Fan Culture @ Swarthmore

In Jenkins’ article about convergence culture, he brings up a lot of interesting ideas about industry and regulation that most of the class (including myself) seemed to find especially relevant to discussions of vidding. I was interested though in the point that he makes about collective intelligence and the idea of a knowledge community and its applications to a study of fan communities in general.

It is certainly true that a lot of popular fan texts have wikis devoted to them (My favorite is this Battlestar Galactica wiki), and Textual Poachers describes chatting about the narrative of shows as being an integral part of much of the fan activity Jenkins observes. But with many fan sites including episode guides and collections of fan fiction, I was wondering if the idea of pooling knowledge about a program intersects cleanly with negotiating fan interpretations, particularly in light of our discussions of reading strategies.

Basically, I want to know if any of you have encountered areas on fan sites that purport to be only summaries but instead include personal notes and commentary either about UST in a heteronormative pairing or homosocial undertones. The idea of internet fan communities as massive, international, and largely anonymous water-coolers is fascinating to me; at the same time a fan may want information about the explicit narrative of an episode he or she missed, what he or she may receive is a barrage of responses from fan-critics not just describing the episode, but also preparing the person inquiring (especially if a knowledgable fan) for certain themes that will emerge. I know that people sharing information with me about my favorite shows has included thinly veiled commentary that ultimately affected the way in which I watched the episode, especially if it brought up elements that I focus on in my own readings.