Moby-Dick and Fan Culture

What I have decided to focus on for this post is communication within fandoms, particularly criticism about the fandom itself. 

Moby-Dick is considered a unique novel because of the broken or one-sided communication performed by the characters. As with all types of communication, the aggregate of the communication within the novel leads to a certain conclusion.   "[The] atypical nature of most speaking in the novel encourages the negative view[...]that the world is a place where communication is suspect and perhaps impossible" (Barnett 140). Although throughout the book various speeches and conversations are made about the White Whale and Captain Ahab, "the multitude of verbal styles consciously represents the heterogenious collectivity of mankind" (141)  Likewise, indvidual fans think differently and have different ideas, but they all generally come to the same conclusions.  

 Can fandoms be compared to a product?  Technically they start out as a product or series of products, such as a book or movie.   As the item increases in popularity, authentic merchandise as well as fan-created materials begin to circulate.  As people invest themselves emotionally within a fandom, or begin to immerse themselves within it, they seek to know whether or not the immersion is worth their emotional energy based on the opinions of others.  Fans promote fandoms because they like their involvement and seek to express their liking and their identity within it.  This especially happens within social media, because it brings together a variety of people who are not necessarily geographically or socially connected, but sometimes people who share mutual ties of trust.  Interested fans also examine the opinions of other people they don't know to get a feel for what the quality of something is. 

A study by Buzzetto and Moore found "participants exhibiting prosumer behaviors through the use of social media as a means to share comments, perspectives, and opinions about goods and services. As such, mediated messages conveyed through SNS [social networking sites] are influencing purchase decisions with word of mouth messages paramountin consequence and ability to impel action" (Buzzetto-Moore 77.)  In Moby-Dick, Ishmael starts out as a prospective whaler who goes off information he gathers from Queequeg, Captain Peleg, and other people with experience in the industry.  Later, Ishmael becomes such a fan of whaling that he spends most of the book promoting and detailing its work.

Participating in a fandom sometimes requires spending money to attend movie screenings, buy books/DVDs/Blu-rays, or to buy paraphanelia to the materials to make it.  Individuals who want to spend money may be influenced by their peers in their decision whether or not a product is worth investing in.  To give a personal example, I am not a Whovian (follower of Dr. Who), but I want to be because I have seen Whovian-generated memes on Facebook promoted by friends who ARE Whovians, and since I trust their reputation (aka I know they're awesome) I am inclined to think positively of the fandom.  Fandoms can also require serious time commitments (e.g. making memes or costumes). This is also true of online missionary work of the LDS Church, but that's another story.

David Tennant as the 10th Doctor.  Photo Courtesy ABC Radio. 

Then fans make them into something their own. Fans recreate their fandoms on social media sites for bite-sized chunks.  On You Tube, for instance, "they come to consume pop culture like movies, television, and songs thesame way they enjoy cookies or chips – in conveniently packaged bite-size nuggetsmade to be munched easily with increased frequency and maximum speed (Miller,2007) [...] It can be considered a buffet of “snack” videos, highly meeting people’s needs for high-speed entertainment munching" (Shao11 ) It's called getting your daily dose of [Insert fandom name here]).  Consider this version of "Call Me Maybe."  All current episodes of Star Wars in one setting.  If that isn't a pick-me up I don't know what is.

For fans, creating content can fulfill personal needs.  "On Wikipedia, people can create new items or edit existing items with results that are immediate, obvious, and available to the world. Such contributing experience can help people believe that they have an impact on the group and that support their own self-image as an efficacious person (see Bandura, 1995; Kollock)" (14-15).  So when I make or share a meme, I do it because I have observed something insightful about a fandom and want others to know about it.  I want to be a part of the fan dialouge and enlighten others about how awesome something is.

Self-generated meme.  Picture courtesy of ABC.

Then fans evaluate media created by other fans and the industry.  Because the internet is so customized to the individual user, user customization and feedback is vital to sites as well as fandoms and the creators themselves.  "Customization provides individuals with an opportunity to express their interests, tastes, thoughts, and values. It also has the potential to generate positive attitudes and behaviors towards the sites (Carpenter, 2000; Graham, 2002; Kalyanaraman and Sundar, 2006)" (Shao 18).  And in this way, fans get feedback from each other about their common interests and ideas.

So how about Marvel's Agents of SHIELD?  How does social media inform us about this show?  Following the conversations on Facebook that the FB site for the show has posted,  I have noticed the generally negative trend of commentary on the show.   However, the fans who are defending the show usually have the following reasons:

1. The show is just barely starting and it could take a season or two to get on its feet.
2. The show is supposed to be about the AGENTS, so obviously people who are expecting a mini superhero movie every episode WILL be disappointed.
3. The show has a very small budget, which accounts for the lack of certain elements the viewers could be wanting, like having an actual superhero cameo.  For instance, a Hulk cameo would never work because the show does not have the budget for that (and in my opinion, even if it was just Bruce Banner it would still be difficult to pull off because the Avengers are level 6 and don't know that Coulson's back--and they might not respond well to that revelation)
4. The real reason the ratings are low is because people have the option of watching episodes on ABC.com or Hulu on their own time. (not actually said online, but true)
5. People who are now disaffected with the show need to get off the Facebook sit.

However, in the last two weeks the general comments have improved because apparently the episodes were more appealing  (except I'm not sure about last week.  Last week's episode I didn't like so much).

Screenshot of my FB status after last week's episode.

 Discussion within fandoms also focuses on the subject of the media at hand as well as its quality.  This link to a fan discussion board discusses the ending of the latest Marvel film, "Thor: The Dark World" (but it contains serious spoilers, so don't look at it if you haven't seen the movie yet).   Although the participants in this conversation say a lot of different things, their discussion also arrives at a consensus. 


What this is telling me is that although people can be of different backgrounds and ideologies they can still come to an agreement in order to navigate a common problem.  However, this seems to contradict the effect of conversation taken in the earlier quote from Moby-Dick, that communication is hopeless and pointless.  This might seem to make this positive perception of fan culture a little superficial, but taking the quote in context of the book, it is more easily understood.

  Moby-Dick is quite a different animal from today's social networks.  Unless you're FB friends with someone, you can hardly see the character development visible in books that lies behind the day-to-day conversations, and even with FB friends sometimes it's still obscure.  While we can communicate, we do fall short of true understanding, because we cannot see what lies behind people's statements.   This is why there are such terrible miscommunications on board the Pequod, if this holds true.  Ahab is so deeply immersed in his monomania that he refuses to allow the objections of Starbuck or anyone else to deter him from his quest.   Ishmael is keenly aware of the limitations of his relationship with Queequeg, who is from an exotic culture and whose values and ideas are completely different, but this only heightens the sublimity of their friendship.  In fan culture, everyone watches a movie or reads a book differently, even if such media are mass distributed, and it is easier to come to an agreement with people who agree with your tastes than those who do not.  But as far as superficial information-gathering is concerned, it's still the best way to gather information, even if we really don't know how to use it.

Curation Report--Fan Culture

I have been using multiple tools to curate.  My primary source has been Feedly.  Feedly provides links to news articles and web pages from specific sites.  I have grouped most of my sites into "Fan Culture."  My most useful news sites have been Vulture, Entertainment Weekly, Moviefone, and Vulture.  Today was a particularly busy day on feedly because all of these news sites were posting links to the just-released trailer for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, some with commentary.  For those of you who were just as anxious for this trailer as I:

And not to mention the guy they originally picked to write the new Star Wars movie has been replaced.  With J.J. Abrams and another guy who worked on The Empire Strikes Back.

What I generally do is tag the articles and also add them to Instapaper. After hearing Paul's recommendation in class, I also started using Storify.  This gives me a different perspective on fan culture since I mostly find tweets from the fans themselves.  I am using Storify specifically to monitor Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. show. Twitter and other resources from Storify give me links to news articles and fan reviews.  I spent most of my Storify time today reading the comments to a negative review of S.H.I.E.L.D.--most of the comments were negative, too, but there were a few bold defenders.  Personally I support the show--I acknowledge, it has weaknesses, but I love it.  Mostly because I love Coulson. 

What I need to do with this data is start going to the next step and finding more fan comments about these news developments--especially this Star Wars writer change.  I am also thinking I want to get a Twitter account so I can have more access to tweets and the people tweeting. 

Fan Culture Bonding Time

So this weekend my Literature of the American West class visited Arches National Park.  While I enjoyed finally being able to check something off my bucket list, I also bonded with my classmates by climbing on the red rock and talking fan culture with my classmates.

Self-portrait in front of Landscape Arch. Personal Photo.

It started about six in the morning when we left Provo.  One of my classmates, Amanda, told the most unbeleivable fan story I have ever heard.  The previous evening her ward threw a Halloween party, and her sister/roommate wanted to be the She-Hulk and go all out--that is, entirely bedeck herself in green laytex paint.  Amanda still had the paint in between her fingernails to prove it, not to mention the paint was all over the bathroom, the floor, etc.  So they go to the party.  Nobody recognizes what character Amanda's sister is--except for a guy who approaches dressed as Captain America (and may I add, fangirls, he also had a similar build to Chris Evans).  They dance, and as it turns out both of them are Latin dancers.  At the end of the night they exchange names and phone numbers.  Deciding not to take any chances, Amanda and her sister go home and facebook stalk the guy in case he's a creeper.  As it turns out, he is not. And not to mention, in spite of the Marvel-themed costumes at the masquerade she discovers that they both like the Justice League. 

Now be honest: how many of us singles have common fandoms as requirements for potential spouses?  And how many married people are with their current spouse because they had a fandom in common, among other things?  My parents, for instance, both like Star Trek, Star Wars, and Indiana Jones. 

Navajo Arch, personal photo

And of course, friendships are often fueled and enriched by fandoms. I spent a good part of Saturday talking and hiking with Amanda, and although we were able to relate on a number of different subjects, it was the initial interest in our common taste in superheroes that allowed us to bond during the day. 

The last area of the park we visited that day was the Windows area.  Although quite an interesting area in its own right, one of the reasons we stopped there was because the opening sequence of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was filmed here.  I have never liked Indiana Jones, despite my parents' efforts to breed me to the contrary, but I have seen most of the Last Crusade and Raiders of the Lost Ark.  But my classmates were a little more enthusiastic.  I just tagged along because I wanted to see Double Arch.  While walking over, one of the class' pop culture gurus, Andrew, whom Amanda and I had also been hanging out with, put on a bandana and turned it backwards to imitate young Indy as a boy scout.  So to Andrew and the other Indy fans, the Windows Area was a pilgrimage to an area connected to a fan culture they were part of. 

Double Arch. Wikipedia Commons.

In much the same respect, a Star Wars fan like myself would want to visit Tikal, Guatemala where A New Hope was filmed, because ever since I saw that movie for the first time as a little girl my mother has been telling me that that place is in Guatemala (I would also like to visit Tunisia but unfortunately the movie sets there are buried!). Fan culture is an imaginative way of viewing the world, and visiting movie backdrops is a way of connecting to the physical reality of that imaginary world--these are physical places that have been manipulated by the human imagination to have a whole new meaning, rather the same way religious sites become places of pilgrimage.  So that's where the anthropology of fandoms and the digital universe becomes apparent.

I'd Like an Excuse to post More Memes

I'm not exactly sure what else to post about at the moment, so I think I will respond to Dr. Burton's response to my first post on memes, specifically these two questions:

"Behind their apparent silliness, what aspect of digital culture do memes reflect? Are they an efficient authentic mode of communication?"

Question 1,  (I feel rather like Ishmael the way I'm categorizing this). What aspect of digital culture do memes reflect? Referring to Dr. Burton's previous Wednesday lecture, digital culture, loosely re-defined from Charles Geer's definition, includes "visual simulacra, instant communication, ubiquitous media, global connectivity, and applications such as business and cultural and artistic responses." I think memes best reflect global connectivity and cultural/artistic response.

Memes are primarily a form of cultural/artistic response.  Memes are responses, period.  One of my odd quirks is that I like to know how people react to surprising situations, or how they have surprising responses.
I guess memes appeal to me because I'm a very visual person.  I have a great imagination, sure, but knowing what something looks like--a facial expression, a reaction,  an animal--helps me to have a better idea of what kinds of images attach to text or ideas--surprise, sarcasm, etc. And yes, if you want to get meta about it, sometimes people make memes responding to other memes. 

For instance, someone (not me) made this meme:

I made this meme in response:

and just to point out that I think Darth Vader would NOT find that amusing in light of how valuable those particular droids were.  Memes are about sharing ideas about shared interests, which is why they can so easily be "shared".

And with responses, I get a better idea of what to think of the thing being responded to.  For instance, if anyone remembers the classic LDS short film Johnny Lingo, when Johnny makes his uber-surpising offer to Moki (Mahana's Father), Moki's face is...well, blank.  Tulo, the comical narrator, tells Mr. Harris that "he looked as though a coconut had fallen on him."  Ever since watching this film as an adolescent, I have looked for that response in characters in other films, because the "coconut look" is definitely a sign of a humorous surprise.  For instance, here's an example about 24 seconds into this clip from a recent popular movie. : precious (PS I'm not sure what language the subtitles are in).

Also, for better or worse, the meme-making culture is very globally connected, in the english-speaking world at least.  Not only does this culture share a lot of history and stories, but it is also entwined with a lot of fandoms in which inside jokes will be recognized. Fandom memes can simply be fans helping each other recognize something interesting about their interest they never noticed before.

For instance, I used to work in the Student Athlete Building.  I would pass a picture of Jimmer Ferdette every single day, and after a while I realized this picture of Jimmer made me think of the Hulk.

And yes, memes are also a very integral part of mix culture: comparing different stories can be insightful, often in an amusing way.

There's also the hangup that memes cannot be created entirely anonymously:  most meme-generator sites require users to make an account.

Question 2: Are memes an efficient mode of authentic communication?  I would argue in the affirmative, but with limitations.  Memes often represent ideas from heavily entwined cultures and fandoms.  Sometimes you have to be a part of that culture/subculture to get the joke.

This is a meme I made:

You won't get it unless you have seen both Revenge of the Sith and Funny Girl.  It doesn't work if you have to go back and explain the joke. Memes are supposed to be quick.

BYU has an entire facebook site devoted to BYU and Mormon-related memes. It works well as long as you get the references.  Efficient? In some ways, when sharing ideas is enhanced by the illustration and people comprehend the meaning of (A) the picture, (B) the caption, and (C) how they are connected.  But efficient in the sense that they compart useful knowledge to us?  Well, perhaps in the sense that connecting useless knowledge can help us relate useful knowledge.
Authentic? Debatable.  Memes that float around freely online, on Google search and on Facebook, are usually anonymous.  It is an easy way to get anonymous popularity.

So memes are a reflection of the fast-paced, interconnected culture we live in.  It is fitting that they are both textual and visual.  And I would argue that they are effective as well as entertaining.