Fanatical Fan Forum!

Here's a little story about how I came to choose an online community: When I was in grade 10, my best friend and I had a massive obsession with Dawson's Creek and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Ok well I still have an obsession with Buffy but continuing on: we could never stop talking - even when we got home from school. The internet was our way of talking to each other all afternoon and all evening before school the next day (we both got banned from the phone pretty quickly). My friend stumbled upon this website called FanForum where we eventually became addicted members to this online community. FanForum was extremely diverse, covering topics like movies, celebrities, tv shows, games, news, fanfiction, fanart etc etc and we both spent our afternoons chatting through this online community (instead of doing homework) with other friends we had made there.

So KCB201 is how I come to be re-acquanted with FanForum. I like how there are so many diverse threads and topics with which to argue/chat with other people about. It's typical fandom, and is for the most obsessive of obsessed fans of who are not strangers to cultural products like fan art, fan fiction and role playing.

FanForum is a pure example of how fans use privatized cultural materials: by treating popular film and TV segments as raw materials with which to create their own personal products. View this fanart thread or even this one. Notice how GOOD they are with photo editing?!?! Anyone can that there is a lot of time and effort in creating those pieces.

Fans refuse to acknowledge any control on intellectual property. This is a fan fiction website about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As Jenkins (2004, p.7) states, “Fan fiction helps to broaden the potential interest in a series by pulling its content toward fantasies that are unlikely to gain widespread distribution.” FanForum shows how fans increase the cultural value of a film or series – keeping the interest/obsession alive. Jenkins (2004, p.7) highlighted that media conglomerates respond to participatory culture by shutting down fan sites. But I think if media conglomerates were more vigilant towards the distribution of fan art/fiction, inside or outside forums, they would realise how much fans do in advertising the film/series. They then may not be so quick to shut them down!

I can’t do fan art, and didn’t really want to try fan fiction just yet. So the first thing I did was go to the News and Politics thread where I straight away got into a debate about Gay Marriage Rights. I try not to stir up too much trouble ... but considering I support Gay Marriage, it gave me the opportunity to have a rant at the people that challenged my opinions! Ahhh I love a good debate ...