8/3/2019 Social interactions on LiveJournal : fandom interactivity

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Social Interactions on LiveJournal: Fandom Interactivity

by Rachel Chan Suet Kay

It is given that on the internet, interactions be twee n peo ple previously unknown to e ach other in the physical

world are de-personalised due to the inability of ensuring a face to face meeting at e very point of interaction.

Also due to the proliferation o f identity crea tion through the mass a vailability of representative symbols, the

image and the rea lity of the social actor may greatly vary from one another.

We can centre on the study of fandom communities on the internet and how their interactions mimic or detract

from real life. For ana lysis, I have focused on a spe cific number of fandom-based communities hos ted o n a

popular networking tool, LiveJournal.

LiveJournal allows for blogging as w ell as connecting one's blog to another through a netwo rk function, which

further acts as what is termed by LiveJournal as a "community". Members of similar interest, which can be listed

and aggregate d by the LiveJournal algorithm, can the n meet a nd interact by crossposting comments on one

ano ther's persona l blogs. Members o f a specific "community" can then also create a mirror "journal" linked to

their "community" journal (which functions as a newsgroup no ticeboard) featuring new ly updated member

journals. Thus the interactivity of blogging is intensified - forming a simulacrum of a little "global village", as the

LiveJournal tool is accessible to most parts of the world.

These few communities of fandom we re chosen be cause they are easy to analyse - that is, the cultural

references within the fandoms specified are easily accessible to the public due to its ubiquity in pop culture. They

are respectively two fandoms centering around two literary icons, and one more on a historical figure which has

bee n immortalised o n film.

Activities o f these fandoms large ly include fanfiction w riting, fanart, and making fan videos , now tha t YouTube has

become a ho use hold too l. Fanfiction is e sse ntially a form of fiction involving favourite characters in any given

literary or real universe, in situations created by the authors. Similarly, fanart is the visual companion to it. Fan

videos may be made e ither using thes e fana rt images , or clips from the pa rticular movie that is then edited

toge ther using electronic tools such as W indows Movie Maker.

In fandom, as in real life, there are those w ho a re active p articipants in a community as well as those who areless active. There are also those who are demanding of high standards in production of knowledge , and those

who are not. Hence in fandom, one can easily spot interactions centering around the criticism of peer writing,

such a s w hat is termed "bad fiction" or "bad fic" which are ba sically fanfiction written in a slipshod manner or

those which do not meet specified criteria, just as in the world of publishing. There may then be communities

within a similar fandom which houses the said badfic created solely towards deconstructing (or rather tearing to

shreds) the "badfic" found in the fandom.

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8/3/2019 Social interactions on LiveJournal : fandom interactivity

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What is of particular interest in this article is the manner in which actors go all out to locate, and then on to tear

apart (and quite often too, make fun of) the pieces which they term "badfic" seemingly without regard to the

response of the author. Perhaps it is an established culture; UseNet g roups in the e arly days of the Internet in

the 80s w ere se t up to discuss the pros and cons of other Internet applications, which would have resulted in

similar interactions. Perhaps also it is the fact that the interactions of the actors are limited in the sense that

they do not spe ak face-to-face; therefore they do not relate to each other using facial expressions a nd the

display of emotions as one would do in the physical world. Thereby emotional responses might be hard to

gauge , and it is much eas ier to ignore these. Once the trend has become widespread, people grow accustomed

to overlooking this factor in communication.

This echoes a recently published research on emailing and its revolutionising of communication which talks abouthow an email may make or brea k relationships as we ll as you r career. A bad ly thought out email, once sent out

can do negative wonders for one's s ocial circle. A badly worded e mail can damage a pe rson's feelings; despite

the sender completely overlooking the effects of the choice of words. Conversely, in conversation face-to-face,

one can a lways know whe n to stop talking when one's listener be gins to show signs of discomfiture. As e mail is

so easy and quick to release, coupled w ith the fact that it costs virtually nothing, the protocols normally rese rved

for a well-composed letter sent by air may be omitted by the need for speed. After all, it's nearly a matter of

pressing "Delete".

The author's response s to postings on the aforementioned de construction range from completely ignoring them

to que stioning the criticism, which is relatively rare. Howe ver, one can safely say that the d econs tructors are

usually highly educated, with significant cultural capital, as evidenced through their writing skills and method of

ana lysis. The decons tructors may also have their own pe rsona l blogs /journals, wh ich provides an insight into

their own w riting, which are usua lly of greate r literary promise than tho se being criticised . It is remarkable that

such promising talen ts themse lves spend conside rable time, even s tarting up a community journal, literarily

deconstructing pieces much inferior to theirs.

Rachel Chan Suet Kay is a Sociology graduate of the University of London.

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