Brit Kelley - Loving Fanfiction: Exploring the Role of Emotion in Online Fandoms

Loving Fanfiction explores emotion within the context of fandoms, specifically online fanfiction. Through exploring fans narratives about themselves and the fanwork they produce and consume, the author theorizes how identity, cognition, emotion, the body, and embodiment come together in literacy development and practices.

Drawing on affect theory to explore the complex roles of emotions, literacy, identity, and the digital, both in their own position and in the worlds of engaged fans, Brit Kelley systematically analyses work from a six-year ethnographic study across fandomsfrom Harry Potter and WWE, to Gotham and Twilight. Their analysis expands upon current understandings of fandom by more thoroughly theorizing the deeply emotional element of fanfiction practices, and connects to the academic fan community to draw connections and implications for the role of emotion in teaching and research.

This unique perspective on emotions, love, and fandoms will be of significant interest to scholars and students of media and communication studies, fan studies, literature, creative writing, cultural studies, digital humanities, and literacy studies.

Brit Kelley is a Lecturer in the University Writing Program at UC Davis.

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For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com

First published 2021

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017

2021 Brit Kelley

The right of Brit Kelley to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Names: Kelley, Brit, author.

Title: Loving fanfiction : exploring the role of emotion in online fandoms / Brit Kelley.

Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York : Routledge, 2021. |

Series: Routledge studies in new media and cyberculture | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020054927 (print) | LCCN 2020054928 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367896850 (hardback) | ISBN 9781003020547 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Fan fictionHistory and criticism. | Emotions in literature.

Classification: LCC PN3448.F36 K45 2021 (print) | LCC PN3448.F36 (ebook) | DDC 809.3dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020054927

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020054928

ISBN: 978-0-367-89685-0 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-76754-9 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-003-02054-7 (ebk)

Typeset in Sabon

by codeMantra

Randy Orton watched in amusement as 30 or so little kids ran towards him. His arms opened for hugs and autographs. They jumped up and down and squealed. He chuckled and looked over at his friend, John Cena, who was also being swarmed. He winked at Randy and opened his arms as well. When each child came up to him, Randy made sure that he had a short conversation and a hug with all of them. Childrens homes were something that really touched his heart. They were denied the innocence of their childhood and all they wanted was someone to love, and Randy was going to give it to them.

Somebody to Love is a highly rated fanfiction from the WWE Fanfiction World community at or antagonistic character in the popular wrestling show. The series is a true spectacle of hyper-masculinitywhere men exchange strangleholds rather than hugs, and where women are a side-spectacle all their own.

Fanfiction like + relationships in the Harry Potter books beyond the passing implication of a romantic relationship between Dumbledore and Grindelwald in their youth?

Fanfiction practices provide a distinctive space to explore the intersections of identity, digital technologies, fannish participation, and online research methods. First, a close inspection of fanfiction practices can demonstrate how identity features are coded and performed in(to) readings of source texts and fan texts such as stories, authors notes, reader reviews, discussion forum comments, and user profiles, to name a few. In addition, since digital technologies have changed the ways in which fans participate in their favoured fandoms, and certainly in their fanwriting activities, fanfiction practices can provide us with an insight into how such digital technologies interact with literacy practicesespecially in terms of how these technologies change the ways in which texts are produced, circulated, and received. Importantly, because fanfiction has always included intense emotional engagements with texts, it is uniquely positioned to explore the complex roles bodies and emotions play in ever-emerging literacy practices, particularly in online spaces. Finally, because I myself am a fan and fanwriter, this work provides me with an important opportunity to interrogate the ethics of online research methods, as well as the roles bodies and emotions play in scholarship.

In this book, I use affect theory to explore the complex roles of emotions, literacy, identity, and the digital in both my position as an aca-fan, and in the complex lifeworlds of engaged fans across multiple fandoms, including The X-Files, Harry Potter, WWE, The Lord of the Rings, Gotham, Twilight, and X-Men. This book includes an extended and detailed discussion not only of methods, but of the theory behind and within these methods. Through these methods, I seek not only to fairly represent fan communities, but to find better ways to both protect and interact with these communities during research. In addition, it brings together the often still separate yet parallel discussions of emotion and affect in circulation and/or economies (see especially Ahmed, 2015) and embodiment and affect theory (see especially Wetherell, 2012). Furthermore, it expands upon current understandings of fandom by critically theorising the deeply emotional element of fanfiction practices.