The History of Fandoms

Have you ever seen a person dressed up in a fursuit as their favorite animal character? These people are classified as furries and are part of the furry fandom subculture that has an affection towards anthropomorphic animal characters with human personalities and characteristics. Many people have misconceptions about this subculture such as believing furries think they are realistic animals and are dysfunctional people. However, do not let these misconceptions affect how you perceive furries because there is a deeper meaning of just wearing a fursuit. The furry fandom subculture is rapidly expanding and is bringing many people from various backgrounds together. This subculture amazed me because my initial thought was that furries were weird,

Nintendo’s Pokemon franchise is a rare beast in a field of short-lived children’s cultures. The series, which began in the realm of handheld video games, quickly developed into one of the longest running anime television series, an ongoing series of manga volumes, feature films, music and an ever expanding realm of merchandise (McCormick, 2000). The success of Pokemon is partly attributed to its ability to target a younger demographic almost exclusively. Parents in the nineties would rush out to pick up a Pikachu themed Gameboy or the latest Pokemon game for the N64 console for their kids (Buckingham, 2007). The impact of Pokemon on children as a whole is significant. This research will explore the impacts of Pokemon fandom on children by focusing on three different aspects: 1) the impact among children; 2) the impact between children and parents, and; 3) the impact between children and society. For the purpose of this research, we will only investigate the impacts on children between seven to twelve years old in the nineties.

Posted on an Internet forum, this comment from a Survivor fan demonstrates a key dynamic of the fan community constructed around the program. This paper investigates elements of the audience reception of the American reality TV show Survivor (Mark Burnett Productions for CBS, 2000-, US), and the comment above raises the central issue I aim to address here. By exploring the show in terms of its fan culture and examining the Survivor fandom in relation to existing theoretical and critical work on fandom, I will argue that through online activity, Survivor fans compete with one another just as the contestants battle against each other in the weekly challenges on screen. It is this very sense of competition that I will assert differentiates the

Popular culture is a fusion of interest and activities that groups of people share. merely, anything that has to do with entertainment is popular culture, such as Movies, TV shows, actors, singers, toys, games, sports, clothes and the list continues. In many ways, popular culture touches every aspect of our lives. It plays such a major role in how our society views the world and how we perceive everyday things. Pop culture has a way of effect our lives no matter what we do to thwart its’ influence.

I have had the pleasure of teaching Fantashia Felder during her sophomore year. It is because of students like Fantashia that I prefer teaching tenth grade over any other. What makes this year so special is that teachers can truly see the transformation of their students from children, to young adults. It's a pivotal moment in a child's life where they must decide if they want to become focused on their academic and professional careers or become super apathetic. Fantashia chose to turn her life around and I am so happy I was able to witness such a beautiful transformation.

When intrigued or often obsessed with something, you may seem to bring it into all aspects of your life. The Columnist Christopher Borelli has certainly done just that with his writings. Although some articles are not about Star Wars, I chose, as an invested fan in Harry Potter, to see how someone just as invested in Star Wars viewed the world.

The line between television and the Internet seems to be growing more and more blurred as networks and producers learn to adapt to using online media to grow and capture new audiences. A recent article, “Chris Hardwick, King of the Nerds Is Expanding His Empire” by Lorne Manly in the New York Times features a profile of entertainer Chris Hardwick, who is described as the “model of an entertainment brand for a multiscreen generation” (Manly, par. 5). As a fan of both Chris Hardwick and of geek culture, I found this article to be a fascinating profile of how savvy use of media can allow performers to reach a much wider audience than television alone.

“Be brave enough to live life creatively. The creative place where no one else has ever been,” in the words of Actor Alan Alda. And that is what why many creative people flock to the seemingly popular subreddit inside Reddit.com, known as FanTheories to to share theories, interpretations and speculation related all types of creative works and to experience a creative place most are unable to say they have been. I too am one of these people who became an active member of this discourse community as it represents my high interest in creative works and combines it with critical thinking and postulating to explore new ideas and bring new life into aging media. However, there is much more to FanTheories than just sharing ideas and hypotheticals

The youth spend a majority of their time on the Internet or social media, rather than being active participants in their community. Studies of fan communities have increased over the past few years, as being a fan has become more digitized. There has been a focus on the Internet as a place of communal activity for participants. Fans of a particular person, team, fictional series, and so on, are generally a part of a larger “fandom” that is regarded collectively as a community or subculture. However, we are seeing the younger generations move towards new forms of civic and political engagement - ones that are closely tied to their personal interests and social network.

Most everyone from previous generations have come to believe that forms of entertainment in today’s society—from approximately thirty years ago to now—has somewhat corrupted or put off the progress of the current generation. Though many forms of entertainment are the main reasons for our current society’s procrastination, Johnson states that today’s pop culture is educational. It exercises the mind and brain in ways we don’t even realize. Over the course of thirty to forty years, pop culture and media has changed significantly, enhancing the way we think and live our lives. Johnson proposed a theory called the “Sleeper Curve”, which basically states that current U.S. society is influenced intellectually by popular media. Through his text, he

Pre-internet, fan culture exclusively referred to science fiction or comic books and was considered a disdainful hobby, conjuring the image of an overweight middle-aged man spotted with day old pizza stains watching Star Trek(ITALICS) reruns for the umpteenth time. Conventions were less advertised, attended, and accepted as a room of costumed geeks that needed to “get a life”.(.”) Grey areas of fan culture were less apparent; either a person had a slight interest in and enjoyed a piece or it became their identity. Society squished all types of fans into this single mold without stopping to think of the intelligence and creativity of individuals or the power they wielded. It was never considered that riots over sports results or the Super Bowl were a much more violent form of fan culture, or that concerts and musical festivals were made entirely of fans. Even as early as 1893, when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle killed London’s beloved Sherlock Holmes, fans took the streets with black armbands and dropped their 20,000 subscriptions to the publishing magazine, literally bringing their hero back from the dead by sheer popular demand. However, because sports, music, and magazines were popular, these even aggressive acts never fell under the period definition and were just passionate people, never

Motion Pictures have always had a strong influence in today’s culture, but maybe none as prevalent as Star Wars. Originating with Episode 4 A New Hope, the series boomed from 1977 to 2005 with yet another addition coming in 2015. The strongest of the series was the original trilogy episodes 4, 5, and 6, all generally released in the 1980s. As one of the strongest film francaises still today, it’s impact within the 1980s was only the tip of the iceberg. Children and adults alike still anticipate the new edition of this seemingly endless journey. If any singular film series still holds prevalence in its future decades it is Star Wars: Original Trilogy.

I am part of an online anime fandom, which is my community which I have been a part of since the 90’s, that is compromised of anime fans, friends, family and even the voice actors themselves. The Internet plays an even stronger role in promoting social integration by facilitating regular communication among family, friends, and groups base on identity and affinity (people with common identities, conditions, experiences, or interests, especially based on work.) Kottack(2012) I came across anime back in the 90’s, thanks to the recommendation of my nephew to watch an episode of one series called Yu Yu Hakusho (which became my utmost favorite) and since then I became hooked. Of course anime has been around longer than that and I did watch some growing up. I knew back then that these were different from American cartoons. Not just by the way they were drawn, but with the storylines that had more impact, defining the world around us than the one liner jokes that were in the majority of cartoons. Of course I wanted more anime, but back then they were harder to come by then they are now. I grew up before the Internet came into being and now, thanks to the Internet I can locate and buy anime from Ebay and Amazon let alone watch them online as well.

Other scholars have argued against Gauntlett’s ideas on interpellation (Nguyen) raising the question: can interpellation in media make you more active as a media consumer, instead of simply being an inactive participant such as Gauntlett proposes? This question has importance, as it may potentially unlock new dimensions towards viewing interpellation and Althusser’s theories, displaying the more positive effects of the idea of interpellation which has, for the most part, been overlooked by scholars as seen above. In addition to this, the question also the potential to help explain how fans of certain media attempt to include themselves within the universe of the canon as much as possible, and if that is effective or not.

By the Oxford Dictionary fandom is the state or condition of being a fan of someone or something (fandom. Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford University Press). In simpler words, fandom can be a group of people that are fans of something in this case a TV show. We have Game of Thrones fandom, incredibly huge Sherlock (BBC, 2010-) fandom or The Walking Dead fandom. Polish Game of Thrones fans can meet on the official Polish fanpage westeros.pl where they can read about latest episodes, speculate of what will happen end exchange theories and comments. There are many fanpages such as westeros.pl for every fandom there is. What is more fans can create their own stories around certain TV show universum or mix shows together. These stories are called fan fiction which according to Oxford Dictionary is fiction, written by a fan of, and featuring characters from, a particular TV series, film, etc. (fan fiction. Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford University Press). Concept easy to understand and widely exploited by the fans. The most popular page for fan fiction writers and readers is funfiction.net but there are dozens of more. Fandom media that gathers the biggest amount of people is now Facebook. As with conspiracies there are secret groups or open communities that gather fans from around the worlds. They ask each other questions, comment posts, create different polls, and discus newest ideas. On the previously