i do think itâs fruitful to examine how âfandomâ exists as a specific cultural practice within capitalism, shaped by the commodity form etc., and it certainly is true and extremely frustrating that people can easily get absorbed in questions of media representations and media criticism to the exclusion of almost anything else, and fantasise weâre doing some kind of great radical work⌠that itâs somehow virtuous to focus oneâs energies on forming a perfectly morally pure set of media consumption habits, promoting the Progressive works and denouncing the Problematic (this was absolutely me a few years ago! it happens!)
but the idea that the answer to the problems this causes is to build an âanti-fandomâ political movement is just, um, kinda goofy lol. like what exactly are you proposing to do, harass people on the internet if they draw shipping fanart? form a bloc and attack cosplayers at the next local convention? youâre just gonna become everything you hate!
and I also would want to be careful not to view âfandomâ as a conspiracy to coopt radical energy or whatever (not sure to what extent people believe this); nobody put any deliberate effort into that happening until it was already well underway, and Iâm pretty sure âfandomâ is yet a fairly small part of the whole process of commodity circulation, even in the entertainment industry! i suspect the vast majority of people who buy Star Wars or Marvel branded products do not see themselves as âfansâ, or participate in that specific subculture. most of the money will be in selling toys, shirts etc. to parents of kids who have only a passing familiarity with the Franchise.
(there might be exceptions to this. phone games tend to make a large portion of their profit from âwhalesâ who spend a lot more microtransactions than most people. certain industries like anime figurines almost exclusively sell to âfansâ. but taking the industry as a whole, I think âfandomâ can overestimate its own significance.)
rather, I think that in a world so saturated with spectacle and commodities, itâs not entirely surprising that as people start to realise âactually this world is kinda horrendously fucked upâ, the first places theyâll face up to that are in those immediate cultural contexts: fandoms, subcultures etc. and yeah, sure, from there it kind of takes on a life of its own, but stillâŚ
moreover, I suspect it would be better to ask what needs âfandomâ is presently fulfilling in an atomised capitalist society where most social relations are mediated through money (most, because every time you buy something, youâre taking part in a social relation with the producers, right?).
yes, fandom is spectacle, yes it can and usually will be turned to help valorise entertainment-industry capital. yes I never want to see those two blokes from g*od om*ns again. so why, then then do people go to âfandomâ? why are they excited to log on and read fanfiction, or catch the latest episode of a thing, chop it up into gifsets and screenshots and so on, discuss meta, get into bitter arguments with other self-defining fans over rather esoteric fictional things?
some hypotheses: something to do with
the capacity of âartâ (in a broad sense) to create a sense of emotional connection that is otherwise hard to come by, even if itâs illusory/parasocial. artistic creations may be commodities, but they are also communications that express something
a kind of appearance of Hegelian recognition [nb: all i know about Hegelian recognition is a youtube video but I think it applies]: âI see this experience Iâve had reflected in another personâs creation, therefore I feel seen/less alone with itâ. this is perhaps the origin of a lot of desire for ârepresentationâ in media
the usual sort of ingroup/community function that also exists in e.g. sports, feeling âpart of somethingâ, feeling like you have âyour peopleâ. as dangerous as it may be, this is probably a particularly big draw for isolated people
a severe lack of alternatives to media consumption to âfill downtimeâ, especially when tired after work etc., under the capitalist dichotomy of âworkâ and âleisureâ time. there may be more âfulfillingâ pursuits, but media consumption is often all people feel up to.
a need to have a shared context with the people around you, to have something to talk about
âescapismâ and temporary distraction from insoluble, or at least difficult problems - which certainly isnât an intrinsic evil, it is good to take a break and rest and can allow you to actually face up to those problems
a socially sanctioned way to practice skills like writing, with a readily engaged audience and without the same expectations of fulfilling a certain standard of âqualityâ or aiming for publication which feels out of reach for many people
these (and whatever else you might think of) are actual needs a lot of people have under present conditions. even if you think they shouldnât be! and theyâre not going to disappear just on the strength of moral injunctions. certainly theyâre not only achievable through âfandomâ, and âfandomâ can easily catch people up in its insular bubble⌠but itâs not that people are being tricked into this, itâs that faced with a particular capitalist hellscape, they take whatever solace they can find.
so if you donât like âfandomâ (and there sure is a lot to dislike), then seek to find a reproducible way to realise those needs that isnât shackled to capital reproducing itself, or help to obviate them (e.g. if people donât have to work they have more energy for other thingsâŚ). at least to me, that seems more likely to get somewhere than telling people they shouldnât participate in fandom.
(also: I reckon a lot of this line of thinking helps to explain online political subcultures, which a lot of the time function much more like âfandomâ than many participants would like to admit.)
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