but mostly because the fans want to support her even if they do not necessarily know how to sing the songs). I wonder if it has to do with English being taught broadly in the Netherlands (I remember having no trouble at all communicating with Dutchs while I was there!). 

I also loved to know the Dutch have a very local soap-opera culture. I believe the soap-opera format, based directly in everyday life, makes it the least likely to yield to international production standards and it makes a great counterpoint to foreign influences.

That leads to your questions: In Brazil we have Globo, our most popular TV channel and one of the biggest media conglomerates in the world. Because of them, Brazil is a powerhouse in the entertainment industry. A huge part of our cultural production is permeated by it, but their main products are still telenovelas. So, were the few B-pop groups that (prematurely) existed active today, in the BTS era, Globo would make sure to sign them in every live audience program and with special appearances in many telenovelas, therefore, being embraced by mainstream media.

The reach provided by the conglomerate (and now more and more by the internet as well) is also why we can look at the local market as “enough” for many artists. To keep using the music industry as an example, while the Brazilian pop genre is heavily influenced by its American counterpart, the genres that are currently topping the charts are the most “local” ones, such as Sertanejo and Funk. Those artists benefit from a market that has the usual hardcore Brazilian fans but also hundreds of thousands of ordinary consumers that are just happy to hear and sing the song occasionaly. To become a global phenomenon is a dream of many, but only a few are able to do such a thing and when they do, it is always a much-acclaimed feat - Michel Telo’s Ai Se Eu Te Pego is one of the most recent cases. Case in point, I for one was amazed and consumed by a bit of patriotism with the videos you showed me (thank you so much, by the way!). It is this weird mix of “wait, this language does not quite match this rhythm” and “oh! they are enjoying something I have lived with all my life”. 

I agree with your point of view about fans demanding authenticity and relatability while still inserting themselves and their idol globally and I think it is a claim that has been emerging with the shortening of borders made possible by new media - specially streaming platforms and Tik Tok’s viral contents. And the Reality Tv Shows are great illustrations of that (and yes, we all agree that those formulas are a global success!) since every country changes a few details here and there to adjust to what its population would most likely accept. 

SD: Aianne, I think that last part in your reflection is precisely what we see in the Netherlands too: the ordinary consumer is actually driving the market, while the hardcore fans are responsible for pushing that success of artists abroad. Still, it’s fascinating how language pops up over and over in the experiences of fans. It can be helpful, or even vital, to actually learn a new language to fully enjoy a fannish experience. 
            That also brings us to these points of authenticity and relatability once more. Due to the global nature of media products, fandoms grow into global communities as well. Also that’s a feat not just tied to Brazil or the Netherlands, but I’m pretty sure you Brazilians also had the Squid Game craze recently, and probably have tons of BTS fans, despite having such a strong media conglomerate locally! I think our examples and discussion here shows how fandom is able to break boundaries, yet with the critical note that this doesn’t happen for all fans (those who aren’t able or willing to learn a new language if needed, or those who don’t have the monetary means to travel or participate / spend time in fannish activities in different time zones for examples). Still, I do feel that the Brazilian and Dutch fans we see in our exchange are highly active and open-minded in their fan practices. Perhaps that’s a different scenario when we go beyond the world of media entertainment and look at the highly competitive field of sport?  

The Unique position of sports fans?

AA: That is a great question! It would feel wrong to end this without talking about something that truly unites our two universes: sports fans. We have our own “green and yellow” army to compete with your orange one! In times as divisive as now, sports and worldwide competitions like the Olympic Games are always something that can unite a nation. It is an opportunity to show the world how outstanding we are, and we let our disagreements slide to root and bring home the titles. Yet, there is something more than mere nationalism and maybe it is how we can relate and empathize more with athletes that share some of our backgrounds, that we know first-hand where they came from. So, we circle back to the importance of localness even in the most global event on Earth.

SD: That’s beautifully said about sports fandom: that we perhaps are more tied to the athletes, and we feel their struggle maybe even because we know where they came from. Also, because it perhaps is the only thing to unite both old and young, and people from different classes and regions, in an event like the World Football Championships, or the Olympics. 

That also then brings me back to studying fans. Here, in the Netherlands, I have the slightest feeling we’re starting to accept fandom more and more. It becomes easier to say, ‘I’m a fan of’, whereas a few years ago being a fan was either 1) childish, or 2) nerdy. I think that this development aligns somewhat with the rising popularity, or perhaps normalization of what can be called ‘nerd culture’ (e.g., shows like The Big Bang Theory and its spin-off Young Sheldon). And a more prominent position of ‘scientists’ in the entertainment media. Yet, ‘old’ fans are still taboo. In sports, it’s accepted, but in pop fandoms it’s looked down on. To give you an example, every winter the whole of the Netherlands goes crazy with the potential outlook they are able to ice skate again in nature (a frozen river or meadow). And they all turn into ‘fans’ of some ice skater, or sports figure. But when my Backstreet Boys interviewees talk about their fandom, they’re deemed to be weird or even crazy. Can you tell me if in Brazil things are more accepted for adult fans? And how can we, as scholars in academic institutions, perhaps put fandom more on the societal and scientific agenda?

AA: The scenario you presented is very similar here in Brazil, as we in fact are more and more incorporating the term in our everyday vocabulary. In my perspective, the issue here was not only about age, but also about social capital in general. “Fans” tends to be more associated with mass and popular culture - so you can be a “fan” of a famous TV show or internet sensation, whereas those who relish classical music icons or cult movies would call themselves “enthusiasts” or “passionate” (even though all of them basically share the same feelings). Another semantic matter is that sports fans have a different name here, “torcedores” (equivalent to “supporters”), and therefore the association with fans, even academically, is less frequent than in other countries. And while I believe that media is now incorporating the title “fan” and its derivations as a desired, more engaged and committed audience, drifting from the childish/nerdy association, it is still a challenge to us, scholars, to contribute profoundly to that very necessary recognition - considering that, at least in Latin-American countries, we are still fighting for mere academic acceptance. 

Our exchange led me to the inevitable conclusion that no other nationality (and, within this partition, ethnicity, gender or age group) sees an idol the same way. It can be something specific, like the east European love for Brazilian telenovelas, or a global phenomena like Harry Potter or Backstreetboys: local culture will play a crucial part in how we “read” those texts (language-wise and more!). However, it is interesting to point out a fundamental contradiction: we read those texts “locally” while looking for and preferring international objects, since, at the same time, we also want to be part of the “global”. This is an exciting debate that could go on for ages! It will certainly reshape my future research. I thank you deeply for the chance to share all these ideas, examples and theories.

SD: We indeed learn from our exchanges that every culture still has their own take on cultural products. Culture is never neutral in that way. And localness plays such an important role as a lens through which we’re making sense of these phenomena! 

Global Fandom Jamboree Conversation Series: Aianne Amado (Brazil) and Simone Driessen (The Netherlands) (Part One)

AA: Querida Simone,

I was fascinated to learn more about fandoms in the Netherlands and most of all to observe so many similarities between Dutch and Brazilian fan cultures, which I was not expecting. Brazilian and Latin-American historians argue that our devotion for contemporary cultures from hegemonic countries are mainly due to our extremely exploitative colonization. While I do agree that this process had and still has a direct impact over our social political context, which includes culture reception, your statement made me question the actual force of this imprint. For what I know - and please correct me if I’m wrong - the Netherlands were on the colonizer side, having even colonies in Brazil for a brief period. So how come both of those countries ended up with such similar transnational culture behavior? What are your thoughts on that? And I wonder if you could share some historic input about your country that you believe could lead to this affection towards foreign texts.

Furthermore, you raise an intriguing point of view by centering the transnational fandom discussion in the duality of local practices and language in the general scenario of globalization. Those are indeed two defining matters for those fandoms and shape almost every interaction between its members or with the idols themselves. Regarding the language, I wonder how many fans all over the globe have learned a new one because of their beloved text (I certainly am one of them!). But moreover, I found it fascinating how this was also a factor that could bring together Dutch fans from different age groups, which is quite exceptional for me. Here in Brazil, it is almost the opposite: adult fans tend to snub and disdain younger fans, thinking that being associated with a fandom with kids could somehow influence their social capital. Also, the “dubbing x subtitles” dilemma here is much more a question of class: since we unfortunately still have a high percentage of illiterate or semi-literate people in the lower classes, those tend to prefer dubbed content, while those of higher classes prefer subtitles (which can easily be noticed with dubbed movies in on open TV and subtitled on cable).

SD: Dear Aianne, 

 It’s indeed fascinating to see how alike our countries are when it comes to fandom. Yet, for such a vast country as Brazil and such a small, condensed country like the Netherlands, I am not surprised to hear how local languages and practices have great influence on fannish practices. Let me also use that observation to return to your first questions here, how come both Brazil and the Netherlands ended up with such similar transnational culture behavior? As you point out, the Netherlands were indeed one of Brazil’s colonizers (and of some other countries as well). The Dutch set sail for the first time in the 17th century for Brazil, as part of their world exploration. After the Second World War the Dutch even founded a village called ‘HolAmBra’, to express a cooperation between the countries (and Am for America). But I’m not fully equipped to offer a historical overview of this process. The Dutch often laud themselves for their “VOC-mentality”, which comes down to a drift for exploring new places (also conveniently ignoring the consequences of this exploration drift and completely ignoring the colonization process). To bring that to a fandom context (again, forgive me for not diving deep into the critical debate there): this exploration mindset is still present. The Dutch still travel to visit concerts, also because the country is often skipped in ‘global tours’ (how global are they then?). This way they also consider travelling as part of their fandom.  

            I find it interesting how you considered this in your description in light of Brazil’s colonization being a reason for why the Brazilians can be so devoted to pop culture from hegemonic countries. I would love to hear more about this, also considering more and more Brazilian products crossing borders due to streaming services like Netflix and Spotify. That also makes me wonder about what language you’ve learned to participate in a fandom from abroad? It’s interesting that dubbing in Brazil is a matter or question of class: as you point out, the more ‘affluent’ audiences are catered for by offering subtitles, which also is a very visible signifier of being able to potentially follow something in an original language. I never thought of it in this way, as for us, the subtitles have always been there. The only exception I can think of is children’s media: cartoons, or kids movies - they are dubbed, or original Dutch creations. How is that in Brazil? 

AA: I appreciate your explanation about the Netherlands during imperialism. Can you believe that, talking about that with my father, he told me that his great grandfather was Dutch? He came here with his family for one of the colonies in the Northeast. Is there a chance we can be two long-lost-pop-culture-fans-cousins?

The connection you made about the foreign explorer spirit of the Dutch is extremely perspicacious and makes great sense. By reflecting on that, I came to the thought that perhaps it is not only the role in the colonization itself, but also - and maybe more so - the hegemonic place the country falls in. Of course that nations with dominant economies, languages and governments like the US and Japan have many transnational and transcultural fandoms as well, but the impact it has culturally cannot be compared to what happens in countries like ours. Thinking critically about that, we can identify both a consistency and a contradiction: the consistency is that, in order to claim their hegemonic status, those states had to invest extensively in their cultural sectors, aiming to establish their lifestyles as standards of superiority, locally and globally (contrasting with the lack of public investment in arts and entertainment industries, at least here in Brazil). And the contradiction is that the non-hegemonic countries, those who are potentially more susceptible to their cultural texts, are often left out when it comes to promoting those objects - as you pointed out with the “global” tours example. 

SD: I fully agree with that Aianne, again that consistency and contradiction is also what strikes me in researching fans. On the one hand, fans appropriate their fandom (local fan clubs, local meetups and initiatives) or it is appropriated via the industry, e.g., by a translation of a book or a movie. But on the other hand, fans also heavily engage with these original products which seems to affirm the hegemonic status of these super pop-culture powers (e.g., the US, but also indeed Japan). Still, I wonder, Brazil as such a vast country, with so much playing field in the Global South, we rarely see cultural products cross borders. Might language be an element again? We were discussing how that was such a prominent element for the Dutch to be able to engage with cultural goods from across the world. But for the Brazilians this remains to come with a certain sense of position and capital in society if I read your response correctly. How did you experience that yourself? 

AA: Well, I can guarantee you that we are only having this great exchange because I was once a Friends’ fan. I’ve watched the same episodes so many times that it occurred to me that I would probably still remember and understand the scenes if I switched it to the original language, and that is how I learned most of English. Most of my friends also have learned it through TV shows, movies or songs. In my research, I also found Brazilian otakus who became fluent in Japanese without ever having a class on the language. But one thing everyone agrees: classical kids movies and tv shows are always better in the dubbed version!G