Busse, Kristina. “Fan Labor and Feminism: Capitalizing on the Fannish Labor of Love.” Cinema Journal 54.3 (2015): 110-115.
The article presents a feminist criticism of fannish, or fan, culture. Topics discussed include the economic aspects of fandom including merchandise associated with media content fans are interested in, the concept of fan labor and its relationship to user generated content (UGC), and the work of scholars Karen Hellekson and Abigail De Kosnik.
Reagle, Joseph. “Geek Policing: Fake Geek Girls and Contested Attention.”International Journal of Communication 9 (2015): 19.
I frame the 2012–2013 discourse about “fake geek girls” using Bourdieu’s theory of fields and capital, complemented by the literature on geeks, authenticity, and boundary policing. This discourse permits me to identify the reciprocal relationship between the policing of identity (e.g., Am I a geek?) and the policing of social boundaries (e.g., Is liking an X-Men movie sufficiently geeky?). Additionally, geekdom is gendered, and the policing of fake geek girls can be understood as a conflict over what is attended to (knowledge or attractiveness), by whom (geekdom or mainstream), and the meaning of received attention (as empowering or objectifying). Finally, despite the emergence of a more progressive and welcoming notion of geeks-who-share, the conversation tended to manifest the values of dominant (androcentric) members. That is, in a discourse started by a woman to encourage other women to be geeky, some of the loudest voices were those judging women’s bodies and brains according to traditionally androcentric and heteronormative values. Consequently, in this boundary and identity policing, women faced significant double binds, and the discourse exemplified a critical boomerang in which a critique by a woman circled back to become a scrutiny of women by men.
Tocci, Jason. “Geek cultures: Media and identity in the digital age.” (2009).
This study explores the cultural and technological developments behind the transition of labels like ‘geek’ and ‘nerd’ from schoolyard insults to sincere terms identity. Though such terms maintain negative connotations to some extent, recent years have seen a growing understanding that “geek is chic” as computers become essential to daily life and business, retailers hawk nerd apparel, and Hollywood makes billions on sci-fi, hobbits, and superheroes. Geek Cultures identifies the experiences, concepts, and symbols around which people construct this personal and collective identity.
Busse, Kristina. “Geek hierarchies, boundary policing, and the gendering of the good fan.” Participations 10.1 (2013): 73-91.
Even though mainstream cultural constructions of geeks (and, through it, fans) have been changing recently, they remain heavily gendered. I describe how fans internalize these concepts, and how gender and gendering of fannish activities continues to affect inter- and intra-fannish policing. What underlies much of this border policing is a clear sense of protecting one’s own sense of fan community and ascribing positive values to it while trying to exclude others. Fans replicate negative outsider notions of what constitutes fannishness, often using similar feminizing concepts. Accusations of being too attached, too obsessed, and too invested get thrown around readily, and all too often such affect is criticized for being too girly or like a teen. Particularly interesting here is the gender bias that not so subtly pervades much cultural conversation surrounding fan discourses and that is more often than not predicated on unruly sexualities and queer bodies, both of which get policed within and without fan spaces.
*Bolling, Ben, and Matthew J. Smith, eds. It Happens at Comic-Con: Ethnographic Essays on a Pop Culture Phenomenon. McFarland, 2014.
Kahler, Eric. “” Tell Me, Where am I From?”: A Study of the Performance of Geek Identity at Comic Book Conventions.” (2015)
The performance of identity is an often studied subject matter. One identity, Geek, and the larger subculture to which it is attached (Geek culture) has become a growing field of study in since the turn of the millennium, mirroring the growth of the subculture itself. The question then is how do Geek’s perform this identity and create an idea of what a Geek is? If there is a place to examine this performance then it is the growing event of comic book conventions. At these events thousands of individuals gather to celebrate, interact with, purchase and play with the commodities of Geek; comic books, video games, anime, manga and film. In this space, as I will discuss, the spectrum of performance as outline by Richard Schechner in Performance Theory occurs in simultaneous forms inside the convention. While there is ritual, there is also play, and theater, and all three may be occurring at any one time through any one individual. This is partially brought on by the presence of cosplayers, convention attendees who dress up as fictional characters, and perform a separate role that also speaks to their own identity. Furthermore, the presence of what Victor Turner terms social dramas in the space of the panel discussion complicate and re-form not only individual identities, but also Geek culture identity as well.
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