The Fandom 101 Primer To Take With You
The Fandom 101 Primer To Take With You
Pop culture fandoms are powerful narrative organizing environments that can orient millions of people towards pluralist OR toxic beliefs and behaviors. Working with and within pop culture fandoms is a critical evolution of the pop culture narrative change field’s work. So Pop Culture Collaborative Chief Strategy Officer Tracy Van Slyke, and Jeff Yang, the Collaborative’s Senior Advisor, Digital and Narrative Intelligence, have created the below Fandom 101 primer. Print it out here. Discuss with your team.
Let’s start with a shared definition. What are pop culture fandoms?
POP CULTURE COLLABORATIVE SAYS: Pop culture fandoms are comprised of individuals that self-organize into active communities around a shared pop passion—such as a television show, a cinematic universe, a favorite musician, a social media influencer or celebrity, a book series, a sports team, and more.
How big of a deal are fandoms?
Check out these stats. They speak for themselves.
Why are fandoms important to narrative change and movement-building strategy?
As Pop Culture Collaborative’s CEO, Bridgit Antoinette Evans, writes:
“Every person moves through their lives immersed in ‘narrative oceans’ composed largely of ideas, narrative archetypes, cultural norms, and stories. These narrative oceans shape people’s identities—including how they feel, think and act about themselves, other people, and the world around them.”
Over the last four years, the Collaborative has invested in supporting research, learning tools, and exploratory grantmaking around pop culture fandoms, and other types of digital communities.
Based on this work, our key learning: Per Tracy, “Pop culture fandoms are where transformational narrative immersion and mass organizing strategies meet.”
So what impact do fandoms really have?
As Jeff has documented, trust in media and government institutions has eroded and identify formation has diminished along the lines of nationality, faith, family, or racial community. Millions of people are looking for new ways to find truth, forge trust, and create identity. And that’s where fandoms come in:
Fandoms offer meaning. They give people a way to organize their lives, form community and meet new people.
Fandoms form identity. Over time, deep immersion within fandoms informs and transforms people’s social identities. This ultimately impacts who they believe belongs in our country—and who doesn't.
Fandoms impact people’s behaviors in the real world. The activities and behaviors in pop culture fandoms carry over into civic behavior: protesting, voting, and—on the toxic side—sometimes even violent actions.
As Tracy says,
“Fandoms are where beliefs are shaped, behaviors are practiced, and a sense of belonging is forged.”
And as Jeff says,
“Fandoms are a petri dish for larger civil society.”
What makes a fandom different from any other community?
Jeff has created a rubric to document what makes a fandom unique from other self-organized communities. Fandoms are rooted in a collaboratively created culture most strongly marked by the following “fan tropes.”
A shared lore, which includes the origin stories, meaningful milestones, and rites of passage frequently created by the fans themselves
Insider jargon used to communicate with other fans
External symbols used by fans identify themselves to each other and outsiders
A common code of behavior that defines how fans interact with one another and with nonfans
These elements are helpful in both spotting emerging fandoms AND providing the basics for forming a fandom.
Need some examples of fandom impact in the real world? Here you go.
The Harry Potter community has been known as one of the most powerful progressive fandoms in the world. Fandom Forward, formerly known as the Harry Potter Alliance, dedicated its founding years to building fan-activists within this fandom. And now, a large swath of Harry Potter fans have organized to reject creator JK Rowling because of her transphobic beliefs.
On the toxic side, Star Wars is one of the best known storyworlds of good defeating evil. Star Wars fandoms are legendary and multi-cultural, but a vocal minority are known for vicious racist and sexist attacks online every time a new non-white, non-male character rises in prominence.
Fans of the wildly famous genre of K-Pop music out of South Korea rose to reject the toxicity of the Trump presidency during the 2020 election and organized together to buy out the tickets to a stadium during a campaign speech, leaving it virtually empty when he arrived.
Okay, I’m intrigued. How do I learn more about fandoms?
Mobilizing pop culture fandoms is an under-tapped strategy for the pop culture narrative change field. But we can change that. At the Collaborative, we believe that the field can expand efforts that cultivate the digital communities—especially pop culture fandoms—that help of millions of people embody pluralist beliefs and behaviors. In the process, we can dilute the impact of rising White Nationalist and pro-authoritarian fandoms. Knowledge is power. Read and explore.
“The Best Organizing You’ve Never Heard Of,” from the Fan Organizer Coalition.
Senior Advisor Shawn Taylor’s call to action, “We the Fans: How Our Powers Can Change the World”
Past Digital Waves issues
Experimental Tool: Start to explore the fandoms around you
Download this beta Fandom Elements Identification Worksheet that Jeff developed. This will help you to identify and analyze emerging and existing fandoms as part of your narrative and organizing strategies.