Fandom, after all, is born of a balance between fascination and frustration: if media content didn't fascinate us, there would be no desire to engage with it; but if it didn't frustrate us on some level, there would be no drive to rewrite or remake it.
Interpretation
Fandom arises from both the attraction to and dissatisfaction with media content.
Henry Jenkins suggests that fandom is a complex phenomenon that emerges from a delicate interplay between fascination with media and frustration towards it. When we are captivated by a piece of media, it sparks our interest and engagement, yet moments of frustration or imperfection inspire us to reshape, reinterpret, or create new narratives within that context. Therefore, both positive and negative emotions fuel our connection to media, leading to the vibrant culture of fandom.
In practice
During a panel discussion on creators' relationships with their fans, this quote illustrates the dual nature of fans' feelings toward media.
If old consumers were assumed to be passive, then new consumers are active. If old consumers were predictable and stayed where you told them, then new consumers are migratory, showing a declining loyalty to networks or media. If old consumers were isolated individuals, then new consumers are more socially connected. If the work of media consumers was once silent and invisible, then new consumers are now noisy and public.
...Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of owned by the folk.
It takes some courage to write fiction about politically controversial topics. The dread is you'll be labeled a political writer.
I want to do work that means something to me so that when I go to work at the theater eight times a week, I want to be there.
Drawing is . . . not an exercise of particular dexterity, but above all a means of expressing intimate feelings and moods.
It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover to your surprise that you have rendered something in its true character.
The role of an orchestra in the 21st century isn't just playing, it's about developing future audiences and performers.
Creative non-fiction is such a liberating genre because it allows the non-fiction writer, whether he or she be journalist or essayist, to use all of the techniques of the fiction writer and all of the ideas, creative approaches, that fiction writers get a chance to use, but they have to use it in a true story.
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