So I've been reading Tina's posts about Super Junior (or Suju as she likes to call them) and I have to say I find it fascinating. The whole phenomen created by one group of pop singers is amazing. The reactions of the fans and the way there seem to be factions...just interesting. It reminds me a lot of when I was much more obessed with Harry Potter.
The way these celebrities create followings and sub cultures is fascinatng. With Harry Potter, there was a whole other language that had to be learned to understand what people in the fourms were talking about.
Here's a fake example of a convo:
Are you a shipper?
Sure, I'm all for Orange Crush.
Oh. Too bad I sail the Good Ship.
Understand it? Didn't think so. Fandom is the collective productions of fans of a specific thing, be it a celebrity, a book, a tv, or a comic. In the fandom circles, everything is almost written in code. Not only that but there are references to past events in fandom.
It's these similarities that fascinate me. While Tina may be a fan of Suju and I am a fan of HP, there are so many similarities between the fandoms. There are factions. Super Fans. Lingo. Everything.
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suju is the best! question: u know (not dbsk leader, haha) the vid and stuff we watched today, chinese people call cp （like hangeng+heechul, leeteuk+kangin, etc.） 王道， so what do Americans call couples and relationships like that.
ReplyDeleteor is it just an asian thing to do stuff like that?
I agree: fandom of all kinds is a really interesting cultural phenomenon. What's perhaps most interesting about it to me is that it crosses cultures. There are few (if any?) places in the world where obsessive fandom doesn't exist. What's also interesting is that there are very few truly international celebrities. The vast majority are at best national, often only regional.
ReplyDeleteSo here's my question (you knew it was coming): Why? Why do we do this? No question we do it. And its near universality suggests to me that it plays an important cultural role. I, for one, am not exactly sure what it is. What do you think?