Oh hey, it's still that throwback picture from when you wore baggy jeans and shell necklaces. Ali ward back with part two of a pop cultural and psychological episode. Y'all love the start of last week, so we're going to finish it off with more of your great questions, shall we? We shall? Okay, So if you have not listened to
last week, you want to hop over to part one. First, you'll hear the definition of anthropology from an actual living breeding researcher whose Twitter bio reads anthropologist, entertainment futurist, YouTube enthusiast, and defender of teen girl taste. So in part one, we covered sports and religion and k pop goblins for good and the practice of Disney bounding, which I completely failed to ever define. It's subtly dressing like Disney characters in the theme parks in a way that only other
Disney fanatics might catch. That's Disney bounding. We talked about fan fiction and Frasier and how complex and kind of evil algorithms tell us what to like. We talk about free range children, what to do if your favorite author turns out to be problematic, and more so. That is
part one in this episode. We can hear about shipping, which is short for relationshipping, I suppose, or dreaming up unions that exist only in your horny day dreams, and fans versus stands stands being kind of the creepy variety, and the line between cults and fandoms, and the all important question of if you want to build an empire and fandom over which you preside, how do you become Internet famous? Do you want to be Internet famous? All that and more. A quick thanks first to all the
listeners of Ologies. I could not do these interviews or make the show without the wonderfully weird and insightful questions from patrons. You can give a dollar or more a month to support the show at patroon dot com slash Ologies, as well as all the folks who just spread the word and the links and leave reviews. I creep on you and I read every single one, and this week thank you to Tricia S and also Bronze Kraken, a PD who wrote, dearest father, I hope this letter finds
you well. I have verily enjoyed your audio recordings. I listened to each new one with gusto and look forward to the next. Your Internet child PD see proof, So leave one. Okay, everyone else who left one? I read it for sure, and your weird internet uncle dad hurts you very much and is earnestly so happy you're here. Okay, let's shove off into part two of panthropology with behavioral researcher and legit professional on her business card. Unironically, panthropologist
Meredith Levine. I'm going to make us go through Patreon questions because there are questions I want to ask you that patrons asked, and so I'm going to ask it. There are questions through my mouth. Is that cool?
Great? Let's do it.
Okay. This one was at the top of my tongue and it was asked by patrons. Anna Thompson, El McCall, Matt Sicado Island, Helly, Bonnie Tamara Man, Carrie Caitlin Powell, Anya Levi, Burke, Hope, Lexi Reads, Rachel Weiss, Lee, Catherine Earhart, and John McClain all kind of wanted to know about obsessive fandom. Bonnie asked what's the line between being a healthy fan of something and obsession? And Tamara wants to know when does fandom cross the line to inappropriate and
healthy and then also a stan. When does a fan become a stan? Good question?
So let's start with obsessive Okay, Fandom has historically been pathologized, Okay, in a negative way. Yeah, and fans generally aren't bat all. They are generally not malicious. And when does it become unhealthy? It becomes on health health when you neglect all of the things in your life that actually lead to a healthy life, like eating and sleeping and like going to
work and or school. But like, who's to say what a good use of time is, especially in an age where one can be a professional fan, if like that's the thing you want to do. When does it become unhealthy when your life and relationships suffer as a result. Right, plenty of people have found their life partners and like gotten married and stuff through fandom, And that's a thing that happens now. And by fandom, I mean like pop culture fandom, fandom with like a capital F. So that's
not necessarily unhealthy. What is unhealthy is when you have the rogue person. And this happens a lot in like influencer culture and those kinds of fandoms, because this particular type of object of fandom is themselves for a living where I'm friends with a bunch of creators as a offshoot of my life, and oftentimes they get the question of like, what's the weirdest thing a fan has ever done? Yeah,
or what's like the scariest or creepiest or whatever. And that is when it gets to be scary and creepy and bad. Is in those in person interactions for the most part of like screaming at someone in target, or like going and waiting outside of their house. Anything that is a breach of personal privacy for the object of fandom is when it gets to be bad, because then it's like actively dehumanizing to those people who are objects of fandom.
But wouldn't some people argue that they have taken themselves out of being a human and been striving for something like superhuman where they are getting more than a normal human's share of attention or wealth or privilege. So I mean, and I'm saying this as someone who also knows a lot of creators is a creator. Is there anything where there's been a consensus that you have surrendered your privacy by selling it?
No, In my opinion, everyone is entitled to their privacy and as much of it as they want cool. That being said, it's also important for objects of fandom to understand that and be a little bit more careful with their personal information. In the event that you are an object of fandom or want to be an object of fandom, Step one is cultivate an audience. But in that process, people with kids have to make the decision how much
of their kids' lives are part of their brands. And that's a personal decision, especially if their kids are too young to consent to that. And there are choices that everyone has to make about, like how much of their personal lives they want to show, and celebrities deal with this also, it's a little bit less of an issue when you're a non human entity with fans.
I'm hoping she means non human entity like Gritty, the flupy, grumpy, flaming orange figurehead of the Philadelphia Flyers, who has been described by newspapers as quote an acid trip of a mascot and a ghastly empty eyed muppet, so neither human nor beast. Gritty was born in twenty eighteen out of the design prompt something you'd high five but not hug and sure I did go down a rabbit hole looking at pictures of gritty tattoos, such as one bearing the words chaos reigns.
But even still, like showing up to a place of home or work is when it gets to be obsessive and bad, which is not the same thing as toxic fandom.
Yeah, can we talk about toxic fandoms? Because patrons Mike Manakowski, Samantha Ryan Jesse, Dragon, Anna Thompson, Justin McCormick, and COLLEENI Bee. Also Will Johnston wanted to know. Will Johnson asked, what, in your opinion, is the most toxic fandom, and also what's the best fandom? And why is it Terry Pratchett's Disco World or disc World. I thought it's a Disco World, and I was like, that sounds tight. But I guess
Discworld maybe that's Frisbee. I don't know. I earnestly thought that Discworld was similar to Terry Bradshaw's NFL video game, but with Ultimate Frisbee, and then I realized that it's actually John Madden's NFL game anyway. Discworld is a series of novels set in a flat world perched on the back of four giant elephants. Perched on Giant Turtle. It was written not by NFL coach Terry Bradshaw, but by
literary figure Sir Terry Pratchett. My point is that discworld fandom has nothing to do with sports or disco pantsuits.
I would totally go to disco World too, dude, I would love it there. So what is the most toxic fandom?
Yeah, Like what is toxic fandom? Like when does it become shitty? Because I'm trying to think of Like all I can think about are like people who are out in thirty degree whether with no shirt on, in their body painted sports colors. And I'm sure that that is like not even toxic compared to what is out there. That's just uncomfortable fandoms.
So like, generally, when people refer to toxic fandoms, they refer to like intra fandom fighting with ad hominem attacks and actively like shutting other people down and yucking their yums and generally being like know it all is what blankets gatekeepers, and like shunning and shaming people who like the same things. So when when those kinds of tools get used within a fandom, or like when actions are
taken against marginalized identities or those are not respected. Oftentimes, that is another thing that's referenced as a toxic fandom. I'm all for sports fans who go shirtless in the middle of winter to paint their bodies like you do you your body whatever. I'm not going to tell you to put on a sweater, but pink. Shame someone for their fan fiction, which also came up a lot, and that's kind of bad, or like telling someone that they
don't belong or that they're not fan enough. Everyone starts as a beginner, and just because someone doesn't have the same fandom origin story as someone else doesn't necessarily make them less of a fan or less of a worthy fan.
So do other fans call newbies posers? That's a little toxic. Now. Confession, I have actually never seen Rocky Horror Picture Show Live because I heard that they write a V for virgin on your forehead if you've never been like with lipstick, And I think that's good natured and not toxic. But I was so afraid of getting a constellation of pimples in a V on my forehead on my bad teen skin, so I chickened out at every opportunity to attend a
Midnight fish Netted screening. But yes, fandoms in which people genuinely, not good naturedly harass each other, those are the bad ones.
Sometimes it happens also when there are ship wars that happen, and like there are two dominant ships that come to the forefront of the fandom and they actively like don't believe and are against each other, which is its whole shipping culture as its whole other it's part of fandom with Capital F. But it's this whole other thing. And if you want to know a lot more about fan fiction and shipping culture and that kind of fandom, fandom with Capital F, I highly recommend the fans Planning podcast
with Flourish Clink and Elizabeth Minkle. Great podcast if you're interested in Capital F fandom.
Well you know, dove tailing off of that. Listeners Diane bout Taren Fernatz, Kelly Seaman, and Jamie Kishimoto. Jamide a great question and asked, have you done any studies on the phenomenon of queer baiting and how it creates die hard fandoms of shippers but never delivers a happy queer ending.
I would say never, say never. The media landscape is shifting, and we have an example of that recently. But my guess is there's a specific ip behind this, and my hunch is that it might be teen Wolf.
Okay, so I look this up, and the MTV series Teen Wolf debuted in twenty eleven, and I'm going to quote an article from The Advocate to sum up the
beef with the beefy but ultimately empty romance arcs. So the Advocate said, the continued teases that a character might be bisexual with no payoff, the same sex romances that end as quickly as they begin, the disappearance of gay characters without explanation, and the absence of any well developed LGBT character four seasons into a show that appeared to bank heavily on its queer appeal early on have left
vocal fans howling. End quote. And though its final season was in twenty seventeen, many moons ago history remembers Teen Wolf is kind of a hairy situation.
Ooh, And I personally think that queer baiting is exploitative, as are a lot of the tropes that get used, like barrier gaze and fridging and that sort of thing that shows historically have used and I think that as queer voices become more prominent in writer's rooms and in in the production process, I think that will happen less and less, especially since fans also can take collective action and do grassroots like awareness of what these issues are
and why it's harmful. Having very coded behavior is also very typically Hollywood and stems from like a very long history of what was acceptable on in film and television by those standards, and like Hayes code stuff, what it means to get like a rating for PG thirteen versus.
Are Hayes codes side note I looked it up. Were essentially written in the late nineteen twenties via Jesuit priest and a church elder as a sort of code of standards for the motion picture industry, and it set precedents forbidding all kinds of fun stuff such as nudity, suggestive dancing, discussions of sexual perversity, any ridicule of religion, any interracial relationships,
lustful kissing, and any scenes of passion. Obviously, this was not friendly to any queer depictions or were wolf makeouts, to say the least.
There's a lot of institutionalized things to unpack around clearbaiting because to attribute it to a writer's room isn't entirely the whole story, and to attribute to a marketing team isn't entirely the whole story. In my opinion, it's unfortunate, but also tends to draw out people who are like minded and want to go into that level of imagining. I don't love it, but also the effects of it
have done community building things. So a lot of the times why queer ships exist is because there aren't as many well rounded characters to imagine and re imagine and reshape that are women and non binary and on the other gender spectrum, m Hollywood still incredibly male dominated. Yeah, when it comes to playing around with characters, often the best ones are guys.
Hmmm, that's interesting. That's such a good point. So because movies and TV and comic books seem to be well stocked on manned people in general, those lead characters are fleshed out with more complexity, and so they get shipped more often in fan fantasies, because who wants to ship a boring character. It's like trying to make a sexy sandwich with one soggy bread slice. No, thank you, give me two nutty rich tangy slices, I don't care what
gender they are. Now on the topic of that, and kind of off of that, listener Sylvia Shriff had a question. They wrote, people talk about fangirling or fan boying over a person, what is the gender neutral term for this behavior? It isn't fanning signed a gender person who definitely does this thing, but it's neither a girl nor a boy.
So I if I have to remove gender from it, I would say fanning out as a phrase, Okay, I'm fanning out.
But fangirling and fanboying often like have implied different sets of behaviors mm okay, regardless of gender, but having to do with typically masculine and typically feminine traits based on their portrayals in the media. So like, when I hear fan girling, I hear a sound. Yes, oh, of course, of course, And I'm sure everyone hears this sound of like it's a squee s q u e e, and
it's a sound. And I hear like beatlemania and crying and fainting, and a lot of it is associated with proximity to object of fandom, yes, yes, versus like being a fanboy. I ascribe to regardless of gender, slightly more pedantic behavior and the behavior of like nerd jocking, yeah, fanning,
which is quizzing people and having all the information. And there's a very outdated model about uh affirmational and transformational fandom that was like an academic paper from like I think maybe the late nineties, possibly the early two thousands mm hm, about ways that fandom capital ath express themselves and some is in transformation and some is in completionism of like, are you reimagining and playing with the work the work is a springboard for one's own imagination or
is it more encyclopedic and religious, where like it's about knowing everything and like being an expert in the thing.
So transformational fandom is like, hey, thanks for making this world these characters. As fans, it's now ours to run with and make more elaborate and weirder if we want to. But affirmational fandom is like, this is what the creator intended, and we may only observe and fawn over and memorize this particular world and character. Also, if you like video games, name all the video games.
And so these conflicting models of like what people think of as fans can often inhibit the experience of being one. Because one of the other questions that gets asked a lot is like, do you have to be part of a community to be a fan, And the answer is no. You can be a fan all on your own and like do whatever it is that you do and not interact with a soul around it and still be a good fan, because being a fan is something that one imagines themselves to be, not like a set of behaviors.
And but we would call that in general fanning out, fanning out, like fanning out if there's.
A gender neutral term for having an overwhelming moment of excitement as a result of something having to do with the object of fandom that makes oneself sensorially overloaded or sensorally like frozen. Uh huh, I would call it fanning out.
I love it. I love it. And on the topic of forging ahead with neologisms, which is a word that I can never say, neologism, neologism, new works only read it neologism. Anna Thompson and Forrest Dot's had questions, do people typically connect more with podcasts than other types of media because listening is more intimate.
Oh, thank you for your podcast voice. I love this ASMR moment. There are a lot of things that have to do with connecting with podcast hosts. Part of it has to do with being in someone's ears and how intimate actually talking is, especially in the age of like visuals and texting. Part of it has to do with how much time podcasters spend in the ears of their fans. It's somewhere between twenty minutes and an hour or two a week, depending on what kind of podcast you're listening to,
and it's like every week. So this is a friend, this is a familiar voice. It's the kind of experience you put on to be a little less alone whilst usually whilst doing something else like driving or dishes or laundry or going on a walk. That dedicated podcast listening, high fidelity style of this is all I'm doing. I'm sitting and I'm listening to my voice or whatever. A little less prevalent behaviorally, but there is a lot of familiarity.
Assuming that the library can sustain that. Most podcasts don't make it over over ten episodes do really, Yeah, a lot a lot fail in the first ninety days and we'll have a season. But to be able to sustain and develop an audience in podcast form often requires a lot of dedication to the format and ability to do so, and there are a lot of people who dabble. As the podcast scene gets more robust, there are more podcasts
that can't go on indefinitely. But yes, like there is a certain level of intimacy that is similar to vloggers because of the amount of time that this person as
themselves spends with the audience. It's a very audience inclusive format, and so yes, there is a great reason as to why podcast hosts have fandom in a way that feels a little bit more friendly than Jared Paddillac, which is beautiful and a lot easier under the independent creator model than it is to do when you are a major studio with like a massive legal team and like all sorts of issues like with including any idea that didn't come out of the writer's Like there are a lot
of infrastructural reasons why big studios can't do what podcasters do.
I know, I never thought that I would that I would love this medium as much as I do. It's just been so rewarding, I think because of that connection to listeners. And I have said before and even more so now that we're in an era of not in person weddings. But if two ologites met through the show and get married, I am a universal life church minister. I will be happy to zoom marry you. What wims us to.
Day?
I feel like it is my duty.
You heard it here, Ologize, you heard it here? Do you want dad word to marry you two? All you have to do is meet somebody and then fall in love and then decide to get married.
There is an ologies Facebook singles group. I think it's called flirty Ologites or Flirtology, one of those, but I'll put it in a side. Please see the Facebook group Flirtology Singles quote a place for olagites and other nerds dueebs, wonks and boffins to meet, mingle, flirt, chat and canoodle. There's nine hundred and eight hot dorks waiting for you. So maybe maybe this is the universe aka me telling you to maybe join text a crush about the banks
you just cut. We're all gonna die anyway. Just take a chance. Also quick ad break right now. A double donation was made to the Project for Awesome thanks to sponsors of the show and links to sponsors and to that charity are in the show notes. Okay, I think we were talking about yes, flirtology singles. So if you're single and you like learning things about slug dicks, let me hook you up with someone. A lot of people
asked about the positives and benefits of certain fandoms. Bailey Spurling letters from eleanor Rigby, which is a great name. Cary Simo, Kathleen Sachs, Natalie Rhodes, and Kim Bonneker all kind of asked, like, what's the most moving thing you've ever seen a group of fans do for someone else? Or what's been the most wholesome view of the world, what kinds of experiences have really touched you.
What's having a moment this year which is a really beautiful thing to watch is fans rallying together to be pro social with causes and to actively help shape the world. Like there is this budding form of activism called fan activism.
And one of my favorite instances is the Project for Awesome, which has been going on for like over ten years now, which is a nerd Fighter, John and Hank thing, but extends to their larger network of creators that actually started as like an algorithmic hack to get on the front page of YouTube back when that was a thing and is now a major fundraising for charity. Experience. Fandoms do
all sorts of beautiful things. There's a great book called Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby about fans funding other buffy fans in like the nineties to like get them playing tickets and get them to like fan meetups. I've seen K Pop fans doing, honestly, doing some great work this season. There are a lot of Twitch streamers and gamers who do a lot of fundraising for charity. Saint Jude is a recipient for a lot of those.
There's a lot of beautiful stuff that happens when you can get a community together and move them in a positive direction. Like what I'm really enjoying right now is the community of people on TikTok who are building the ratitue musical.
Is it cast with real rats please say yes.
No no, But it's this beautiful work of like collaborative creativity.
So this was recorded in December. Side note out of order with the Rats episode, which you may reference if you would like to know all about Rodents and Ratituey TikTok musicals, and also hear a career rodent cologists talk about the zanious things he's seen a rat abscond with. Also, I do break down into tears about rats giving each other presents like a chewed on biscuit or a dead moth. That's normal, Everything's fine. Are there any thoughts that you
have about fandom being cultish or religious? A ton of listeners who I will say their names and decide your names my mouth. Let's do it, Tony Jane, kat Lindsay Reagan, El Hereford, Hillary Larson, Ashley Scribner, Shirka Alahi, Kathleen Sachs, and Amber Lee Noel? Or are those just so different in severity and harm and emotional impact that they're not even comparable?
Oh? I mean, if you are cutting off all of your social ties and devoting all of your financial capital to a fandom, it's probably a cult. But outside of those contexts, communities develop language and rituals all the time. And if your ritual is, you know, buy yourself a dozen roses and have your girlfriends over once a week to watch The Bachelorette.
I don't want to be a cliche, but I'm not here to make.
Friends ritual not cult? Okay, which admirable ritual by yourself a dozen roses every week, That is a great treat. Why not? Meredith?
Ever, the anthropologist says that from a community evolutionary perspective, we as big bald apes are constantly trying to find who is chill and who is sus. And when fandoms get too large, like even over two hundred people in a group, it's scary for us to trust each other. So people get bitchy. Folks begin to bicker, subfandoms skiz them off based on who they ship or maybe what seasons or franchises they like more.
Are they cults? Mostly not. Again, if you or someone you know is cutting off everybody who doesn't belong and also devoting all of their financial resources to this outside organization, probably a cult. Most fandoms are not. In fact, I can't really think of a fandom that is aside from occasional like actual cults of personality, in which case they're small but hold a lot of weight, or religions like scientology,
which are large and hold a lot of weight. Mm hmm, I mean, do religions offspring off of like off of objects? Of fandom and like works of science fiction, Scientology is an example of that happening, So it could happen. Mm hmm, it's not outside the realm of.
Possibility Scientology episode anyone, JK, I'm too scared and you know those are based on science fiction books scientology in particular. And that one last patron question I have to ask are so many Hannah Miss Kitty, Monica first time question asker, Irena Dizazzo, Caitlin Powell, Monica Aviva, Elizabeth, Paulina Krassinka, Samantha Ryan, Jolanta Banal, Lauren Masca, Broda, Deborah Boden, and Samantha steel Man all had questions about fan fiction and they wanted
to know. Monica asked, what is the academic discussion surrounding of fan fiction writing? Are they taken seriously in academic context? And Arena's the first time question asker and wants to know just what your thoughts are When does it cross the line from creative expression to privacy invasion?
I have never had fan fiction written about me, so I don't have a lot of experience about privacy invasion, but a lot of it is imaginings rather than spying. On someone m h. Academia takes fan fiction very seriously, does it. Really? It's a very interesting subject of research for a lot of people. It blends into fan labor discussions, it blends into representation discussions. There are a lot of people who have done math and like quantitative analyzes of
the fan fiction landscapes. It blends into like legal challenges. Like it's a really interesting space for fan studies and it's a really interesting place to be, which is one of the reasons I think it's so heavily associated with the idea of fandom. I think it's a delight. I
used to read a lot of it. I read less of it now, mostly because time and tastes change, and the fandoms that I'm interested in reading about, like the kinds of thick I want, isn't necessarily the kinds of fick that's prolific, because I want like story continuity fix Like right now I'm starting to hunt down fick for the Magicians because that series ended, and I really just want more of those characters and of that world, and it left on a really great like new beginning ending,
rather than like everything that had to have been said was said ending, So like there was a lot of negative space in that show for imagining, and I really am like interested in that. But FICK is also really heavily into like it crosses over heavily into ship, although not all FICK is shipping by any means, and not all shipping happens in Thick by any means, and erotica
and sex positivity. There are all sorts of genres that people may take some sort of issue with, like real personfic or dub con or non con.
Just a quick jargon rundown fanfic again is fan fiction shipping once again creating relationships and dub con and non con. I had to look it up, and it means portraying sexual elements of dubious consent or non consent. So, of course, fan fiction about real people and depictions of violence are areas people get understandably squiky about.
But one of the things about fan fiction, and one of the interesting things about the Internet, is like when fan fiction was happening, there was almost no way that an object of fandom would read it. Writers' rooms can't because they can't risk ideas from Thick. They can't risk the idea of like idea theft so like writers for writers rooms can't read FICK for their own series, or
it typically can't. I only know a few writers, but that's generally the operating procedure, which isn't to say that authors don't write FICK and like writers and writers don't write FICK. They do, but like under pseudonyms and stuff like that, because of the way that intellectual property works. And I think it's fascinating because you can see the
most interesting characters are male. It's very very white. It's a microcosm of the Internet more broadly, where there are issues of representation and issues of expression and issues of labeller like. It's just a beautiful little microcosm of all of the other issues that as a society we're dealing with today. In this a varying quality, nicheified experience for people who want that. So I'm very pro fan fiction, even though I don't read a lot of it.
So fan fiction is a way to create art that perhaps breaks the bounds of what a lot of typical mainstream studio entertainment looks like, where executives have to answer to shareholders and corporations rely on a few big tent pole movies to keep the whole studio standing, and fan fiction doesn't have those restrictions. Anything can happen in your
own word processing doc or notebook. So creators are kind of like, y'all dream up whatever you want, but your tweets are not going to influence what I want to write. My very very good friend, Dalen Rodriguez is a showrunner for the show Queen of the South, and she says her dms get filled with people sending their opinions on storylines and relationships between characters. She doesn't even open them. She appreciates the enthusiasm, but doesn't engage because she has a whole show to run.
Being good on Twitter is its own skills. Not all creators of objects of fandom have any interest or ability to be objects of fandom themselves. And this is where like respecting the creative I think happens is like one of the other things that happens a lot is a lot of fan entitlement, of like there's a balance between the creative process and what audiences want, and it's a lot easier for independent creators to give audiences more of
what they want. But there's also that Ford quote of like, if I ask the people what they want, they would have said faster horses, and so like, there's this balance between the creative process and like the stories that creators have inside themselves and want to get out versus design by committee. Yeah, which you know can be good, but also can take things to weird or less compel, less emotionally compelling places for the sake of fitting everything in.
Right, last couple questions of my own biggest flim flam about fandom, any myths that you would like to get on a soapbox at bust.
That it's only for teenage girls haha. Conversely that teenage girl taste doesn't matter, right, Like, how can this be such an important cultural phenomenon and discount one of the loudest contingencies of it. If I could soapbox forever, it would be like teen girl taste matters to what actually becomes popular and commercially viable in this and other countries. So I think it's like derision of teen girl taste.
I really hate it when talk show hosts drag out fan fiction and fan art as like a tool for embarrassment of the actors in an ip.
Oh that sucks.
I hate that it wasn't written for you, and so like there's that. There's also the assumption, like in my job, and I get this a lot, is like, oh, you study fandom, so you must study the fandom that I'm in, and that is absolutely not the case. Like I did not grow up in like emo bandom. Like I can't tell you about the culture of my chemical romance fans. I know they exist, that's the extent of my knowledge.
And so it's really easy to have the fallacy of well, fandom only exists in my experience of fandom mm hmm, which is not the case, because the experience of being a fan is just like just as diverse as the people who are fans of stuff.
Mm hmm. I imagine you must have heard a lot about really upset Game of Thrones fans who are just like, well, I'm done now, done forever.
Yeah, when fans willfully break uh huh and are like, nope, this is not part of my identity anymore. M not realizing that, like, hating on something is still a form of fandom because you're still caring. Like the opposite of love isn't hate, it's apathy.
Mostly I hate the way I don't hate you, not even close, not even a little bit. Is that what you hate the most about your job not Game of Thrones, but people having assumptions about it or what's the worst thing about being a panthropologist.
Probably that people have a very monolithic understanding of fandom and really want to define it however they went into it, like it's hard to broaden horizons. Is the hardest part and worst part about my job, because it's so tied to identity, either on the production side or the consumption side, Like change is hard and slow and there's a lot of risk aversion is probably the hardest part about my job is convincing people to one take risks and to have empathy for the other parts of the process.
So a lot of us think we know what fandom is and entails, but panthropologists know that identity and self care and brand loyalty and exploring your own faults through fiction is very complicated, which is why panthropology is fascinating. What about the best that's the coolest part? Is it all the free lanyards you get and going to conventions when there's not a plague.
I think it's just opening my eyes to what other people like and are interested in. I get to see so many facets of the cultural landscape that I Because I work in the private sector, not in academia, my research is dictated by my clients, not my personal research interests, and so I get to explore all sorts of other worlds that I would otherwise consider myself too old for or too young for, or would not normally gravitate towards it,
or any other number of traits. So I get to see a much wider version of culture than most people's individual feeds would feed them.
How do you feel when people tell you that they're a big fan of you? Uh?
Doesn't happen a lot. I'm one of those professionals that like, I know what it takes to be famous and build a brand on the Internet, and I have actively and deliberately chosen not to do that for myself.
No, man, And what do you tell people who are like, hey, my niece wants to be Internet famous and you're like, oh, yeah, I hold the keys to that in a little box. What do you tell people?
I think, well, okay, so if your niece wants to be Internet famous, m I would say that they need to figure out what they like to make MM and then make a lot of it's like make a lot and understand what about it they like, what about it they don't like, get help where they can in the stuff that they don't like doing, and spend a lot of time watching stuff that they like for the express
purpose of under standing why they like it. A lot of creative professionals spend a lot of their time consuming other people's content in order to look at it with a critical eye. So in the age of the Internet, it's like, well, what is unique to you and what do you want to borrow from other stuff you like?
And having that blend of unique to you and borrowed such that it is familiar is really really important in that beginning stages, as is knowing what you want out of being a creator, Like are you doing this because you want to be famous? But do you want to be famous? Because it's sometimes a proxy for having financial stability, Like drill down into the why that is it because you want to have fun and communicate the having fun part? Is it about having freedom of expression or is it
about financial stability? Or is it about per growth needs like learning how to develop a skill? Why are you doing this? What do you like about the content that you consume and make a lot of it and understand how to tweak the stuff that you're making if you want to grow, Like cause, if you want to be a professional, you have to scale to a size that
can sustain being a professional. But if you just want to make stuff to make stuff, then make stuff and make a lot of it and practice and build those skills.
Skills deck skill. Ough, that's such good advice. That's going to change at least one listener's life. I'm sure just so exciting. That's like literally like the end scene of pulp fiction with the briefcase. You're like, here's what's in it? Guys, Oh my god, that's what's in it. I in no way did I intend to make this a two hour interview, and I'm so thankful you stuck around. This looks like
it's going to be a two parter. I'm sure. This has just been so exciting ever since I was handed your business card, it has been on my desk for probably a year, So I'm so excited and finally talk to you.
Likewise, can I give you my interview questions? Yeah? Okay, absolutely, So Allie, what do you consider yourself to be a fan.
Of Oh, Okay, things I'm a fan of. I think that I'm the biggest, like Stan of probably Fiona Apple. I think that if I were to ever meet her, I think and I have met her very briefly, and I just I don't even think I said a sentence. I think I just was like she was like in a lobby leaving an event as I was coming in. I think that that would be probably someone that I have so much awe and respect for in whose music and words and mission and ethos have meant probably the
most to me over time. Probably, Yeah, She's She's someone who just I'm never disappointed by her.
What is your earliest memory of being a fan of anything?
My early okay, okay, all right, do you want to know my first cosplay?
Yes?
Okay. I was the youngest of three girls, and I also is the youngest. Like just I watched way too stuff that was inappropriate for my age because my sisters were older. So like tons of our movies when I was just barely in kindergarten, it was just like they'd be on cable and so but we we would watch Escape from New York too much, And when I was five or six, really was excited about dressing up like
Snake Pliskin. So I cut off the arms of a shirt into like a muscle tank and I made a rubber eye patch out of an old bike tire, and then also took my mom's She was not happy about it, but I took her eyeeshadow and made a five o'clock shadow call me Snake, and I was like in bliss and I think we may have had a toy gun. But I just remember marching around the backyard being like, I am Snake Pliskin. I'm not dressed as Pliskin right now.
I am Snake Pliskin. I've escaped from New York played by Kurt Russell in a post apocalyptic world, and there's somewhere there exists a polaroid of it, and it's one of those treasures that if my family, if we ever find it, Oh my god, the bounty I would pay. Oh yeah, that was me at my most badass. I peaked. I peaked.
Thanks so much for taking like more than an hour.
Oh I love this? Are you kidding? I was like, as soon as you're like, I don't have anywhere to be, I was like, game on, So what is the lesson here? Y'all ask smart passionate people about the smart passionate people they study, study people who study people who study characters and cup banks if you want them, and just make a lot of stuff, Just make things get dirty, be weirder than you think is okay to be. Meanwhile, follow
at Meredith Gene on Twitter. She's also on Clubhouse, where she's been leading discussions on things like fandom and the attention economy. You can follow me if you like at Ali Ward with Bonel on Twitter and Instagram. We're also at ology on both. You can join the Facebook Ologies podcast group. Thank you Aaron Talbert for admitting that you can find other ology heights in the wild with merch
at ologismerch dot com. Thank you Shannon Feltis and Bonnie Dutch of the comedy podcast You Are That for managing all that. Thank you Noel Dilworth for keeping the whole ship running. Thanks Emily White and all the transcribers for making transcripts available on our website at alliwar dot com. Slash Ologies extras. There's a link for those for free
in the show notes, as well as bleeped episodes. Thank you Caleb Patten for bleeping them and thank you to editors Jared Sleeper, Megahunk, who hosts Quarantine Calistenics every weekday at nine am Pacific on Twitch, and to Jurassic Park Fanatic and Kittie Lover Stephen Ray Morris of the podcast See Jurassic Right and the Percast and a new Everything but the movie A Star Wars Books podcast. Nick Thorburn of the very good band Islands wrote and played the
theme music. They have a new album due out in June exciting and at the end of each episode, I tell a secret, and this week it's not very juicy, but it's something I think about all day.
Every day.
There's this long strip of plastic tangled in my neighbour's eucalyptus tree, and it's probably like fifteen or twenty feet in the air, and I see it whipping in the wind every day, and I think, should I risk breaking several femurs to just go remove that? Because it bums me out and I keep staring at it, and I keep thinking, how am I going to get that thing down? So stay tuned. I gotta make it. I got to
do something anyway. Okay, I'm a fan of you. By pacadermatology, homeology, cryptozoology, lithology, technology, meteorology, fatology, apology, ceiology, elinologynic dici. But Bevan and by good and all't be great.
Butt your picture on my walk.
It's from his street that it's not so, that it's not so.
Mm hm