Core Response #3 (Devin Glenn)

This week, I found Henry Jenkins' piece on Star Trek particularly insightful. In his introduction, Jenkins points out the issues with classifying fandoms as groups of cultural degenerates, and instead proposes that fans “fragment texts and resemble the broken shards according to their own blueprints” (a sort of “cultural bricolage”) in order to create networks which can effectively reappropriate cultural texts to meet specific needs and interests (472, 471). Although this phenomenon which “blurs all boundaries between producers and consumers” has existed since at least the 1980s, when Jenkins wrote this piece, it has certainly become even more prominent since the advent of social media and TikTok in particular (Jenkins 473).

As I read Jenkins’ words, a possible idea I could use for my final paper began to form in my mind. One recent, delightfully bizarre trend on TikTok is the subcategory of FlopTok—videos dedicated to celebrating iconic failures. Rather than being a forum for making fun of individuals, however, the app users who comprise this subset of TikTok genuinely love those they refer to as “flop icons.” And with the rise of FlopTok as come the concept of Floptropica—an imaginary island empire where only those who are “slay” (female and/or queer identifying) can become citizens (or “flops”). Though the title of “flop” is ostensibly self-deprecating, it actually stands as a reappropriation which allows for a safehaven that rejects toxic masculinity. This shared value—symbolized by the “flops” constant battle with their archenemies (known as “da boyz”)—could be seen as the societal need which led this imagined community to engage in the process of “cultural bricolage” (Jenkins 471). Countless videos on FlopTok from a plethora of different accounts retell the invented history of Floptropica, and anyone is welcome to add to the online lore. This TikTok fandom, which is emerging real time, shares many similarities with the Trekkie fandom described by Jenkins in his piece, making it a fascinating object of inquiry that I plan on delving more fully into as part of my final paper for this course.