Rereading Fandom: MySpace Character Personas and Narrative Identification

Abstract

In an age of media convergence, researchers can no longer solely study a single media text. As Henry Jenkins (2006) points out, the transmediation of a textual narrative across media technologies is becoming a more common practice. In this paper, I examine how fans are participating in this transmediation by creating personal profiles, or personas, for extant media characters. My paper shows that the fans’ creative and resourceful practice of textual creation in social networking sites finds meaning through the creative assemblage of members of the fan community. Using their own fan-created texts as material with which to create this community, fans shakeup the traditional de Certeauan binary of strategic and tactical readings (and poachings) of texts. By creating a ‘‘space of their own,’’ fans not only rewrite the media text, but also rewrite traditional notions of fandom itself.

Keywords:

• Fandom
• Narrative
• Identity
• Social Software
• Internet
• Textual Poaching

Acknowledgements

Portions of this article were presented at the 2007 International Society for the Study of Narrative conference in Washington D.C. Thanks to June Deery, Eric King Watts, and the anonymous reviewers for their excellent suggestions. Thanks also to Shira Chess and Amber Davisson for constructive feedback.

Notes

1. For this paper, I use the term persona, as well as its counterpart person, in specific ways. A person, a physical entity spatially separated from the computer, posts information about herself online. This information becomes a persona, a digital representation of the person ontologically dependent on the computer for its existence. Personas are what danah boyd terms “digital bodies,” or sites where people “carefully choose what information to put forward, thereby eliminating visceral reactions that might have seeped out in everyday communication” (boyd, 2007, p. 12). Personas are not the same thing as the person that posts; in this difference lies the relationship between the real and the simulation. I contend that the difference between a person and a persona exists as a phenomenological aspect of identity.

2. Espen Aarseth's elaboration on the term “simulations” might be a useful analogy here. For Aarseth, a “simulation” is a cybertextual “empirical element that is not found in fiction” that exists “somewhere in between reality and fiction.” These simulations are “not obliged to represent reality, but they do have an empirical logic of their own” (1994, pp. 78–79). MySpace personas change the ontological status of the fictional characters into Aarseth's versions of “simulations.”

3. To find character profiles from these millions, I searched MySpace by typing character names into the search form. This searched all 100 million profiles for instances where the name registered on the account was that of the character, not of the fan. Interesting, already there is a connection here between online identity fragmentation and narrative realization. For Veronica Mars (2004), I searched solely for the title character. For Gilmore Girls (2000), I examined profiles for all the main characters (Lorelai Gilmore, Rory Gilmore, Sookie St. James, and Luke Danes).

4. In this case, I have used a pseudonym for the poster; throughout this paper, any fan site that lists the character as the MySpace persona I have retained the name, but any site that uses the person as the persona I have changed the name. However, I do this while fully aware that any names online may in fact be pseudonyms anyway.

5. As it happens, when checked, GilmoreGirls3's MySpace had no reply.

6. Parasocial desire being derived from the theory of Horton and Wohl (1956), it describes the relationship or interpersonal bond that forms between a viewer and a character or figure on television. This bond, which can be as strong as an interpersonal bond between two physical people, has offered a way of conceptualizing the attachment people feel to characters as well as news anchors and other media personalities.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Paul Booth

Paul Booth is at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute