This One’s for the Fans: Understanding Fandom as a Cultural Force
by Robert Steiner
The weekend of March 19th, 2021 was the premiere of The Faithful, an unprecedented direct-to-fans release 20 years, 200 mini-dv tapes, 1,000 still photographs, one Kickstarter campaign, and a small but mighty following in the making. Hosted on the film’s website on a brand new platform with the help of Coil for monetization, with a sneak preview the day before for Cinnamon.video and Coil subscribers, audience members experienced something as close to the moviegoing experience as possible in this age of COVID-19.
From the virtual lobby to the screening “room” to the live discussion with director Annie Berman, it was a warm, cathartic experience for the many people who helped make this film possible; a similar feeling to the very anniversary gatherings she filmed. The audience included people who witnessed the film unfold in real-time — family, friends, backers — sitting alongside new fans who read about the film in The Boston Globe or saw posts about the documentary on Facebook or Twitter.
Even with the virtual element, the screenings preserved the feeling of community, of fandom, that was an instrumental theme in both the film itself and in its making. Over 500 households tuned in, an estimated 1000 viewers from all over the world — including England, Ireland, Australia, Portugal, Japan, Israel, Italy, France, and Argentina. Subjects featured in the film, like Terry Hutt, who Berman met at the gates of Kensington Palace each Diana anniversary, Outsider folk artist Kata Billups, documentary photographer Ralph Burns, and Princess Diana fan and poet Maria Lindberg tuned in to see the film for the very first time, together, and join the conversation afterward. The post-show Q&A was moderated by Christopher Allen, founder and creative director of UnionDocs, the microcinema in Brooklyn where the collaboration between Berman and editor André Valentim Almeida first sparked.
Throughout this blog, we’ve covered various topics that in some way or another led back to the idea of fandom. First, there was the exploration of ownership over image and legacy — physically, legally, culturally, etc. Next, there was Matt Mankin’s breakdown of the film’s vision of digital distribution and monetization for indie films that go straight to the fans, with no industry middlemen required. Most recently, there was a dissection on copyright and fair use, and its impact on fan accessibility and the ability for a celebrity’s legacy to grow and evolve in the public cultural sphere. This time, in honor of The Faithful’s success as an independent film about grassroots communities, let’s discuss fandom itself, and how people sharing their passions with each other is the cornerstone for fan culture, celebrity, image, history — and yes, this film.
Conventional understanding charts the development of “the fan” in tandem with the history of modern media, when radio, vinyl, film, and television gave celebrities the chance to reach the worldwide masses faster than print, performance, or word-of-mouth could ever achieve. The first movie stars of the silent film era, the post-war TV sci-fi boom, the “manias” over teen idols of the early 20th century (Sinatra, Elvis, the Beatles), the rock star of the 70s and 80s, and the online “stan” culture of today are some of the usual milestones. But this definition is more narrow than it may initially seem; in other words, it’s important to remember that the act of being a fan goes back well beyond the word “fan.” In his writing on the subject, Daniel Cavicchi traces one of the word’s potential origins to early 1800s England, when regular attendees of sporting or entertainment events were known as “the fancy.” He also stresses, “We need to think carefully about how this conception of fandom implicitly limits our ability to think about it historically.”
The current conception of “fandom” has become a bit complicated in recent years, straying far from its historical past. “Fandom” is now mostly applied to the most fervent online followers of a certain topic to the point of obsessive or, at worst, toxic behavior towards non-fans, casual fans, or even the very people to whom they pledge allegiance. While yes, there are obviously plenty of primarily online fandoms that are solid communities that do a lot of good (the Harry Potter Alliance and Nerdfighteria), there are also examples of fans who bully and harass others online and in real life, public figures mobilizing followers to attack people with opposing views, or even instances of doxing and death threats.
To better understand fan culture separate from technology and media — to break it down to its most fundamental form — watching The Faithful is a good place to start. The film features years’ worth of gatherings, celebrations, memorials, and anniversaries. Viewers watch as strangers all over the world come together for the specific reason of expressing their love for a public figure. It’s not like they expected to meet the person; maybe those at the Vatican would see the Pope emerge from his balcony, but Elvis and Diana were long past by the time filming started. These experiences were elevated and powerful because people came together and reveled in their mutual passions. Being at Graceland together was what made Graceland worth visiting as much as the fact that the King lived there. Every person in the film who had massive memorabilia collections was more than ready to open their doors to visitors and give tours. While the Internet might make fan culture look like individuals furiously defending their own love for something and attacking others who see differently, the fans of The Faithful show that true fandom isn’t to exclude or to act crazy, but to participate and to feel validated.
Professor Henry Jenkins has written extensively on popular media, and he describes fandom, viewed separately from the context of technology and pop culture, as ultimately a culture of participation. Jenkins argues that where there’s history and culture, there are people building communities and creating something together, whether that be independent zines from the dawn of the printing press, the 1960s alternative press, underground radio, the rise of indie films, or people recording videos for YouTube or TikTok. “We throw ideas out into the world [and] we bring them back in an improved way because of our engagement with communities,” he said during a 2010 Ted Talk, stressing that participation is the key for any kind of community or group to grow and thrive. Not every member has to be an active participant, but they should feel like they are able to participate if they so choose.
This laissez-faire approach to fandom is not one held by most IP or franchise owners (as discussed in the post on fair use and the regulatory context of creator culture), and the current state of the US copyright system, despite its best intentions, creates barriers to entry that would prevent true participatory culture. As the film shows, the connection between fandom and consumerism is a tenuous one at best, and one that impedes in having most fan communities be truly participatory. Erika Doss, professor of American studies, has written extensively on the subject of Elvis as a cultural force, she spoke with Berman during her research on the ongoing tension between Elvis Presley Enterprises [EPE] and Elvis fans. “[EPE] have bought into the line of trying to control his image, which they do, as well as his name and his signature and his voice. And by controlling it, they can have access to all future income revenues. They’re right, but they’re wrong, because once you restrict and limit an image, you also restrict and limit impulses and possibilities that image might create for future fan bases.”
Still, there are alternatives to create what Jenkins describes as convergence culture: “The meeting point between a transmedia commercial culture and a grassroots participatory culture.” Think Comic-Con, SXSW, or Sundance: events sponsored by corporate heavyweights in hopes of spotlighting (and in the process, profiling and commodifying) current trends in underground culture. But even these are imperfect systems, as being “indie” today still means working with larger, well-connected distributors and production companies, finding funds for licensing fees, getting screenings at the right tastemaker events, and maybe turning a profit at the end of your run.
Luckily, there are groups and companies figuring out how to create a better fan experience in line with Jenkins’ vision of convergence. Creative Commons is dedicated to facilitating the legal reuse of creative works by creating a licensing form that’s focused on transformation by the public while also offering creators intellectual security. Grant for the Web, a major backer of The Faithful, also advocates for fair practice standards online that allow grassroots creators to create, share, and monetize their work without fear of legal takedowns. Coil is a subscription service to online communities and platforms with the goal of rewarding creators with ad-free, direct-from-consumer monetization. Cinnamon is a video and streaming service that picks up where pre-corporate YouTube left off by implementing a user-friendly platform while directly paying its creators. The Faithful used all of these services to premiere in a way that felt true to the participatory spirit of fandom: a gathering with no barriers or middlemen, where fans can interact directly with the creators and the creators can directly benefit from the fans.
Scholarly Article Citations
Cavicchi, Daniel. “Fandom Before ‘Fan’: Shaping the History of Enthusiastic Audiences.” Reception: Texts, Readers, Audiences, History, vol. 6, 2014, pp. 52–72. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/reception.6.1.0052.
Henry Jenkins. “Superpowered Fans: The Many Worlds of San Diego’s Comic-Con.” Boom: A Journal of California, vol. 2, no. 2, 2012, pp. 22–36. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/boom.2012.2.2.22.
