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.
I still think it's really quite wonderful when I read a sentence of mine and it has that quality of lastingness.
A jazz musician is a combination orator, dialectician, mathematician, athlete, entertainer, poet, singer, dancer, diplomat, educator, student, comedian, artist, seducer, public masturbator, and general all-round good fellow.
An artist must possess Nature. He must identify himself with her rhythm, by efforts that will prepare the mastery which will later enable him to express himself in his own language.
I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art - and much more. It cannot be commercialized. Chess is much purer than art in its social position.
The public history of modern art is the story of conventional people not knowing what they are dealing with.
I changed my writing style deliberately. My first two novels were written in a very self-consciously literary way. After I embraced gay subject matter, which was then new, I didn't want to stand in its way. I wanted to make the style as transparent as possible so I could get on with it and tell the story, which was inherently interesting.
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