A Vid(eographic) Journey

As I’ve mentioned on Vimeo, I’ve decided to embark on a bit of an experiment, to try out for myself the various videographic criticism exercises that my colleagues Jason Mittell and Chris Keathley have put together for their workshop on videographic criticism. It’s somewhat ironic that I’ve been out of the country for conferences the two years that they’ve head the workshops–first I was at…

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Three Book Sections, Three Videos

In the multi-year process of writing Millennial Fandom, I worked out many of my ideas in video/fanvid form. Sometimes the vid came before I drafted a chapter, and sometimes it came after. As I look back, I see that three videos offer in different different form the core ideas from the book’s three sections, Millennial Hope, Millennial Noir, and Millennial Transformation. I’ll post all three vids here. I’d love to hear what you think about the relationships and the differences between writing about these ideas with words and videos. 

In my classes, we use social media in a range of targeted ways. Often, my classes share a social media account, be it Tumblr or Pinterest or another interface we’re experimenting with, which students curate individually or in group. Sometimes we work with these interfaces in class, and often we use them as tools to engage with one another and with media culture beyond class. We use the same account from semester to semester, and thus they become conversations between generations of a particular class.

We also use class hashtags to continue conversations on Twitter and on other social media that students happen to be engaged with. You can join in the Twitter conversations at #gsm267, #middspek, #middremix, #middsherlock, #middtvac, and #middami.

    Focus on: Social Media

Scholar-Vidding? Acavidding? Or just metavidding?

Scholar-Vidding? Acavidding? Or just metavidding?

In the multi-year process of writing Millennial Fandom, I worked out many of my ideas in video/fanvid form. Sometimes the vid came before I drafted a chapter, and sometimes it came after. As I look back, I see that three videos offer in different different form the core ideas from the book’s three sections, Millennial Hope, Millennial Noir, and Millennial Transformation. I’ve posted all three…

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Interview on Millennial Fandom

Interview on Millennial Fandom

I was so thrilled to be interviewed by Henry Jenkins at his blog (Confessions of an Acafan, of course!) about my book, Millennial Fandom. The interview is in three parts: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three. I’d love to continue the conversation on millennials, generational discourse, and fandom, there, here, or on my (book’s) Tumblr. Yes, yes, I have (far) more than one Tumblr at this point… As…

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Fandom in Transition: 3 Flow Pieces

Fandom in Transition: 3 Flow Pieces

This past Spring, I was happy to have the opportunity to write a series of three posts for the online journal Flow on “Fandom in Transition.” With the loss of Antenna (RIP!), Flow remains a terrific site for short form thinking on TV and media culture. (And I’m looking forward to talking about generational discourse & the media industry at the Flow Conference this September!) So, if you’d like to…

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My #middsherlock class hard at deductive work.

just friends? 

just friends? 

fan demographics: gender & sexuality

For the next round of posts, I’m going to focus on some of the ways fans described themselves in 2008. In order to get a sense of who was participating in the 2008 Fan Fiction survey, the participants were asked for some general demographic information. At the time, I wanted to get a sense of the mix of fans taking the survey. Now, I’d love to know what you make of this data.

2) gender and sexuality

The vast majority of fans participating in the survey (96%) identified as female. Many participants identified as heterosexual (68%), but a significant portion of participants (32%) identified as non-heterosexual, including the 23% of participants that identified themselves as bisexual. That’s roughly a third of participants identifying as something other than straight.

I’ve got a few different things I’m wondering about this and I’d love to get your thoughts. 

First, what do you make of this data? Is there anything else you think we should pay attention to here? 

Also, how much does this match with your experience of fans and fandoms today?

Finally, how do you feel about surveys collecting this kind of information about fans? Do we need this kind of data? Is it useful? 

Share your ideas by replying to this post or by posting comments on the Fandom Then/Now website.

Hey so a while back, on a whim, I joined a MEP on Youtube. I never joined a MEP before, somehow, in my ten million years on that site. I am a hermit. Anyway, it’s all new to me but they have all been extraordinarily kind and welcoming and last month I participated in this here above MEP. It’s called Sleepwalking and I did the Matrix part at the end. It’s an interesting way to vid - a bit like a drabble challenge in that it’s only a few seconds and they give you the theme (Sleepwalking in this case). I recommend it if you don’t have time to vid so much at the moment but want to hang out with vidders a bit and play around in fandom.

Owning the Goddamned Servers!

Wow, every time I think I can’t hate the “let’s commercialize fandom” contingent more, I come across something like this:

ML: Yeah, I guess I’m so far removed from fanfiction as a primary mode of fandom because I’m so in a very different world of behavior rather than a single point of origin fanworks. And what I really mean, I guess, by ‘canon is a little less important,’ is that there’s the incredible loop of production and consumption, so that producers are consumers are producers are consumers are producers are consumers. And so at any point along that trail someone can join in the fandom. So someone can be, can know StarKid, and become part of the fandom that way, even if they weren’t necessarily deep into Harry Potter before that.

ML: I really strongly disagree with anti-consumerist fandom. Because it’s missing a whole part of the production cycle that is absolutely necessary for people to understand in order to actually get canon. And in order to actually get fanworks! (Meredith Levine in an interview with Fansplaining, August 2015)

Funny how it is a person who analyze fannish interactions for profit that redefines fandom as commercial. Not only should be accept it when we get overrun by people trying to make money off us. We’re actually now supposed to accept when we get moved to the frienges of “fandom” to make room for the “real” thing–MONEY.

This may be a good point to remind ourselves why some of us keep on holding high the banner of non-profit fandom and its role in fannish history. So in that vein, here are two of my favorites quotes.

We need a central archive of our own, something like animemusicvideos.org. Something that would NOT hide from google or any public mention, and would clearly state our case for the legality of our hobby up front, while not trying to make a profit off other people’s IP and instead only making it easier for us to celebrate it, together, and create a welcoming space for new fans that has a sense of our history and our community behind it. (Astolat, May 2007)

Because I want us to own the goddamned servers, ok? Because I want a place where we can’t be TOSed and where no one can turn the lights off or try to dictate to us what kind of stories we can tell each other. (Speranza, January 2008)

Because with everything I see and know and post about the OTW, with everything that’s going on, at the end of the day, this is OUR space, for however we want to define our, for however inclusive we want it to be. The one thing that won’t be included, however, is third party platforms trying to make money off OUR CONTENT!

I’ve been watching this all day and asked Killa to put it up streaming so I could share. This is her amazing Kirk/Spock vid to Dante’s Prayer — http://fanlore.org/wiki/Dante’s_Prayer for more detail. The vid that made me a vidder.

“The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.”

- Viola Davis, the first black woman to win an Emmy for Best Lead Actress in a Drama Series.

My team’s offering. Happy Birthday Natalie!!!

Item #203 - Let the Kale Move You!

IMAGE. ITEM IN HONOR OF JUSTIN GUARINI: Show up in Times Square on Broadway between 46th and 47th street on the West side of the street (next to the red steps) on Tuesday, August 4th at 12:00 ET dressed in a lettuce or kale tutu and follow instructions given to you by the jumbotron http://officialgishwhes.tumblr.com/timessquare. You may submit an image of you in the lettuce or kale tutu in front of the jumbotron or as you follow instructions. You must follow the instructions for at least 1 minute. For those outside of the US: on the same day, at 12:00PM in your local time, go to the most prominent landmark in your city dressed in a lettuce of kale tutu. You must provide an image of you in the tutu in front of the landmark doing a ballet move with a bystander applauding. (US Citizens - ignore this direction - your directions will come from the jumbotron.)68 points    

*Go Nat!  Looking great!    

friend: what are you doing?

me: im on tumblr

friend: whats your @?

me: sorry i dont have tumblr

2 years ago today, I had no life. Or rather, I had the beginning of one.  I had just had a bone marrow transplant, necessary to fix the immune system which, for no discernible reason (thus far) had decided to attack my own body.  After over 2 years of being sick, in and out of the hospital, putting law school and everything else on hold, I was finally starting the road to recovery.

But it was a solitary road.  For those not aware, when you have a bone marrow transplant, you basically reset to newborn mode.  You have no natural immunity to anything.  So for the first 6-8 months (typically a year, but a new quarter was starting, and I am nothing if not stubborn), you live in almost complete isolation. No one can touch you  No going outside.  I’m not even going to get into what you’re allowed to eat.  Even though it’s a good thing, a necessary thing, it can get you down.  Especially for someone who was constantly moving, constantly engaging, constantly doing things, which was my life before.

My mom suggested support groups on chat rooms.  And - this is not to knock support groups on chat rooms, because I think they do a lot of good for a lot of people - it was a disaster.  I managed to find only two types; the “oh life is over this is the end” type, and the “immerse myself in religion to get through this” type.  Neither type was for me.  Which is how I decided I was going to be alone, and isolated for the better part of a year, but at least I’d have time to catch up on all those shows I never watched.

Which is how I found Sherlock. And then Tumblr.  And then this fandom.  It’s how I found friends who I could connect with, talk to, engage with, and it didn’t matter that I couldn’t meet in person, because they were right there at my fingertips.  Separated by geography, but drawn together by a common love, I found a place where I could fit. A place where I could engage, and be creative and productive and contribute in a way that I wasn’t allowed to do anywhere else.  It gave me a purpose, and an outlet, and a way to keep myself together.

So, to the fandom; to my friends, the ones I’ve connected with on and outside of Tumblr, whether we still talk every day or not so much anymore (I’m here if you need me); to those who have engaged with me on Tumblr, who have  pushed me to think differently; and to those who have reblogged and encouraged and consumed what I’ve put out there, and supported my thoughts and contributions these past two years, who have accepted me into such a fantastic group of people.

To all of you, I say, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.