Fan Culture @ Swarthmore

So, there were a couple of things that I wanted to discuss today that came up in class and in Julie Levin Russo’s talk. They aren’t really related, but I thought it would be obnoxious of me to create two blog posts, so I’ve created one obnoxiously long post. Here goes.

1. In the discussion of fan economy v. mainstream economy, there has been a fair amount of objection to the ways the producers have run their economy, i.e., for profit. This has been contrasted to the fan “gift economy,” which I think in our discussions has been cast as somehow a little more pure, worthy, creatively inspired (the assumption that if you’re not doing something for the money, your artistic vision becomes the primary focus of a reading), etc. One of the things that I’ve think we’ve lost track of is that fandom, ultimately, is a hobby. It may be an extremely consuming, engaging, important, totally all-consuming hobby, but it is not a person’s job (mostly–for a very few it is). Presumably, fans are participating in capitalist forms of commodity/labor production and exchange–just not in fandom. But they have jobs that give them the capital that allows them to work within the fan gift economy. Going back to Bizzy’s point from last week about exclusionary issues in fandom, I think that you could make an argument that the gift economy is not necessarily lowering the barriers to fandom, but raising them–people who would perhaps like to produce for fandom may not be able to afford to enter this world if they cannot turn their significant time and effort investments into money. Poorer people may need to spend their time on a profitable venture–it’s only those with a financial cushion who can afford this gift economy.

On the flip side, I do think we need to recognize that producers create their texts and expect to live off of them. To me, it is therefore not the same to ask them to participate in an economy of free exchange the way fans ask other fans to. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t problems when producers attempt to turn fan work into a profit-venture or attack fans for violating copyright (and therefore their profit margins). There’s a huge power imbalance that Julie Russo brought up with YouTube taking down videos when producers ask, but fans basically can’t appeal. Also, many make the argument that producers are making truly ludicrous amounts of money off of their work, and therefore the fact that fans have cut very narrowly into that is negligible. I’m more in tune with the first argument than the second; I just don’t think it’s up to fans to decide what a reasonable salary is.

2. I’ve been thinking a lot about the point that Julie Russo made about how fandom should, in some ways, be a protected space for queer and feminist expression, and that’s part of the reason why certain voices in the mainstream should not be able to co-opt vids (to give one example from the lecture–people laughing at the Brokeback Mountain parodies out of homophobia). Ultimately, I think I still disagree. I’m simply not prepared to say that being a fan is the same thing as being queer, or being a woman, or being a person of color, or any other kind of deeply marginalized group in our society.

To explain, I want to reference where I come down on a similar issue–the recent controversy over the Campus Republicans’ use of queer slogans like “coming out.” (I know many people are sick of this discussion, so I’ll try to keep it short.) I really support the people who objected to the Republicans’ posters, because I think that a) Being queer is not something that is/should be negotiable–society has no right to question the legitimacy of someone’s sexual orientation; b) Queer people are very silenced in society; c) Republicans are doing a lot of the silencing; d) Republicans appropriating queer slogans is therefore doubly silencing, problemmatic (though indirect) mockery, and a totally illegitimate comparison of what it means to be a conservative in a liberal environment v. what it means to be queer in a straight society. (Note: I really don’t mean to piss off any Republicans in the class, I’m trying to make a point about fandom, I promise.)

Now, right off the bat, I don’t think that fans as fans (not as queer people, women, etc.) can simply claim an unquestionable perspective because they are a minority. I think that there are legitimate ways to look at fan production and disagree with it–maybe even laugh at it. I understand that this may be hurtful to the producer, but I don’t think that it is necessarily oppressive. Being a fan means taking a certain perspective on a text; it is not an inherent, unchangeable part of an identity (like sex, race, sexuality). Questioning it is therefore not the same as questioning other marginalized identites. I could laugh at a Kirk/Spock slash vid not out of homophobia, but because I see these characters as so obviously straight that this pairing is amusing. My interpretation of that text should not be less privileged. Similarly, I could also laugh if a vid took a character that in the show canon I interpreted as obviously queer (say, Jack from Will and Grace) and paired him with a woman–that would be amusing to me, even if the vidder was completely sincere (and maybe trying to make some kind of feminist statement about editing women out of fan texts).

Because fan identity is a choice, the fan community is so diverse, and fan production has so many available meanings, I think it’s simply impossible to take most of fandom and say, “This is subversive minority speech. Because it protests The Man (the mainstream), it is silencing for The Man to comment unfavorably upon it/co-opt it/trivialize it.” This isn’t to say I think it’s okay that people laugh at Brokeback Mountain parodies out of homophobia; it is to say that I think that fan production should not be sequestered away and viewed by limited communities, and given the openness with which I think it should be displayed and discussed, I have to accept the fact that a few idiots will comment on the conversation.

a fan artifact presentation by Diana Pozo and David Pupkin

Easy Version:

Read the Jenkins Articles.

Watch “HuckChuckFacts.”

Scroll to the bottom and read the Important Questions to Consider.

Hard Version (not for the faint of heart):

In his article, “The Cultural Logic of Media Convergence,” Henry Jenkins discusses new trends in Internet publication such as blogging as they apply to politics, saying, “popular culture becomes the venue through which key social and political issues get debated. What models of democracy will take roots in a culture where the lines between consumption and citizenship are blurring?” Certainly, independent Internet commentators influence the way politics are run in the U.S. today from political blogs all the way through the CNN YouTube debates run for both the Democratic and Republican primaries. However, with convergence culture, the influences are never only one-way. Though “grassroots” Internet political activism may influence politics, politicians are also likely to use Internet culture to further their own goals.

2008 Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee uses convergence culture to appeal to a more diverse constituency than his traditionally conservative base by adopting the celebrity of Chuck Norris, a television actor and martial artist featured in Walker, Texas Ranger. Chuck Norris had, since 2005, been canonized over Internet messageboards and in the MMORPG World of Warcraft through a phenomenon named “Chuck Norris Facts.” Each “fact” credits Norris with one of an array of improbable superpowers and special abilities, such as “Chuck Norris can sneeze with his eyes open,” and “Chuck Norris does not sleep, he waits.” Though Chuck Norris’ television celebrity has led him to even create his own style of martial arts, and his well-publicized conservative politics were what led him to endorse Mike Huckabee’s candidature, Huckabee uses Norris’ Internet celebrity, and not his television celebrity to back up his campaign through an ad called “HuckChuckFacts.” In the ad, footage of Huckabee reciting “Chuck Norris Facts” is juxtaposed with Chuck Norris reciting facts of his own about Mike Huckabee’s policies. This ad gained so much publicity that Mitt Romney responded with his own Chuck Norris-themed video, criticizing what he claims to be Huckabee’s weak stance on crime, and claiming Norris’ attitudes as his own. However, this video received far less publicity (Romney’s ad received under 100, 000 views on YouTube, as opposed to the over 1 million views of just one posting of Huckabee’s Chuck Norris video).

Huckabee makes several important claims in “HuckChuckFacts.” First, his use of Chuck Norris to endorse his political campaign appeals to fans of Walker,Texas Ranger, a show beloved by social conservatives due to its appeal to a sense of “moral values,” its genre (the Western), and its glorification of traditional individualistic modes of heroism, as well as of the justice system. Second, Huckabee also draws on Chuck Norris and Walker, Texas Ranger’s campy appeal, through the use of his final frame, “Chuck Norris Approved,” in which a freeze frame of Norris’ face is combined with over-the-top “western” motifs, including a fist-shaped burn hole where Norris has punched the screen. Third, Huckabee lays claim to a sort of Internet panache through his use of popular Chuck Norris Facts familiar to many technologically-inclined Americans. Though contemporary Internet front-runners would say that a 2005 phenomenon such as Chuck Norris Facts is remarkably out-of-date, the large majority of Internet-savvy Americans would most likely recognize Huckabee’s appeal to a sense of being “in touch” with modern technology and younger constituents.

Jenkins’ theories about convergence culture center mainly around what he sees as an upcoming struggle between producers and consumers over rights to the use of major media products. In his chapter, “Quentin Tarantino’s Star Wars,” he seems to advise commercial producers that it would be in their best interest to allow fan producers almost free reign over media products, since their efforts often do more to promote the product in question than to challenge its validity or diminish its appeal. Jenkins also touches on the ways in which medial conglomerates try to harness and control the flow of fan productivity so that fan producers’ work becomes their property (Lucasfilm’s Star Wars web space, ex.), or so that they can police what content is allowed to be published (J.K. Rowling’s struggle with Harry Potter Lexicon author Steve Vander Ark, ex.). However, he spends much less time elaborating the ways in which major media producers can create their own products in traditionally fan-dominated media, such as digital video, using references derived from Internet popular culture, such as Huckabee’s reference to Chuck Norris Facts. Jenkins discusses how aspiring filmmakers such as George Lucas In Love co-creator Joseph Levy use the aura of a large media franchise like Star Wars to draw attention to their films, but he does not mention that big fish like Huckabee may be drawn to Internet culture icons like Chuck Norris in order to establish themselves as relevant to the everyday lives of a certain group of media users.

However, it is important to note that the Internet media that becomes profitable both for large media conglomerates and for grassroots producers themselves comes from a relatively small fraction of the overall Internet “population.” Jenkins’ chapter on Star Wars videos mentions the often gender-based disparity between producers of Lucasfilm-sanctioned “parody” videos, and Lucasfilm-condemned “fanfiction” videos. Similarly, the Chuck Norris Facts phenomenon was largely perpetuated by what Henry Jenkins calls “early adapters,” the members of the population most likely to respond to technological advancement. These early adapters are among the most privileged members of American society, since their financial resources and digital education allow them access to the latest hardware and software, as well as the know-how to use them in creative ways. It was these “early adapters” that moved Chuck Norris Facts from Conan O’ Brian Show segment, to messageboard joke to World of Warcraft application, and then rejected the phenomenon as out-of date. Jenkins may be arguing for more power to be placed in the hands of “consumers,” but which consumers will receive that power? Would this be a substantive change from the patterns of power and weakness observable more generally in American society?

***

Important Questions to Consider:

1. Is Huckabee’s use of Chuck Norris Facts an expropriation by conservatives of a movement that was originally designed to poke fun at traditional ideals of heroism? If so, does media convergence actually undermine the revolutionary potential of oppositional (fan) readings?
2. Among the Republican candidates for the presidency, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney appealed to Chuck Norris’ Internet following, while Rudy Giuliani and John McCain did not. Is there something about a candidate that would make him/her more likely to publish ads on YouTube and make reference to Internet culture than others?
3. We mentioned the CNN YouTube debates above as another example of how politics and Internet media collide. In what ways have you experienced the influence of Internet media or Internet culture on the world of politics? Do you believe the Internet is making significant changes to the way politics is reported to or received by the public?

So, I have a few thoughts after tonight’s (most excellent) slash video screening that are largely related to the brief discussion we had a couple of weeks ago about the insularity of the slash community, i.e., should/do non-slashers have the right to view slash vids without a proper context/introduction and make what they will of them? (Apologies if I repeat some of the points I already made in my comment on Ariel’s post from awhile ago, but I feel like this topic was incompletely discussed.)

While I appreciate Lauren and Nicole’s close reading of the slash videos, I am not convinced that you need to have a specific, slash-oriented introduction to understand the videos. Eye contact to imply a relationship, the paralleling of violence and sexuality, the conjunction of specific song lyrics with characters and actions–all of these are things that a reasonable critical person could read out of a slash video knowing nothing about slash. Taking intro to film might help, but I don’t think even a “normal” (uncritical) viewer could mistake the meaning of a video like Closer, even if they knew nothing about slash.

To follow up on that, I think that “normal” people can produce slash, even if they are not working within the slash community, per se. I’m a big fan of the nonexclusivity of categories, so I (respectfully) disagree with Lauren’s categorization of “Brokeback to the Future” as being resolutely not a vid. Although I think the point about the different social/artistic traditions vids and parody-trailers come out of was a good one, “Brokeback to the Future” used many of the elements we discussed as being integral to slash-vids–they eye-contact between the characters establishing a relationship, their physical touching, the clever use of material outside of the source (in the other vids, the song lyrics; in this vid, the relationship to the “Brokeback Mountain” trailer)–all of these things scream “VID!” to me. There’s also nothing that indicates that the comedy troupe who produced this video did not have a slasher among them. If that were the case, would that make this a vid? Why can’t it be both a vid and a parody movie trailer, authorship aside (the same way Shakespeare, for example, is both a great classic and pop culture, depending on the tradition from which you read it)?

Finally, my impression about the controversy surrounding non-slashers viewing slash was that the problem wasn’t that non-slashers couldn’t understand the basic content of slash videos (who has a relationship with whom, is that relationship happy/sad/repressed/violent, etc.), but that they understood the videos perfectly well and didn’t like the way the characters were used and/or the way sexuality was expressed (violently, homosexually, for example). I’ve already elaborated my thoughts on this issue below, but to bring up a few that seem especially relevant now: At what point are you a slasher–when do you gain the authority to create a vid, view a vid, show other people how to view a vid? Is it even possible to define this category? Can we really categorically say that the Brokeback to the Future folks can’t interpret vids properly, when they used so many techniques of veteran vidders? Is every vid sacred? Why can’t we (“normal people”)  look at vids that show violence against women and say, That’s not okay? Can only vidders themselves do this (like “Women’s Work”)? What about vids that show pedophilic relationships? Are we assuming that once you’re a “vidder” or part of that community (if we can decide what that means), you interpret these vids in the same way? Or is your opinion okay no matter what it is, just as long as you’re a vidder, and that’s what counts?

The Kirk/Spock video of Kathy’s last post caused some controversy in 2006 when it was uploaded to YouTube without its creators’ permission. The people who make and distribute fan videos have maintained a general standard of secrecy about it, for various material/legal reasons, and some were irritated at what they saw as their complicated art being flattened and misread without the context that gave it meaning. (This fan sums it up: “I’ve done the whole show-vids-to-nonfans thing, and most of them are boggled and confused. They’re not seeing the same vids we are.”) Henry Jenkins wrote an excellent post on the affair, which I really highly recommend at least skimming before/after you watch the YouTube link.

Of course, I confess, I’m always interested in the analysis fans themselves have to offer regarding their own situations, so I dug around for some fan commentary on the situation.

Metafandom is a popular digest-style roundup of fannish discussions happening on LiveJournal. (We often call those discussion “fannish meta”: hence the name.) These conversations range from the trivial to the deeply philosophical, fandom-specific or genre-spanning. The digest’s moderators try to be as inclusive as possible, so there’s a lot of noise to wade through, but when any big controversy hits LiveJournal media fandom– whether it’s about racist re-casting of characters in alternate-universe fanfiction, “clip theft” in fan videos, or the mores of fanfiction about real people– you can find traces of the discussion as it went down by looking up Metafandom’s archives.

So I visited the archives on the same day of Jenkin’s blog post, to see what the fans were saying. Scroll down to “Fan Vids”: a smattering of opinions about the visibility of fanvideos– a form of art long underground as a matter of course– in the age of mainstream internet media. This fan and this fan digest the Jenkins post for their readers– I’d especially recommend glancing at the comments to those posts, where other fans praise or criticize some of Jenkins’s individual points. This post, and its comments, shed a little more light on the historical reasons that video-makers dig privacy.

Finally, one of my favorite essays on the subject: this post (by a Swarthmore graduate!) will offer a bridge for us in the coming weeks to Convergence Culture and other discussions about money and fandom (which I am fascinated by from a feminist perspective). She quotes, from the very first post I linked to:

It’s been bothering me increasingly in recent months, as fanvids get posted on YouTube (not by the creators), that my non-fannish friends link to them as just another cool internet video. Of course, how would non-fannish folks recognise the incredible violation of fannish etiquette involved in posting a vid to YouTube? They’re insider creations, not intended for general consumption, and so why would non-insiders know the etiquette involved?

And answers:

Well, first what it is is we have to start adjusting to the fact that we’re not insiders anymore — the world got really small really fast, and we are right there in the spotlight, or, as Punk put it, they can see us now. We’ve been on the cutting edge, “hiding” on the internet with our creations, but here in Web 2.0, the user-created web, we can’t hide anymore, we are the internet. And so of course people are going to try and find ways to popularize us — eventually, they will try and find ways to use us to make money.

She herself gets followup from new posts like this, this, and this one (which I quoted at the very beginning of this post).

At any rate– I hope I’ve given you a sense of the conversation that goes around LiveJournal fandom under the skin of big controversies. We talked a little bit in class about the voice of the subject as represented in ethnography like Seiter’s or Radway’s. I think it’s appropriate here to check in with some fannish voices, to accompany Henry Jenkins wearing his ethnographer’s hat.

Hey folks,

I don’t know if anyone here used to watch the old cartoon Freakazoid, but there was a character named “Fanboy” who was pretty much exactly what you would expect from a character named Fanboy. Here is Fanboy’s Ode to Leonard Nimoy (courtesy of YouTube). There are probably other Fanboy vids out there if you search for “Fanboy” and “Freakazoid” on YouTube.

I think this is a great example of fan representation in the media, not to mention its relevance for the stuff about fan culture and gender we’ve been talking about. Personally, I’m also interested in the relationship between fans and the people on who they attach their fandom, and in this video is one, um, point of view that I don’t really ascribe to. Anyways, it’s not as deep as some of the other stuff going on in the blog, but I rememered it from probably 10 years ago, so maybe it’ll stick in an interesting way with other people, too.

This is a fan reinterpretation of the “Get a Life” skit that Jenkins mentions. Is this a vid? Someone please define “vid” for me. Anyway, interesting, that our definition of fandom is beginning to include many of those things that William Shatner would arguably have considered part of the “life” that his fans were supposed to “get.”

Here is the “uncut” sketch:

So, this is the most absurd fannish thing I’ve seen on YouTube lately…

Yes, that hobo does go "zzz...b-ball...zzz".

For the record, the way I embedded the video was to click "media" under the "code" tab when writing the post and input the URL.

Passing this along …

In Media Res is envisioned as an experiment in just one sort of collaborative, multi-modal scholarship that MediaCommons will aim to foster. Its primary goal is to provide a forum for more immediate critical engagement with media in a manner closer to how we typically experience mediated texts.

Each day, a different media scholar will present a 30-second to 3-minute clip accompanied by a 300-350-word impressionistic response. The goal is to promote an online dialogue amongst media scholars and the public about contemporary media scholarship through clips chosen for either their typicality or a-typicality in demonstrating narrative strategies, genre formulations, aesthetic choices, representational practices, institutional approaches, fan engagements, etc.

This week’s In Media Res line-up:

• Monday, January 14, 2008 – Francesca Coppa (Muhlenberg College) presents: “Pressure” – a metavid by the California Crew
• Tuesday, January 15, 2008 – Tisha Turk (University of Minnesota, Morris) presents: “Not Only Human” – an X-Files vid by Killa and Laura Shapiro
• Wednesday, January 16, 2008 – Jacqueline Kjono (independent scholar) presents: “A Day in the Life” – a Dead Zone vid by Shalott and Speranza
• Thursday, January 17, 2008 – Louisa Stein (San Diego State University) presents: “Bricks” – a Supernatural vid by Luminosity
• Friday, January 18, 2008 – Kristina Busse (independent scholar) presents: “Us” – a multivid by Lim

In Media Res Fannish Vidders-themed week