May the 4th

May the 4th to all Star Wars fans is Star Wars Day, an unofficial holiday created by fans to show their love for the franchise. The date is a pun on the well known phrase "May the force be with you" and was originally used when Margret Thatcher took to office. Star Wars Day was first celebrated at the Toronto Underground Cinema in Canada where it put on a costume contest and film festival. Since then, thanks to the internet, it has gained widespread appeal which sees hundreds of fans from across the globe come together and celebrate everything Star Wars related.



Here are a couple of videos to show you some of the celebrations for May the 4th:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5GkH_7p6hQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spMYHuyL3_E

Fan Art

Here's a few pieces of fan art that crosses over into different genres or influenced by other popular cultures:

Jediism

Probably the strongest argument to show just how big a phenomenon Star Wars is and how big a fan base it has is by the fact it has it's very own religion. Jediism is currently the 7th biggest religion in the UK. In the book Whose Film Is It, Anyway? Canonicity and Authority in Star Wars Fandom by John C. Lyden he talks about how strong a fandom Star Wars has and goes on to talk about the creation of a religion:

"If there is any popular culture phenomenon that can be referred to as "religion," it would be the fandom associated with the Star Wars films. In the 2001 census in many English-speaking countries a number of people identified their religion as "Jediism" including 70,000 in Australia, 21,000 in Canada, 53,000 in New Zealand and 390,127 in England and Wales ("Jedi Census" 2012). This may well have been a joke (Emery 2001), but it is also clear that at least some of those who support this movement take it seriously, such as the online Jedi Church ("Jedi Church" 2012). More significant, perhaps, is the number of fan activities related to Star Wars which might express some of the "markers" of a religion, such as communal identity, a system of beliefs and values, myths and ritual practices."

Lyden, John C. Journal of the American Academy of Religion. Sep2012, Vol. 80 Issue 3, p775-786

 Here is some further reading on Jediism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_census_phenomenon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jediism

Star Wars Fandom

I found this article about Star Wars fandom where it gives an interesting point about what a Star Wars fan actually is and it turns out that we hate Star Wars. This seems a bit odd since the whole point of being a fan in the first place is to say "I love this and I'm proud of it". Not to say Sat Wars fans aren't "proper" fans, quite the opposite, but more that they are so passionate about something they love that when something happens that doesn't sit well with them there's going to be uproar about it. For example, the "Han Shot First" fiasco, Mitichlorians, or even the whole of the prequels. The article ends with a very fitting conclusion:

"Maybe I'll put it like this. To be a Star Wars fan, one must possess the ability to see a million different failures and downfalls, and then somehow assemble them into a greater picture of perfection. Every true Star Wars fan is a Luke Skywalker, looking at his twisted, evil father, and somehow seeing good."

http://mentalfloss.com/article/16899/secret-star-wars-fandom

Also found this fun piece of info-graphics about fandoms in numbers:

After Subculture: The Basics

Subcultures: The Basics by Ross Haenfler

Ross Haenfler (2013). Subcultures: The Basics. New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.

After Subculture: Critical Studies in Contemporary Youth Culture by Andy Bennett and Keith Kahn-Harris

Andy Bennett and Keith Kahn-Harris (2004). After Subculture: Critical Studies in Contemporary Youth Culture. London: Palgrave Macmillan Limited.

Subcultures: The Basics by Ross Haenfler was interesting read that gave a great understanding for what a subculture is, listing key aspects you that define a subculture such as:

• Specialized vocabulary: many subcultures have a distinctive shared vernacular of idioms and symbols that demonstrate belonging and insider knowledge, marking those "in the know" outsiders. For example, graffiti writers commonly talk about crews, bombing, tags, throw-ups, to get up, burn and wildstyle.
• Style and music: many, but not all, subcultures feature connections to particular music styles and fashions. Both serve as vehicles of self-expression and collective opposition.
• Subcultural history or lore: most subcultures have a sense of their history (in fact, knowing about a subculture's "roots" can be a way of performing and judging authenticity). Certain events become legendary - the bank holiday riots in the UK, the Woodstock and Altamont rock concerts in the US, the first Waken Open Air metal festival in Germany. Subcultural history, like history in general, is often written around people of significance - heroes, innovators, and pioneers. The body modification and "modern primitive" scenes honor Fakir Musafar as an early inspiration, while "Sailor Jerry" Collins, a prominent tattoo artist in Hawaii until his death in 1973, remains a legend in the tattoo world.
• Social support system: due to their deviant identities and practices, many subcultures serve as social support systems, refuges or "homes" where like minded people feel accepted. Subculturists may even become chosen families, forming significant, long-term bonds.

'Brony Census'

http://herdcensus.com/2014%20STATE%20OF%20THE%20HERD%20REPORT.pdf

The above link contains a pdf of a in depth report on the statistics of the Brony community, collected via a survey likened to the national census.

Aswell as being a useful source of statistics I think this serves as an example as the commitment individuals are prepared to put into a Fandom. Investing large amounts of time into things that may seem trivial to others, in this case a subculture derived from a children's cartoon.

fans shocked

JK Rowling, the author of the super-successful "Harry Potter" books, has caused outrage amongst fans with her latest statement that Hermione Granger's ideal partner was Harry, not Ronald Weasley. Rowling, in an interview to Wonderland Magazine, has herself questioned the credibility of the Hermoine-Ron pairing. She said the move was done merely as a "wish fulfillment". She claimed that Hermione should have married the boy wizard, instead of Ron. "I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfillment. That's how it was conceived, really," Rowling said, according to excerpts of the interview published by The Sunday Times. "For reasons that have very little to do with literature and far more to do with me clinging to the plot as I first imagined it, Hermione ended up with Ron." "I know, I'm sorry. I can hear the rage and fury it might cause some fans, but if I'm absolutely honest, distance has given me perspective on that. It was a choice I made for very personal reasons, not for reasons of credibility. Am I breaking people's hearts by saying this? I hope not," she added. The interview was taken by Emma Watson, who played the character of Hermione in the "Harry Potter" films. The 23-year-old actress also shared Rowling's views. "I think there are fans out there who know that too and who wonder whether Ron would have really been able to make her happy," Watson stressed. Meanwhile, Rowling went on to add that she felt that Hermione and Ron's relationship would require 'marriage counseling', thus disheartening several fans of the pair in the fiction series. Muggle Net, the "Harry Potter" series' topmost fan site appeared shocked with the comment. Harry/Hermione WHAT? http://t.co/dhkuSnQrT9 — MuggleNet.com (@MuggleNet) February 2, 2014 Most fans opposed Rowling's statements, opining that Ron and Hermione are the perfect couple, as the characters completed each other. However, a section of the fans agreed with Rowling's view that considering Harry's par excellence attributes, Hermione would be have been the apt choice as his partner, not Ginny Weasely. In the epilogue of the seventh book of the series "Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows", Harry is seen settled down with Ron's younger sister Ginny, with the couple having three children. Whereas, Ron and Hermione are shown as a couple. (The quotes of the stories have been taken from the Twitter preview of The Sunday Times article)

addiction

The term addiction involves aspects of salience, withdrawal, and conflict or interference with everyday functioning. The present series of studies examined whether high levels of engagement with the Harry Potter (HP) phenomenon could qualify as an addiction. Through use of three surveys posted online, we established that a sizeable portion (though not a majority) of self-described HP fans demonstrated craving for the release of the final book in the series, and experienced some withdrawal symptoms upon finishing the book. HP fandom also produced a disruptive influence on day to day functioning of some fans in a 6 month follow-up. In sum, we found parallels between criteria used to diagnose traditional forms of addiction or dependence and some people's attachment to a phenomenon in popular culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] RUDSKI, JEFFREY MICHAEL SEGAL, CARLI KALLEN, ELI Jun2009, Vol. 17 Issue 3, p260-277. 18p. 6 Charts, 1 Graph.

Fandom as Pathology

'Fandom as Pathology: The Consequences of Characterisation' Joli Jenson.

Taken from 'The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media'. 

Minecraft Mods

Minecraft has become such a big thing that to add more excitement to the game play and to add more fun to the game mods have been added into the game through downloadable content. the two mods that i can made off the top of my head that i assume everyone will be kinda of familiar with are Pokemon, or Pixelmon know to players of Minecraft, and my little pony, or Mine Little Pony.

Pixelmon, the Minecraft Mod where Pokemon is put into the game and you can catch and train Pokemon. the crafting aspect of the game has been added by allowing the player to mine for items to create the pokeballs and other items such as the Pokemon computer and healing station. I play this Mod and find that i play this version of minecraft more than the original version. 

Mine Little Pony, the Minecraft Mod that allows your in game character to become a little pony, and depending on which pony you choose to be depends on the size of your character and weather or not you can fly in the game. I have been told there are some added items to the game but I am unsure of this as I do not play the Mine Little Pony mod. 

Mincraft fandom in-game pixel art

People also use Minecraft to show of their building skills and their love for other games and shows by building pixel art models in the game and posting them on servers or online.

 Here are two I have done my self to show my love for the games Spyro the dragon and the pokemon games. 

artical

The gold vs Butter/budder argument

A youtuber called skydoesminecrt start a trend a few years back when he decided to call the gold ingot in Minecraft "butter". Since then his fans have been commenting on his videos and other youtubers videos giving out abuse to other fans about how it should always be called butter and not gold.

Here are a few I have managed to find, but a few nasty comments have been deleted from the youtubers comments due to a statement he posted on his channel about a year ago saying how he would like his fans to stop abusing other fans.

youtube video, how harry potter should have ended.

fan made animation video about changing the ending to harry potter, although this is a joke video and not serious, the amount of views this video has shows that people what to know other peoples opinions on the ending and sharing their responses and opinions in the comments. this also goes hand in hand with fan art.

Minecraft Fan Tattoos

People go as far as to get a tattoo of Minecraft stuff, I might get one done too. 

'How to be a Belieber'

Available at: http://www.wikihow.com/Be-a-Justin-Bieber-Fan, Last accessed:5/5/14.

Although from a source of 'WikiHow' this is a primary piece of evidence revealing how the mind of a 'Belieber' works. This shows you the apparent ways in which you can become one of them. This massively reveals that this fandom is based around a younger audience due to its immature theme and requirements. The general overview from what I have found so far is that this fandom is mainly young teenage girls with access to social media, especially twitter.

pottermore

Clue's in the name, when the harry potter books ended the fans where left crying out for more, so potter more was introduced to the fans to give them something back for their dedication. in this website you sign up and you are sorted, like in the films, into your own houses, this gives the fans a taste of what it would be like to be in harry potter world and allows them to connect with other friends who also share the same love.

harry potter fandoms

one of the biggest fandoms for our generation is harry potter, a loved and well known book turned into films had a massive following. the appeal of a secret magic society in our modern life left billions of harry potter fans. in this photo there are a couple of harry potter fans dressing up in dedication to their heroes of the book and feeling apart of the world.

printed article on minecraft

a printed article from the magazine "Edge" on the minecraft fans feedback, what the game is and how it has developed with the help of the creator and the fans.

MINECON 2013 Costume Contest

This video was from the Minecon convention in 2013, that I wish I attended, for a minecraft costume contests. some of these fans go crazy with there costumes restricting their movement, vision and putting so much time and money into making them.

Official Minecon trailer

Minecon is an annual minecraft convention held by Mojang. The first one was held in 2010 in Washington State. The 2011 one was on November 18, 2011 in Las Vegas and celebrated the release of minecraft 1.0. MineCon 2012 was held in Disneyland Paris from November 24 - 25th. MineCon 2013 was held in Orlando, Florida from November 2–3.

Minecraft fan art

 these images are pictures that minecraft fans ahve made and posted.

anf here is my version of fan art, a drawing I did a few month back of my minecraft skin. 

The Brony Song (This Day Aria Rewritten)

A fan made video in which the lyrics of a song from 'My Little Pony' are changed to illustrate how 'it's not easy to be a brony'. The main purpose of the video seems to aim to ridicule negative views of the fandom although notably sidesteps many of the darker issues.



It seems to follow the same bias mentality typical of many fandoms, in which non-fans must either not have given the thing a chance in the first place, or are simply ignorant to why the thing should be appreciated. Stating 'Our shows the very best you'll ever see' and 'Join the herd, watch MLP'.

Duffet M, (2013), 'Introduction: Directions in Music Fan Research: Undiscovered Territories and Hard Problems. Popular Music and Sociaty, Vol.36 No.3 299-304.

Here it is discussed how tight knit and picky 'Beleibers' are. A girl that was openly not a 'beleiber' showed appreciation towards his work, Justin retweeted this compliment for the girl to be met by anger and threats off 'Beleibers'. This again emphasises what I discussed in my last post about negative press about said fandoms, creating a bad name for the whole idea. But as discussed in this article, it is only a tiny minority of the fandom which acts outrageously and creates a bad name for the rest of the fans.  This behaviour may be seen as an outcry for attention off given artist, if they act as crazy and outrageously as possible he may acknowledge them giving them exactly what they want. This is a very unlikely thing to happen due to the fact that the artist will probably have management and people telling him not to do this as it is almost condoning the awful behaviour, giving them what they want. This again backs up my discussion about how 'Beleibers' are mainly a social media based fandom. It is very unlikely that these threats will be carried out as discussed in above article, contrasting sports fans who often clash in person to 'Beleibers' who come across as a more web based collective.

Tyler Oakley on Fandoms.

Oakley T, (2014), Fandoms, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6lH_r4AsT4,(Accessed: 3/5/14)

This is a video from the Youtube Vlogger Tyler Oakley discussing his own group of fans and referring to them as a fandom. He discusses how referring to his own group of fans can cause misinterpretations due to the negative image which seems to have developed around fandoms over the past couple of years. Well known fandoms are publicised and are well known for their wrong doing and crazy reactions over the simple fact that they are a group of people with a similar interest allowing their given idol/idols to do what they do. It seems that today people are starting to fear to associate with the idea of a fandom due to its negative connotations. These negative connotations are mainly down to bad press and viral images across social media, so in reality, the thing which allows fandoms to grow is also their downfall.

The Internet is Magic:Exploring the Wonderful World of 'My Little Pony' Fandom in Bronies.

An interesting excerpt from an online article about the origination and activities of 'Bronies', adult fans of the cartoon 'My Little Pony:Friendship is Magic'.

The excerpt addresses the power of the internet to bring together fans and like minded people on mass, to form fandoms that could of previously been too niche to exist, or simply would not be discussed in reality.

The Full article can be found here.

A Brony Tale Trailer

A trailer for a film exploring the 'Brony' phenomenon. A fandom that consists largely of adult males who enjoy the latest reboot of the 'My Little Pony' franchise 'My Little Pony: friendship is magic'. The Film is made from the perspective of one of the shows voice actors and takes a look at fan activities such as conventions and meetups aswell as interviewing individual members of the fandom.



I think the film aims to dispel some of the stigma that is un-doubfully associated with adult men showing interest in something intended for little girls

'The Industrial Identity Crisis'

Taken from 'The Industrial Identity Crisis' David A . Locher. Featured in 'Youth Culture:Identity in a postmodern world' 

The essay discusses the factors necessary for a subculture to successfully form and includes a case study of a potential subculture that 'failed to identify itself' and therefore failed to establish. I was drawn to this particular excerpt as it addresses the elitism of certain subcultures, using music fandoms as an example. The need for someone to construct an entire personality, including dress-sense, likes and dislikes in order to fit into a clique.

'Fan creativity and it's dissemination in the internet era.'

Taken from 'Copyright Law, Fan Practices, and the Rights of the Author'- Rebecca  Tushnnet
Featured in 'Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World'

The essay discusses the legality and possible damages that could be posed by fan generated content, such as music, youtube videos or fan-fictions. This particular excerpt discusses just how saturated the internet is with such content, and the risk of characters associated with a much more innocent fan base being portrayed explicitly (either sexually or violently).

Plante C. N, Roberts S E, Reyson S, Gerbasi K C, (2013), '"One of us":Engagement with Fandoms and global citizenship identification.', Phycology of Popular Media Culture, Vol.3 (No.1 49-64), Page 50.

This article looks at how a persons values can link with what fandom grouping they choose to incorporate themselves in. This suggests that fandoms link people with more than just a liking of a band, game, film but links people with similar personalities and traits/ beliefs. Different fandoms have different beliefs, motto's, views and ways in which they behave which distinguish the fandom, this is built slowly by all the different personalities of the fans leaking together.

Journal article - Secret Identities

This is an article I found in the journal 'CineAction: Documentary and Superheroes'. It covers the documentary 'Confessions of a Superhero' and the individual in this documentary who dresses as Superman on the streets of Hollywood; Christopher Dennis. It makes for an interesting read as it delves into the psyche of the particular individual and his fanaticism of Superman.

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Yockey, M (2009) 'Secret Identities: The superhero simulacrum and the nation', CineAction: Documentary and Superheroes, 77, pp.34-41