Fan engagement with media has been a lifelong interest and fascination of mine, and I have a lot of thoughts about the nuances of fandom and fan behavior. I found Warner's piece particularly illuminating. It made me reflect on my own experiences in fan spaces throughout the course of my life—namely queer and trans-dominated fandom spaces. I'm not attempting to equivalate my white queer fandom experience with that of Black women in fandom, but that piece had me thinking about how marginalized viewers and fans read both into and onto the TV text: we extrapolate or infer from watered-down or subtextual moments, as well as reflect our own lived realities onto the characters. Her discussions of Twitter and Tumblr fandom felt incredibly familiar and spot-on to me as a person who has at times been very heavily involved in fandom on those websites.
It also got me thinking about community-building in fandom spaces, as well. Jenkins' piece also reminded me of my own fandom experiences, and particularly a lot of the intra-community fandom discussions that happen where it comes to drawing a consensus about the source material. It seems that in the current day and age, the idea of "alternate universes" as well as queer interpretations are not only more accepted, but have become the norm (at least the corners of the internet I've spent time on).
When he mentioned the "uncontrollable proliferation of meanings from their texts," I think that largely hits on the main appeal of fandom—specifically fan meta and fanfiction. It's interesting, though, because he describes creators at this time of being at odds with this proliferation of meanings. As a writing student/storyteller myself, one of the things I find most exciting about writing is this exact phenomenon: that I can write something, intending one thing or perhaps not intending anything at all, and that ten different people might draw ten different insights and meanings of their own from it.
Each individual brings their own life and their own experience to the table when engaging with any given narrative, and it's inextricable from the way they participate with and react to said narrative. This informs the way fans build space together and interact with one another.
At risk of ridiculing myself by commenting under my own blog post (akin to liking your own message on a fan group message board, perhaps) I'd like to share a couple great sources for television analysis and community discussion. Cultural Learnings, the website of media studies scholar and television critic Myles McNutt (yes, that’s his real name) was the first place I encountered in-depth English language writing about SKAM. He covered the final season week-to-week, analyzed the short-lived American adaptation, and discussed the show in relation to its various methods of “service.” A former contributor to the AV Club who left when the site’s owners gutted its staff, McNutt has since started a new site, Episodic Medium, to bring the weekly “TV Club” style of writing back. If you are an avid TV watcher and looking for thoughtful criticism of new shows, or even a place for a community discussion, I recommend checking it out!
ReplyDelete(Can't hyperlink in comments grrr)
https://cultural-learnings.com/category/skam/
https://episodicmedium.substack.com/