Sailing Ships in Murky Waters: Boundary Making through Contentious Fan Practices on Tumblr

• In Event: 545 - Section on Sociology of Culture Roundtable Session.
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 07. Symbolic Boundaries

Abstract

Although there is an ever-growing body of literature on fandom, there are few that call into question the assumed homogeneity of these collectives and as a result, contention and boundary making within fandom are relatively unexamined. Fandom has become a rather empty and non-descript classification incapable of encompassing the nuanced communities of fans and their practices that reveal a much-needed conceptual re-framing of fandom and fan practices in the scholarship. This paper will focus on the internal discursive struggles that occur within fandom due to the establishment and creation of symbolic boundaries that dictate fan identity and activity in ways that redefine and factionalize fandoms into heterogeneous groups, such as "ships". Belonging to and defending a "ship" compels fans to scrutinize what it means to be a part of a fandom and what it means to be a "normal fan," as seen in the case of the Once Upon a Time fandom. The discursive interactions of the members of this fandom on Tumblr are analyzed to display how fans regulate and define the boundaries of fandom through their shipping practices. Information gleaned from this research should be employed to contribute to the discourse on the nuanced and, at times, contentious realities of fan social practices that shape their understanding of how fans and fandoms should act as primarily virtual imagined communities. The critical analysis of these struggles shows that fandoms are organizationally, culturally and socially complex communities that deserve further sociological investigation.

Author

• Victoria Marie Gonzalez, State University of New Jersey-Rutgers