Global Fandom Conversation Series: Hadas Gur-Ze’ev (Israel) and Miranda Ruth Larsen (Japan) (Part One)

Hebrew section in Israeli comic shop

Miranda Ruth Larsen: As I read Hadas’ introductory statement, I found myself attempting to reconcile the two spaces she so keenly addresses: the physicality of conventions and the digital reach of online fandom communities. Though geographically separated, the resonance between her study of Israeli comics fandom and my own work addressing K-pop in Japan is clear.

Hadas’ consideration of Israel as a fandom context is vital here, one of the place-centric engagements that contributes to the richness of transcultural fan studies. We can read Hadas’ introductory statement as an echo of numerous threads in fandom and fan studies, namely: 1) the ‘purity’ of texts 2) fans versus non-fans 3) localization and globalization 4) gendered fandom practices. The issues themselves are not new, but every permutation of them matters; how we discuss them now will shape future perceptions of media consumption and enjoyment.

I’m curious if The Geekery functions as a fandom police, given the centralized structure of consumption: what of the fans who cannot easily access Facebook, the ones left out of the loop? Are fans on this platform utilizing their real names and identifiable images of themselves (in and out of cosplay), or is a degree of obfuscation employed? Additionally, given Hadas’ observation that fan practices at ICon are gendered, I can’t help but wonder if they’re also generational – are the fans of untranslated, “raw” texts younger, and do they harass older fans for their engrained consumptive habits?

:A rookie K-pop idol group promotes their concert by distributing fliers outside Skinholic, a Korean cosmetics shop. (Author's photo, 2016)

As I’ve written elsewhere, the politics of naming a fan/otaku/fujoshi/pen in Japanese is a paramount linguistic decision (Larsen 2018, 2020). Going beyond K-pop, the employment of one of these labels to describe oneself or others is contextual and often highly gendered. (Fujoshi in Ikebukuro does not land the same way as it does in Akihabara; to use the Korean-derived suffix pen outside of known Korean Wave enthusiasts can result in blank stares.) These terms are, critically, not universally interchangeable or acceptable. There are social consequences for using these terms, even when definitions are agreed upon by friendly parties.

This ties into Hadas’ observation that ‘geek’ offers a particular label for comics fans in Israel, a conscious demarcation to those that don’t “get” fandom and members of other fandoms as well. Yet geek is also a plastic term, as Benjamin Woo explores in Getting A Life: The Social Worlds of Geek Culture. Geeks and other labels “are all social types, or models that are abstracted from particulars” (46). The fans Hadas discusses apparently want geek to occupy an agreed-upon definition, a consensus social model under scrutiny, but this seems like a potent recipe for conflict. Is the “universality” celebrated in centralized Israeli comics fandom a rhetorical strategy to minimize the numerous differences of Israeli fans, like the silencing of marginalized fans by mainstream fans elsewhere?

Works Cited

Larsen, Miranda Ruth. “‘But I’m a Foreigner Too.’ — Otherness, Racial Oversimplification, and Historical Amnesia in Japan’s K-pop Scene.” Fandom: Now in Color: A Collection of Voices. Edited by Rukmini Pande. University of Iowa Press. 2020. 

“Fandom and Otaku.” A Companion to Media Fandom and Fan Studies. Edited by Paul Booth. Wiley. 2018.

Woo, Benjamin. Getting A Life: The Social Worlds of Geek Culture. McGill Queen’s Press. 2018.

Hadas Gur-Ze’ev: Thanks for starting this conversation, Miranda! I can also see the resonance between fandom in Israel (although it still mostly describes sci-fi/fantasy geeks) and your work on K-pop in Japan, or the broader relationship between fans and idols in different locales. 

While Israel (or Koreatown, Japan or Los Angeles) is certainly a vital fandom context, it is still only one in an array of different contexts (among gender, power, or global fan traditions and practices). I agree with your statement that scholarship should better represent the realities of fandom, taking into account critical localized aspects and inequities in access to media and experiences. It seems to me that we should also consider such inequities as intersecting with others—not just a physical distance from an experience, but also symbolic distance—such as a language or cultural gap, access to resources, or, like the case of my study, a gender bias. 

And so, if K-pop fans are not offered the same proximities to their idols in Tokyo as they do in Los Angeles, could they be equally considered part of the same fandom? Do they experience their fan identity differently, and maybe try to make up for these gaps? If we see access as influenced by power struggles (whether the local/global, direct/remote, masculine/feminine, old/new), we can ask ourselves who can—and cannot—be an acceptable “fan”? And similarly, who can—and cannot—be an acceptable aca-fan? As fans and as academics, we can try to better understand these dynamic boundaries and what constitutes them in each community.

The Geekery is indeed the mainstream digital platform for fandom in Israel, and the question of border-policing in the form of access to the group (or to Facebook) is certainly important. Although there is no formal policing (the group is public, the admins present it as inclusive as possible, and participants usually feel safe to use their names and share pictures), the group must leave a lot of fans “out of the loop”. Apart from an evident gendered bias of access (with reported evidence of toxic masculinities), The Geekery also lacks representation of specific sub-groups and minorities in Israeli society (for example, from different ethnic or religious groups). This does not mean there aren’t geeks or fans elsewhere—but that many unique experiences are not widely visible on mainstream fandom circles. We can therefore ask not only how to make these voices heard, but also how to integrate sometimes conflicting values and conceptions of fandom.

I’m not certain that a “universality” celebrated in centralized Israeli comics fandom is a rhetorical strategy to exclude others, but it might provide  the structure, or boundary, in which different identities battle each other. “Geek” or “fan” (and likely, other interchangeable terms in different languages) are certainly contextual, gendered, and dynamic labels—and thus policing these identities, meanings, and borders of definitions could be seen as exclusionary rhetorical strategies. An interesting question is who do these boundaries exclude, and what valued resources are prevented from marginalized members.

Reading your introductory statement, I was particularly interested in the role of physicality in the relationship between fans, idols, and fandom. This question might even be more relevant in the context of COVID-19 and the use of digital substitutes to physical experiences (even within the same local and cultural settings). I’m curious if the co-presence specific to certain locale is necessarily a physical presence? Could there also be other options to connect with fans and idols? And to what extent do the physical location, country of origin or culture determine the ability to take part in global fandom?