- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
Winner, 2025 Diamond Anniversary Book Award, given by the National Communication Association
Highlights the importance of considering contemporary public culture through the lens of fan studies
The Gamergate harassment campaign of women in video games, the "Unite the Right" rally where hundreds of Confederate monument supporters cried out racist and antisemitic slurs in Charlottesville, and the targeted racist and sexist harassment of Star Wars' Asian American actress Kelly Marie Tran all have one thing in common: they demonstrate the collective power and underlying ugliness of fandoms. These fans might feel victimized or betrayed by the content they've intertwined with their own identities, or they may simply feel that they're speaking truth to power. Regardless, by connecting via social media, they can unleash enormous amounts of hate, which often results in severe real-world consequences.
Fandom Is Ugly argues that reactionary politics and media fandoms go hand in hand, and to understand one, we need to understand the other. Mel Stanfill pushes back on two mainstream assumptions: that media and the pleasure of consumption are frivolous and unworthy of study, and that fandoms are inherently progressive. Drawing on a corpus of angry social media posts, Fandom Is Ugly finds that ugly moments happen when deep emotional attachments collide with social structures and situations that have been misunderstood. By holistically examining the forms of ugly fandom in cases that touch upon race, gender, and sexuality, Fandom Is Ugly produces a comprehensive theory of the negative sides of fan attachments.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Half Title
- Series Page
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Contents
- Introduction: Toward a Theory of Fandom Ugliness
- 1. What Real Fans Want Is Straight White Heroes: Constructing Fandom in Comicsgate
- 2. “#SenatorKaren Back Stabbed Bernie”: Antifandom and Political Engagement on Social Media
- 3. On the Homonormativity of Slash, from Curtain Fic to Canonicity
- 4. Hell Hath No Fury like a Fan Queerbaited: The Death of Lexa and Fan Vitriol
- 5. The Anti Wars: Sex Crimes, Free Speech, and Papering Over Racism
- 6. “I Just Joined the #MugClub!”: Fan Consumer Activism Meets the Culture Wars
- 7. “Teaching White Kids They’re Bad”: Antifandom of Critical Race Theory and Fannish Attachment to Whiteness
- Conclusion: Of Victimhood and Vitriol
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- About the Author