By Amalia Theocharidou,
Most of you may be familiar with the terms and situations I am about to describe. Reading a fanfiction on Wattpad, staying up all night to watch a new music video, hoping for barricade tickets. These elements consist of the widely known and loved fan culture. But what does being a fan mean? What is this new culture that has been an indispensible part of our lives?
We all love something. Without a doubt and no matter what it is: a celebrity, a series, a book, a sports team, a movie. We all develop connections with something like that and we choose to share this love with others, like us, the so-called “fandom”. With that being said, it is easy to define what fan culture is. It is to share a common interest with others and to act upon it. Actually, despite what many believe, fandoms were first observed during the 1900s, when people mourned in public about the death of the fictional Sherlock Holmes, and started creating other stories (the known fanfiction), with an altered ending. Without a doubt, the Internet gave another kind of push to these communities, allowing people from all over the world to connect with each other and share ideas upon matters.
Nowadays, being a fan is mostly associated with liking a music artist, as well as to have a specific attitude. Fans are portrayed as obsessive and immature, building a stereotypical image around the term. But how truthful is this? Belonging in a fandom is a synonym to, as we said before, connections. It embraces the part of belonging somewhere, sharing common interests, shaping friendships and developing solidarity. But apart from all the mental aspects, the fandoms boost the economy as well. The priviledged position they hold allows new career openings, concerning people who must be in touch with the fans’ community, track down their expectations and organize the content accordingly. “Fan influencers” are also a thing. They’re fans who have stood out for their work and have been taking an active part in the marketing domain. An example is Anna Todd, the creator of “After“, a Wattpad fanfiction for Harry Styles, which gained so much popularity that was published and became a movie series. Moreover, fan culture sometimes guide an entire country’s economic growth. That was the deal for South Korea and BTS, whose two days concert resulted in a $424.2 million income for the country and for the UK, in which it was estimated, in 2016, that the economy gained £4 billion from Harry Potter merchandise and Harry Potter tourism.
Fandoms have even reached the university classrooms, starting with the case of the University of the Philippines, where a professor turned the known K-dramas into an academic course. “I got curious why so many people are hooked on watching K-drama for years and I’d like to know why people keep on watching them. So during the lockdown, I tried watching one program followed by another until I saw a pattern among the series that I’ve seen“, she claimed. The Analysis of K-drama Series has reached to 300 subscribed students, with the majority being people who have a keen interest in these dramas.
Fan culture has been underestimated for a long time now, resulting to misconceptions about it. But as our times have proved, fans have evolved in more than just admirers to educational and economic modulators.
References
- Harry Potter and the drivers of trust. British Council. Available here
- BTS’ recent home concerts created economic effect worth nearly 500 bln won: report. Yonhap News. Available here
- Unveiling the Power of Fandom Culture. Yellow Brick. Available here
- Fan Culture: Social and Cultural Transformations during the Digital Era. Medium. Available here
- Analyzing fandoms: The pros and cons of fan culture. The Beacon. Available here
- Why UP professor turned K-drama curiosity into a course. ABS CBN. Available here
