Global Fandom Jamboree Conversation: Libertad Borda and Thessa Jensen (Part One)

Libertad Borda: Hi, Dr. Jensen, it is a pleasure to take part in this dialogue with you, because our countries are really far apart, but there are always common areas to talk about. For instance, although many of the things you mention in your statement were extremely interesting, I think we might start talking about what you call “the darker side of fandom”. You rightly focus attention about the fact that research of fandom and fanfiction communities implies approaching not only creative and positive practices “but also the ugly sides like extremism, conspiracy theories, racism, shitstorms”. In some works, mainly from people who are beginning their research on online fandoms, only the bright side emerges, but fandoms are framed in a bigger structure where class, race and gender biases still prevail in many respects.  I would like to hear more about how the design of platforms could help to somehow control this negativity, as you suggest.

Thessa Jensen: Thank you, Dr Borda!

Like you, I find a dialogue like this very interesting, especially because we belong to such different cultures and, as far as I can tell, work on and with fandom in very different ways. So, let’s start with your question on the design of platforms and how or if it could help control the darker side of fandom. Well, the short answer would be: I would love to have a clear and positive answer for this one. It is easier to tell which design choices aren’t working. Like, Tumblr’s reblogging, which is copying the original post, enabling the reblogger to comment and with that, totally change the original meaning. At the same time, neither the original blogger nor any subsequent reblogger and commenter will be able to follow each of the ensuing arguments. Comments aren’t threaded, and what started out as a positive post about a certain fandom might end up as a threatening attack on fans, who love a certain ship in that fandom.

Because Tumblr as a platform focuses on the posts, that is, content, content creation, and ease of reblogging, rather than community building. The latter would need the possibility to engage in a meaningful dialogue with other fans. Making it possible to follow comment threads as well as identifying and possibly block certain fans from participating in a certain community. All of which is not possible on Tumblr. You can find that kind of functionality on platforms like Discord or Facebook, where fandom groups are plenty. However, here you need an invite, which means, these groups are not easy to find for new fans. Also, you are dependent on the administrators of these groups. While most have explicit rules on how to interact and what to post, these groups can be shut down at any time or certain fans can be blocked from entering the space.

While this is still a problem, I have encountered several groups, where not one but at least two or more people are collaborating as administrators, making the risk of a random shutdown, or blocking of other fans less likely. Also, several of these groups have a ‘three strikes and you’re out’ policy, again, making it possible for fans to learn how to behave, or to discuss whether a certain rule should change.

So, to sum up, for the design part I would recommend looking at sites like Discord, where the users have a site which provides possibilities for organising groups in a very democratic way, in principle giving each fan a voice on which behaviour is wanted and unwanted. However, Discord is not good when it comes to the archiving and content creation part. It’s very difficult to search for certain comments or memes or other content, which is created on the go, through the various chat channels in a given group.

For this, the archiving part, you would need something like the archiveofourown.org (AO3). This is to me the epitome of what online communities are able to create, maintain and use for community building, even if the focus is on the archive and the content creation. I won’t explain a lot about how AO3 came to live, please read

Fiesler, C., Morrison, S., & Bruckman, A. S. (2016, May). An archive of their own: a case study of feminist HCI and values in design. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 2574-2585)

Fiesler, C., Morrison, S., Shapiro, R. B., & Bruckman, A. S. (2017, February). Growing their own: Legitimate peripheral participation for computational learning in an online fandom community. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM conference on computer supported cooperative work and social computing (pp. 1375-1386).

What AO3 offers, beside the community, which operates behind the scenes and keeps the archive running, is a way to connect with other fanfiction writers (collections, fandoms, writing competitions, translations, etc.), fanfiction readers (comments, likes, follows, etc.), and through all of this create a tent-pole, a place, where fans can find other fans in the first place. However, there is no means of private messaging or chatting like on Tumblr or on Discord. You had part of this on livejournal.com, where you could post content, comment on it, create fandom groups including a set of rules and an administrator. And while you had fandom wank and fandom rants, in your own group of fellow fans, you could discuss fandom related issues in relative safety.

Does this help on how to tackle the darker side of fandom? *sigh* I think you'll always have problems with people who can’t accept other people. People, who will not play by the rules, either because they find it funny to stir up drama (which, sorry to say, seems to be the main cause for trolling, doxxing and the like–because it is “fun” to watch people getting furious, sad, or irritated) or because they have a just cause, which other people don’t or won’t recognise as such. The latter probably because of privilege and not wanting to change one's ways. Which probably isn’t a very good answer for your very good question in the first place.

With the above, I would like to point to three elements of importance regarding the design of platforms.

First, the possibility of having a shared history. History creates context, a common ground for fans to talk from and understand any ongoing discussion. But history is elusive, especially with social media platforms. Their design is built on new-ness; new content is created and distributed constantly, changing the timeline, pushing the most engaging posts to the front. None of this helps in creating a common ground, rather the opposite. Sites like fanlore.org, a part of the OTW, is trying to change this. But it also shows why it is problematic: to have a history, you need a separate website. This includes a certain slow-ness; instead of new content being pushed our way, existing content should stay for longer, being examined, discussed, and catalogued, before being pushed away by a new post.

Second, participatory culture needs media, which are easy to use, access, and distribute. With this, mentorship falls away, because anybody can comment and share every post on a platform without the need of learning anything about the context or background. Using platforms like Twitter, Facebook or Tumblr for fandom means a constant call to action: Like this! Reblog that! Comment! Tweet! Do! Participation in fandom presupposes not only knowledge about the fandom in question, but also knowledge about canon and fanon of said fandom. Participation should require a certain patience on the side of fans with each other, teaching and learning the do’s and don’ts about the fandom. A patience, which is contrary to the world of social media as we know it.

Third, ownership. As it is, archiveofourown.org (AO3) is one of the very few platforms on the Internet, which is created, developed, and maintained by the users who use it (another one is Wikipedia). Ownership regarding fandom is more than controlling your data. In our case, fandom has time and again experienced platform owners who with short or no notice close profiles, delete fanworks, or change terms of service. All of which is a call back to fandom history and the need to remember. Ownership means influence on how fandom could move on, change, and become a new way of participation and community. Ownership, on the flipside, also means hard work, and in the case of AO3, volunteers, who work for free.

This leads me to a question for you (or maybe both of us). You come from another part of the world, and another part of fan studies. How do you see our roles as researchers? I for one, am always afraid of breaking things, meaning, I want to understand fandom, but at the same time, I’m afraid of drawing attention to people and their work in a way, which drags them into the limelight. Maybe making it difficult for them to continue doing what they do.