Fandoms are a subculture/following of a tv show, film, game, book or any media. They generate excitement and their own ideas, stories, drawings and cosplays of the characters, allowing them to further delve into their fantasy world. With fans creating artwork, films, animations, stop motions, machinima all helping to increate the planting of the seed and wide spread of their following.
‘In fact, fan films have a tendency to increase
profits for studios by cultivating new fans and maintaining enthusiasm among
existing fans’ (Barton 2014 19).
Transmedia Fandom Memes
Fandoms have jumped on the bandwagon of memes. Using quotes from books, films, TV shows etc... and generating an
image superimposed with text for example this lord of the ring’s meme. Which is one of my favourite being a big fan of the books and films alike.
Where an image has been taken from the film, the line from the
character and edited together to create a meme that has been used across multiplatform.
This also allows fans to create their own memes of their favourite films,
allowing the development of the fandoms within online community’s combining
outsides alike too.
“Instead of simply characterising fan editors as disgruntled fans fixated on reclaiming films from their makers, we should recognise fan editors as a breed of artists and storytellers experimenting with cinematic media in the digital age." (Wille 2014)
The artists behind these designs are inspired by the makers of the films who are developing and telling further stories in the own method's differentiating away from the original creator. I personally really enjoy seeing Lord of the Rings fan created artwork, I represent my enjoyment for Tolkien with tattoos, As I have drawings of Smaug with the lonely mountain and the Elvish language tattooed on my body.
There has also been a film now produced about Tonkien's life and development of his ideas creating his stories; which as a fan brings me further enjoyment and understanding behind the stories I grew up too.
'As far back as 1998, TheOneRing.net
and Tolkien.Movies.com were covering all news stories pertaining to Jackson and
his firm deals with New Line Cinema’ (Brayton 2006, 142).
Alongside the films and books a lot of fans Cosplay the characters.
Some of the OC's accept and develop on fan theories much like JC Rowling and her Harry Potter series. Which has developed from books towards the films, the immersive Harry Potter Studios(Where fans can experience the Potter world in real life Shown below!), Fan art and videos to even cosplaying as their favourite character.
Death Eaters awaiting to battle their next foe at the Hogwarts bridge.
Warner brothers set up an immersive event where fans would be able to recreate their favourite character and battle against the bad guys, helping the battle against Lord Voldemort!
The visitors would get the chance to learn wand combat in an interactive experience with Wand Choreographer, Paul Harris and they’ll be invited to take part in a live duel with Death Eaters.
The fans would then get a chance to test out your newly learned wand techniques as you are directed through a battle with Death Eaters who are storming the Hogwarts Bridge. This type of immersive role-play is another step towards combining the ideas of virtual reality with the real world much like Ready Player One but the characters are real and you can feel them. This creates a more hyper-realistic world in which fans can imagine, visualise and live a wizards life.
‘Culture in which fans and
other consumers are invited to actively participate in the creation and
circulation of new content’ (Jenkins 2006: 257)
For myself I believe that cosplay is a great way for fans to express themselves towards their favourite fandom, through the use of multimedia and transplatforms they are able to generate more excitement for their favourite media.
Cosplay
'Over the past two decades cosplay has grown into a veritable institution of fan culture practice. The term cosplay is a portmanteau of costume and role-play ' Newman 2008, 83; Gunnels 2009.
Today thousands of websites are devoted to cosplay culture, including community sites for the consumption and distribution of the practice, and commercial sites that sell cosplay materials. Cosplay although previously looked down upon as being nerdy, much like in the 90s where 'Nerds' would dress up in Startrek uniforms, it has now developed into its own pop culture, with a lot of its revenue being generated in japan with the most popular media being anime's.
Here is a cosplay from the anime Naruto of Hidan.
According to Galbraith, Cosplay represents a $350-million annual market in Japan. As of 2007, the most popular cosplay Web site in Japan, Cosplayers' Cure, had 200,000 members and 270,000 registered users, and was gaining 200 members a day. "In 2007, Net research firm iSHARE released survey results showing 46.8 percent of women between the ages of twenty and forty said they want to try cosplay, and 18.9 percent said they had already done it" (Galbraith 2009, 52).
Alot of people cosplay for a different reason, mainly to explore another world. Which also links back to VR and immersing themselves in a new creative world.
"Be it love of a character, enjoying the attention of being in an elaborate costume or portraying a loved character, or the appreciation from peers from completing a complex costume ... there are many motivations for donning spandex or cape," Molly McIsaac, a cosplayer, wrote for IFanboy, a site devoted to comic book culture.
What I can make money from my hobby of Cosplaying?
Cosplaying has become so popular around the world that conventions such as San Diego Comic-Con or closer to home the London Comic-con hold competitions for the cosplayers to model their designs in front of a panel of judges in hope to win prizes. Some categories being Best in Show, Best Original Design, Best Workmanship, and Best Young Fan.
There has been a debate on whether the rise of cosplay has been a sign of hard economic times: young people without jobs spending far too much time wanting to become someone or something else.
Social Media Platforms
‘cosplay can be identified as a safe space for ontological
exploration, where the performer is allowed to challenge societal norms and the
limits of the human (Mavridou 2016, 82)
Cosplayers can cross across platforms with Instagram allowing the creator to post photos, videos and Stories to generate a fandom for themselves. A lot of them branch out to youtube so they can help other cosplayers with tutorials, how to videos and other videos allowing their audience to get a more personal view of them.
This helps them also generate more interest in cosplay, which keeps the cons going, their social media accounts still going and allowing them to generate their art.
'Thanks to Twitter fans have more access to creators and
decision makers than ever before, and also more ability to organise a massive
campaign in a hurry. Fans of The 100 quickly showed how angry they were, by
targeting creator Jason Rothenberg. In just 24 hours, he lost more than 10,000
followers, and his numbers have continued a steady (albeit smaller) decline
since….They tuned out the show, and focused on getting their competing hashtag,
#LGBTFansDeserveBetter, trending...The hashtag did trend, and The 100 did not
crack Nielsen’s Top 5 shows, as measured via Twitter. More importantly, The 100
suffered its worst ratings all season. Only 1.25 million people watched, as
compared the week before when 1.39 million viewers tuned in '(Cranz 2016)
Another app that is very enjoyed by cosplayers is Tik Tok, the app allows it users to dress up and lip-sync to audio from their character for example, create their own character and act out videos for their fans to react, duet and use their audio to create their own videos. They can link these videos to their instagram, facebook and other social media pages to help them generate a following.
“any rise in people fleeing reality for fantasy suggests problems with our reality”James Pethokoukis.
Cosplayers such as Yaya Han have been able to create a career from cosplaying become a legend in the cosplay world and a costume designer.
Through the use of social media Yaya has developed her own fan base following her art of costume designing. It allows her fans to interact with her, much unlike characters in anime giving the fans a more in depth immersion to the cosplay world, as they would me able to meet and talk to Yaya Han at Comic-Cons rather than just watching or reading about her.
For many people who attend comic conventions, cosplay isn’t about the particular costume they have chosen to wear, it’s about getting to be their favourite character for the day.
As a female I find the only controversial side of cosplay, is that the source material for the cosplays come from comic books and movies, where they use special effects and not a real representation or realistic women's bodies.
A lot of the communities around cosplay do encourage cross-gender or cross-size playing of the character, allowing everyone to be included in the enjoyment.
Bibliography
Bowman, Lisa M. Warner Bros. backs off Harry
Potter fight. CNET News, March 16 2001.
Brayton, Jennifer ‘Fic Frodo, Slash Frodo: Fandom and The Lord of the
Rings’ . Mathijs, E. and Pomerance, M. From Hobbits to Hollywood: Essays on
Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings. Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi, 2006.
Mavridou, O. The Monstrous Transformation of the Self: Translating Japanese Cyberpunk
and the Posthuman into the Living World, The
Luminary, 6. Visualising Fantastika Issue, Summer 2015, 71-85.
Barton, Kristin M., Lampley, Jonathan Malcolm,
Fan Culture: Essays on Participatory
Fandom in the 21st Century. McFarland, 2014.
