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“Duking it Out”: Tumblr’s Fandometrics and the Implications of Ranking Online Communities

Sun, May 27, 9:30 to 10:45, Hilton Old Town, Floor: M, Chopin

Abstract

In 2015, Tumblr launched Fandometrics, a metrics project that posts weekly fandom rankings for TV shows, movies, music, video games, “ships,” and more. Tumblr describes the rankings as representing “each fandom’s influence across Tumblr.” This influence is determined with a measurement that doesn’t account for sentiment and yet provides prominence and voice to the “loudest” fandoms. One observer predicted Fandometrics would result in fandoms that “duke it out for first place...” We conducted interviews with key fandom metrics experts and analysis of online content and trade and popular press. We argue Fandometrics encourages social jostling by online communities for relevance within fandom and wider culture. By equating the strength of communities with their status as influencer groups or markets, the platform ushers communities toward subjectivities that value quantitative rankings as germane to inter-community relationships. This phenomenon reflects larger anxieties about value, relevance, and power in increasingly metrified online spaces.

Elena Maris is a PhD Candidate at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a former intern with the Social Media Collective at Microsoft Research. Her research examines the ways media industries and audiences work to influence one another, with a focus on technological strategies and the roles of gender and sexuality. She is currently researching the increasing use of metrics and analytics to measure fandom.

Nancy Baym, PhD is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research who studies fan communities and the relationships between artists and audiences.

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