Recent decades have seen fan and “geek” culture become widely popular as the science fiction, fantasy, and superhero stories that used to be the preserve of a smaller subculture of die-hard fans conquered the box office, our televisions, and the best-seller lists. In that same time period, the Internet has facilitated an explosion of online communities, many of which are fan communities, and these have gained visibility and value, both in popular culture and for the media and entertainment industries. While this narrative of the triumph of fan culture may seem like a welcome turn of events for groups that have often been marginalized and even ridiculed, the ascension of fans into the mainstream has been fraught with conflict and backlash. “Fandom is broken,” wrote one film critic in a widely circulated think piece originally published in May 2016. The piece drew a wave of responses from around the fan world, catalyzing a growing backlash discourse that identifies “fan entitlement” as the root cause of broken fandom. This discourse argues that fandom has become corrupted, with gains in prominence, power, and popularity leading to toxic behavior. On the surface, the fan entitlement discourse takes issue with the kind of anti-social behavior that is increasingly pervasive in today’s Internet culture: harassment, bullying, trolling, and negativity. However, digging into the assumptions and language used, this project argues that the discourse is rooted in anxiety about shifting power relations between fans and the media and entertainment industries and that it emphasizes and undermines the fan practices and attitudes that most challenge industry control. This project describes the fan entitlement discourse, traces its emergence within the larger dynamic of the fan/industry relationship, and analyzes the themes and rhetorical strategies that make up the discourse. Ultimately, the fan entitlement discourse complicates the popular and academic narratives of fan triumph and empowerment and forces us to consider the contested and often antagonistic reality of contemporary fan culture.

Creator

• Kaudel, Donna

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-h5cn-k673

Subject

• Rhetoric
• Communication

Language

• en

Alternate Identifier

• http://dissertations.umi.com/northwestern:15054
• etdadmin_upload_736093

Keyword

• fan entitlement
• fandom
• fan culture

Date created

• 2020-01-01

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright