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Speaker 4: No, hey, it's that TBT pick from when You War
Speaker 4: baggy jeans and shell necklaces. Alley word. I'm back with
Speaker 4: a pop cultural psychological episode. It's going to become very
Speaker 4: dear to your heart because it's about why something is
Speaker 4: dear to your heart. First, you're dear to me. Patrons,
Speaker 4: Thanks for paying a dollar or more a month to
Speaker 4: submit your questions to ologists. Thanks to everyone who talks
Speaker 4: and tweets about the show. Thanks to everyone leaving reviews,
Speaker 4: which I read every single one. I churned back at you,
Speaker 4: such as this one written this week by Michigan or
Speaker 4: Lady t Lav, who wrote, Yeah love Ologies. While sitting
Speaker 4: in my car in the elementary school pickup lane, I
Speaker 4: was listening to ologies with my windows down, and as
Speaker 4: another mom walked by, she shouted, Hey, that's ologies. I
Speaker 4: got so excited to happen upon another ologite in the wild.
Speaker 4: I became flum mixed and could only reply, yeah, love ologies.
Speaker 4: Finding your own people so fun, Lady t Lav, so timely,
Speaker 4: you have no idea, So panthropology, let's do this episode?
Speaker 4: You ready, okay? So Phanthropology is indeed a real term.
Speaker 4: It was coined by Kristin Longfield, a marketing strategist who
Speaker 4: used to work at Trailer Park. They make movie trailers
Speaker 4: and they have a very confusing name if you were
Speaker 4: not in the entertainment business. But the fan part of
Speaker 4: panthropology comes from the word fanatic, which stemmed from the
Speaker 4: Latin for a temple or a sacred place, and fanatic
Speaker 4: meant insanely but divinely inspired. But we have been using
Speaker 4: it to mean a person who hella dig something since
Speaker 4: the mid sixteen hundreds, long before we had TV series
Speaker 4: to gobble up and comic books to love, although, let's
Speaker 4: be honest, illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages kind of
Speaker 4: like comic books, but with more horses and demon babies
Speaker 4: and gold leaf. But either way, this ologist happened to
Speaker 4: meet my now fiance a year or two ago, I think,
Speaker 4: and he demanded her business card to give me. And
Speaker 4: I have wanted to record this episode at least for
Speaker 4: a year. We're both LA based, and we kept waiting
Speaker 4: for the pandemic to pass. But alas, we just recently
Speaker 4: recorded over the phone, and it was such a compelling
Speaker 4: and interesting look at why we love what we love.
Speaker 4: We talked for nearly two hours, didn't even take a
Speaker 4: pee break, to be honest, I just adore her.
Speaker 5: So.
Speaker 4: She studied communication and culture at Indiana University Gohoosias and
Speaker 4: got her masters at UCLA and Critical Media Studies and
Speaker 4: Fan Studies. She has been consulting and on staff as
Speaker 4: an anthropologist and a researcher at marketing firms and entertainment companies.
Speaker 4: She runs her own called Random Machine. We talked so
Speaker 4: long about so many things that y'all love that I
Speaker 4: could not cut this down into a single episode. So
Speaker 4: feast your ears on a delicious two parter. Next week,
Speaker 4: we're going to dive in even more into stands versus fans,
Speaker 4: where's the line, shipping people, toxic fandoms, formulas on attaining
Speaker 4: Internet fame, and this episode you're about to hear we
Speaker 4: lay all the groundwork talking about the history of fandoms,
Speaker 4: what a fandom even is, Disney bounding her favorite things,
Speaker 4: and sports versus art fanatics, kpop politics, Trekki's Star Wars prequels,
Speaker 4: the Curse of the Algorithm, and what to do when
Speaker 4: your favorite books are penned by problematic trolls, creating your
Speaker 4: own fan base, self identifying morality, all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 4: So cozy up and get to know and love behavioral
Speaker 4: researcher and legit professional on her business card un ironically
Speaker 4: panthropologist Meredith Levine.
Speaker 6: I am Meredith Levine and my pronouns are she her great?
Speaker 4: Now you are a panthropologist, I am You're the first
Speaker 4: anthropologist I have ever heard of? Are you the only
Speaker 4: one on Earth?
Speaker 6: I am, by no means the only one on Earth?
Speaker 6: In fact, the title is not even of my origin.
Speaker 6: The title I heard at while I was still in
Speaker 6: graduate school. I went to a session with a woman
Speaker 6: named Chris who was working at trailer park at the time,
Speaker 6: who now has her own consultancy called Panthropology. He and
Speaker 6: it matched onto what I was studying at the time
Speaker 6: and said, hey, I want to do that for a
Speaker 6: living m hm. And so it stuck with me for
Speaker 6: the last ten years of my professional career.
Speaker 4: It's so perfect. I love that it just kind of
Speaker 4: says everything. And it's also is anthropological, right it is.
Speaker 6: And I use a lot of mixed methods research in
Speaker 6: my work. Increasingly I'm using a lot of analytics dashboards
Speaker 6: on social platforms. But I have done participant observation, I
Speaker 6: have done a quantitative research. I have done survey design
Speaker 6: and focus groups and all sorts of other methods that
Speaker 6: researchers would use in the field, and a lot of
Speaker 6: it is qualitative interpretation and very anthropological.
Speaker 4: Are you a fan of any particular thing that you
Speaker 4: feel like really has grasped your heart?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 6: And my origin story of panthropology dates back to age
Speaker 6: thirteen with a research project in middle school, so there's
Speaker 6: a long history there as far as the professional interest
Speaker 6: is concerned. But my current fandoms are a little sad
Speaker 6: right now, as are many people's fandoms because I'm a
Speaker 6: fan of Disney theme parks, Hugh, and so they're a
Speaker 6: little sad right now, but that's okay. It needs to
Speaker 6: be in order to be safe. Increasingly, I'm fans of
Speaker 6: fewer things just because of the nature of the experience
Speaker 6: of being a fan and how tied it is into identity.
Speaker 6: So I like to say I'm a fan of fans,
Speaker 6: and my two biggest fandoms are Disney theme parks and
Speaker 6: nerd Fightia, which is the fandom centered around the Internet
Speaker 6: properties of John and Hank Green, especially the blog brothers.
Speaker 4: Hank and John Green, if you don't know of them,
Speaker 4: have built a bit of a media empire after starting
Speaker 4: a log channel together in two thousand and seven, and
Speaker 4: they now have several channels under their umbrella, like Hank's
Speaker 4: SI Show. They're also both prolific writers. John is the
Speaker 4: author of The Fault in Our Stars. They have many
Speaker 4: titles between them and the fundraise for their charity, which
Speaker 4: is called The Foundation to Decrease World Suck, and they
Speaker 4: are essentially trying to make the Internet closer to the
Speaker 4: happiest place on Earth. Oh along those lines. Have you
Speaker 4: ever Disney bounded?
Speaker 6: I have Disney bounded, and I've also done cosplay, And
Speaker 6: one of my favorite personal fan memories is several years back,
Speaker 6: I did a costume of the tightrope walker from the
Speaker 6: Haunted Mansion ride Oh My God and Bob and went
Speaker 6: during Halloween, which is one of the only times where
Speaker 6: when you get the extra ticket, adults can wear costumes
Speaker 6: in the park, And so I got to wear the
Speaker 6: costume in front of the Haunted Mansion and I have
Speaker 6: some great photos from that.
Speaker 4: This tightrope Walker, I looked it up, is in a
Speaker 4: petticoated dress and holds a parasol and when the elevator
Speaker 4: drops sorry spoiler alert for the Haunted Mansion, you see
Speaker 4: that she's balanced on a rope right above the gaping
Speaker 4: jaws of a gator. What a costume.
Speaker 6: I'm not a professional cosplayer by any means, or a
Speaker 6: professional Disney bounder, but yes I have. I have done
Speaker 6: those things.
Speaker 4: Would you ever want any of your ashes scattered in
Speaker 4: the Haunted Mansion, even knowing that someone would just vacuum
Speaker 4: it up at the end of the day.
Speaker 6: No, because I know that people vacuum it up at
Speaker 6: the end of the day.
Speaker 4: They know that though at this point they know that
Speaker 4: maybe there might be an iota of them left right, Yeah, okay.
Speaker 6: Try and do this a non zero amount. And one
Speaker 6: of the most interesting things about the Haunted Mansion is
Speaker 6: their air filtration system is so good that they have
Speaker 6: to keep faking the like dust. It's genuinely a really
Speaker 6: great air filtration system.
Speaker 4: Oh my god. Okay, so you're thirteen years old. When
Speaker 4: I was thirteen, like digital media did not exist. We had,
Speaker 4: you know, laser discs or something. But at thirteen, what
Speaker 4: was your middle school project?
Speaker 6: So I went to a middle school in Los Angeles
Speaker 6: and we had a project called the Eye Search, which
Speaker 6: was designed to teach us about research methodologies. M It
Speaker 6: was a year long project where we got to choose
Speaker 6: our topic and then proceed to research it with a
Speaker 6: list of methodologies we had to do with like minimum
Speaker 6: levels of kinds of sources and do primary research and
Speaker 6: secondary research. And at the time, the first three Harry
Speaker 6: Potter books had come out, and mind you, I was
Speaker 6: not doing a research project on Harry Potter. I was
Speaker 6: doing a research project on Harry Potter fandom.
Speaker 5: Some person could explode, ah and I could sense that
Speaker 5: there was a there there because of the midnight book
Speaker 5: parties that were starting to happen.
Speaker 6: At bookstores and the way it was sweeping through students
Speaker 6: at the school. And so my twelve year old, thirteen
Speaker 6: year old self went the route of, well, clearly, we
Speaker 6: like this because it taps into archetypal characters and personality types,
Speaker 6: which is like the angle I went form HM as
Speaker 6: thirteen year old me, which as thirty something year old me,
Speaker 6: I was not super far off nice because of the
Speaker 6: way that archetypal characters cater to our our abilities to
Speaker 6: project our identities into them. It turns out the fandom
Speaker 6: is very identity based. But that's where it started. I
Speaker 6: knew there was a there there. I read the only
Speaker 6: two nonfiction full length books about Harry Potter at the time.
Speaker 6: One was a guidebook to all of the like Wickan
Speaker 6: and Witchcraft references, and the other was how to teach
Speaker 6: It in school's source book for English teachers.
Speaker 4: Ah, you know, we did a Potterology episode about by
Speaker 4: chemist in Nebraska who uses Potter spells to talk about
Speaker 4: high level chemistry, which is really cool.
Speaker 6: That is really cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she's very passionate it side note I have since
Speaker 4: added a disclaimer on that episode's show notes that says,
Speaker 4: since this episode was first released, JK. Rowling has said
Speaker 4: and written some deeply transphobic sentiments, and for this Ali
Speaker 4: no longer stands nor supports her. So in listening to
Speaker 4: this episode, let's marvel at theologists herself and her love
Speaker 4: of chemistry, and remember that feminism is intersectional, and trans
Speaker 4: women are women, and trans folks are welcome and beloved
Speaker 4: in the ologies universe. Okay, let's talk about fictitious people.
Speaker 4: When you talk about archetypal characters, is there some basis
Speaker 4: or is there some correlation between like what personality psychologists find,
Speaker 4: like you know and E and j R.
Speaker 6: Like yeah, yeah, Myers Briggs type yes, thank you. So
Speaker 6: in I haven't gone the psychological route, but I had
Speaker 6: the opportunity to work on an amazing study in twenty
Speaker 6: sixteen under the guidance of a business anthropologist named Susan Kresnica.
Speaker 6: She's amazing and a genius, and we did a year
Speaker 6: long study of fans and fandom about what the experience
Speaker 6: of being a fan is at its most essential levels
Speaker 6: and how being fans differ depending on what you're a
Speaker 6: fan of. And the framework we used for that was
Speaker 6: moral foundations theory, the framework established by Jonathan Height in
Speaker 6: his book The Righteous Mind.
Speaker 4: For a deeper dive a link that Jonathan Hyde book
Speaker 4: The Righteous Mind why good people are divided by politics
Speaker 4: and religion. But as for right now, I will just
Speaker 4: scream yes, why why why? Why? Though into the sky
Speaker 4: and Meredith explains and so fandoms do differ based on
Speaker 4: the way they perceive morality in the world.
Speaker 6: Fandom is a proxy for or our identities. So where
Speaker 6: do archetypal characters fit in our abilities to see ourselves
Speaker 6: reflected or our future selves reflected? Because aspects of identity
Speaker 6: are different depending on what people are fanus of. So
Speaker 6: like sports fandom has a very interesting sense of placemaking
Speaker 6: that media fandom and music fandom does not necessarily have.
Speaker 4: And what is placemaking exactly.
Speaker 6: It's ties to space. So with sports fans, often they
Speaker 6: are fans because they were born into it based on
Speaker 6: where they grew up. Yeah, I'm saying they because I'm
Speaker 6: not specifically a sports fan, but I totally understand it
Speaker 6: because it's where you grew up. Oftentimes people are born
Speaker 6: into it, and it's a family tradition, which case, being
Speaker 6: a fan of a team from home helps contribute to
Speaker 6: a sense of home. We've also seen in some of
Speaker 6: the research that we did that fans sports fans will
Speaker 6: also adopt new teams if they're moving to new homes
Speaker 6: as a way to feel more at home in the
Speaker 6: new place they're in and connect with other people who
Speaker 6: are in that new place.
Speaker 4: Have you ever done any studies on why sports fanatics
Speaker 4: in general use the first person plural when we are
Speaker 4: gonna win or they're going to win with we're at home,
Speaker 4: we're eating nachos, we are absolutely not doing any physical exertion.
Speaker 4: Why is it a wei.
Speaker 6: Because it's so it's such a proxy for identity. Okay,
Speaker 6: like going down the street wearing a jersey, you see
Speaker 6: someone else wearing the same jersey and there's a sense
Speaker 6: of kinship there. Same thing with like if you're on
Speaker 6: a date or at a networking mixer or something and
Speaker 6: someone's wearing like jewelry that's oddly specific to a very
Speaker 6: niche thing, and you notice it's we're finding our like
Speaker 6: minded people and expressing ourselves and the way we use fandom,
Speaker 6: and this was such an interesting thing from this study
Speaker 6: is oftentimes it's to express ourselves, but also to build
Speaker 6: community and to create self care rituals in terms of
Speaker 6: yeah like mood regulation and experiencing feelings in a safe
Speaker 6: way as preparation for real world feelings, and exploring new
Speaker 6: feelings as a way to get a full range of
Speaker 6: human emotions. One of the frameworks we thought of in
Speaker 6: the beginning that is often talked about in the fans
Speaker 6: studies discourse is if fandom is a proxy for religion.
Speaker 6: There are reasons why they're similar, there are reasons why
Speaker 6: they're different.
Speaker 4: Meredith says that while sports might make you feel belonging
Speaker 4: to a certain set of values about right or wrong
Speaker 4: or particular rituals, religion requires, for the most part, unwavering
Speaker 4: faith and spirituality. And religion also address things like life
Speaker 4: after death philosophies you're not gonna get from wearing a
Speaker 4: hat shaped like cheese. My gosh, I have I have
Speaker 4: so many questions for you. I'm so sorry interesting ask
Speaker 4: and you.
Speaker 6: Can edit this part out, but like I've got nothing
Speaker 6: but time today, so much times you want to take
Speaker 6: I am happy to chat.
Speaker 4: That's right, my babies, this is gonna be a two
Speaker 4: parter about why we love things. Okay, I'm gonna double back.
Speaker 4: Exactly what is fandom? It's such a basic question, but like,
Speaker 4: what is it? How do you define just like liking
Speaker 4: something versus being a fan.
Speaker 6: So we asked that question in the research under Susan's research.
Speaker 1: And.
Speaker 6: One can like something and not be a fan of it,
Speaker 6: and one can identify as a fan of it. Fandom
Speaker 6: is the portmanteau of fanatic and kingdom or dom as
Speaker 6: the suffix of like realm of wow. Okay, And it
Speaker 6: was first used to in religious contexts, and then it
Speaker 6: was used in baseball, and now it's used mostly in media.
Speaker 6: And so fandom has a few different definitions. There's fandom
Speaker 6: with a capital F when you're saying, like the fandom,
Speaker 6: which is generally in reference to a group of media
Speaker 6: fans who express a certain set of behaviors that largely
Speaker 6: revolve around transformative works and cultures and fan labor and creativity.
Speaker 6: This is when you think of like fan fiction and
Speaker 6: shipping and that sort of thing is associated with the fandom,
Speaker 6: which can be ip specific or in general based on
Speaker 6: these practices. But then you have fandom which can be
Speaker 6: a proxy for the experience of being a fan, because
Speaker 6: that's a mouthful or any community of fans. So like,
Speaker 6: not all sports fans will say they're part of a fandom. Yeah,
Speaker 6: they'll say they're a fan of this thing, right, whereas
Speaker 6: fandom is more commonly used in those spaces of transformative
Speaker 6: works and cultures like.
Speaker 4: Books and movie franchises. Okay, that makes sense. And then
Speaker 4: when it comes again to those like archetypes and identities,
Speaker 4: do you find that there are certain archetypes that keep
Speaker 4: getting repeated, Like I remember, do you remember the show
Speaker 4: Gilligan's Island. Have you ever heard this theory?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 6: Please tell me the theory.
Speaker 4: The theory that each of the seven people on Gilligan's
Speaker 4: Island represents a sin from the Bible, from sloth to
Speaker 4: to greed. I'm going to run through these really fast,
Speaker 4: Coveting mister Howell Anger, Missus Howell, Lust, Ginger, Gluttony, the Skipper, Envy,
Speaker 4: Mary Anne, Sloth, Gilligan, and Pride the Professor. Pride is
Speaker 4: also vanity, which I didn't know, but that's what a
Speaker 4: size are for. So it's like they all represent a
Speaker 4: sin and they're in purgatory. I don't know if you
Speaker 4: remember that's.
Speaker 6: A great theory following so far.
Speaker 4: But you know, are there certain kind of stamps of
Speaker 4: people that when people are creating, you know, fictional works,
Speaker 4: they know this is a part of our personality that
Speaker 4: is going to really identify with this character. Like do
Speaker 4: we identify with all the characters because of different facets
Speaker 4: within ourselves, or do typically people find a character that
Speaker 4: they say, I'm I'm a Carriac solo, Yeah, I'm a
Speaker 4: carry exactly.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's so personal. It's so personal because it's how
Speaker 6: someone sees themselves. Right now, my husband and I are
Speaker 6: watching Frasier for the first time.
Speaker 7: As good evening, Dr Crane, Doctor Sterna.
Speaker 6: It's nice to see you again, and everyone there is
Speaker 6: so relatable to us. But I can also understand how
Speaker 6: that's not the case for a lot of people, and
Speaker 6: so it really depends on sense of self and how
Speaker 6: people conceive of themselves and how their identities change over
Speaker 6: time and their value systems change over time. For example,
Speaker 6: like I am a Hermione, but also I'm not a
Speaker 6: Gryffindor they're seeing yourself in characters. But then there's also
Speaker 6: the world building and the negative space to play around in.
Speaker 6: And one of the things that we love about Frasier
Speaker 6: right now is how much negative space there is and
Speaker 6: so in. In the history of fan studies, one of
Speaker 6: the typical examples of more is not always better, Sometimes
Speaker 6: more is just more is Midichlorians in Star Wars. It's
Speaker 6: the Prequels.
Speaker 7: Midchlorians are a microscopic life form that resides, but then
Speaker 7: all living sounds.
Speaker 6: They live inside me, inside yourselves.
Speaker 7: Yes, and we are symbions with them, symbians life forms
Speaker 7: living together for mutual advantage. Without the Medichlorians, life cannot
Speaker 7: exist and be bit of no knowledge of the force.
Speaker 7: They continually speak to us, telling us the.
Speaker 2: Will of the force.
Speaker 4: So from what I gather, your Medicchlorians are kind of
Speaker 4: like your microbiome, but instead of good poops and more serotonin,
Speaker 4: you can like perform telekinesis. Now you can check out
Speaker 4: the Microbiology episode to learn how your gut party works
Speaker 4: on Earth if you were not a Jedi. Night and
Speaker 4: Jarrett would also like to add that Medicchlorians sounds too
Speaker 4: much like mitochondria, and he thinks it's too on the nose,
Speaker 4: like come on, Richer.
Speaker 6: I think, thank you cool people did not want to
Speaker 6: know how the Force worked. We did not need this information.
Speaker 6: This was too much information because it squeezed out room
Speaker 6: for imagination. Mm hmmm, Like it squeezed all of the
Speaker 6: imagination out of it. We did not need a canonical
Speaker 6: explanation of like why the force exists because our conceptions
Speaker 6: of it and thoughts around it. We're doing so much
Speaker 6: of a service two fans that the explanation was one
Speaker 6: worse than what we would think of, and two filling
Speaker 6: in this vital negative space where fans can project and imagine.
Speaker 4: Ah, got it, That makes so much sense. And so
Speaker 4: Fraser has a lot of negative space.
Speaker 6: It has a lot of negative space. It's a show
Speaker 6: with like like we're I don't know halfway through season
Speaker 6: one and one of the characters' wives is referenced and
Speaker 6: we never meet her and we don't see her, like
Speaker 6: she's just like talked about while she's not in the room.
Speaker 6: And there's a lot of negative space there to imagine
Speaker 6: and play. And the same is true. This is why
Speaker 6: a lot of like multiverse time travel genre fair. Also,
Speaker 6: it's one of the reasons why I think that that
Speaker 6: pulls so much fandom is because when you have that,
Speaker 6: when you have a very nebulous metaphor for others and outsiders,
Speaker 6: as like aliens tend to be, there's infinite possibilities right
Speaker 6: to play.
Speaker 4: Is that why maybe sci fi and you know, Star Trek,
Speaker 4: Star Wars, Rick and Morty has maybe a more engaged
Speaker 4: or zealous fandom because it lets their mind run around
Speaker 4: within the universe.
Speaker 6: Yes, and also infrastructure, So Star Wars is, Star Wars
Speaker 6: and Star Trek have two different kinds of infrastructure built
Speaker 6: around them, and fan scholars will all cite a book
Speaker 6: called Enterprising Women about the history of female Star Trek
Speaker 6: fans right and the role of that.
Speaker 4: This was the nineteen ninety two publication Enterprising Women, Television
Speaker 4: Fandom and the Creation of Popular Myth by Camille Bacon Smith,
Speaker 4: who examined how fan fiction written by women was often
Speaker 4: derided and even prominent, proficient or roic female characters have
Speaker 4: been frowned upon as being too unrealistic. And this trope
Speaker 4: is called a mary sue and it's a complex issue
Speaker 4: in fan fix circles, I found out by reading too
Speaker 4: many blocks.
Speaker 6: But oftentimes finding fans in like the seventies and eighties
Speaker 6: of nerd culture stuff. It was still a time when
Speaker 6: well roundedness in people was a desired trait as opposed
Speaker 6: to being well lopsided.
Speaker 4: Oh okay, whereas.
Speaker 6: In a narrow casted world where everything is niche, being
Speaker 6: well lopsided can be a way to find a community.
Speaker 6: And so sci fi also has this culture of gathering
Speaker 6: and of sharing of zines and like home edits of
Speaker 6: VHS tapes and having conventions. Pulp and science fiction literature
Speaker 6: have had conventions since like the early nineteen hundreds, and
Speaker 6: so there were gathering places and ways to meet people
Speaker 6: who were similar to you. And with that came a
Speaker 6: lot of safe havens for people who may not have
Speaker 6: had other safe havens. So like the comic book shop
Speaker 6: was a place for nerds to go and be welcome.
Speaker 6: Someone has mixed an amazing Spider manning with the Peter
Speaker 6: Parker The Spectacular Spider Man series is not stand as
Speaker 6: opposed to school where that may not have been the case,
Speaker 6: or home or that may not have been the case.
Speaker 6: And so there is this community building element to it
Speaker 6: as well.
Speaker 4: And how do you feel about the sustainability of that
Speaker 4: community building as niche? Is there any part of you
Speaker 4: that's watched geek culture and nerd culture be commodified to
Speaker 4: where it's no longer something that is a subculture.
Speaker 6: Yeah, this is in parallel with media history. So sports
Speaker 6: fandom can be inherited because sports teams have been around
Speaker 6: long enough to be inherited. We're just now hitting the
Speaker 6: point where media franchises can be inherited. So like Disney
Speaker 6: has been inherited for generations.
Speaker 4: Mmm, like go to.
Speaker 6: Disneyland, go to Disney World, and grandparents are just as
Speaker 6: much fans as their four year old grandchildren mm hm.
Speaker 6: And so there's a lot of longevity there because it's
Speaker 6: intergenerational and can be taught from parent to child and
Speaker 6: part of home culture. Where sports fandom generally was part
Speaker 6: of home culture. It was broadcast on televisions and people
Speaker 6: would gather in bars, and so there's that. But now
Speaker 6: we're hitting a point in media history and media distribution
Speaker 6: where something that wasn't on the air or isn't on
Speaker 6: the air anymore, can discover new fandom.
Speaker 4: For example, binging old Fraser episodes at the touch of
Speaker 4: a button without needing a film archivist and a dusty
Speaker 4: projector or is.
Speaker 6: Around in franchise form to be discovered and rediscovered by
Speaker 6: generation after generation, and so now we're in the point
Speaker 6: where media can be big more mainstream fans in general,
Speaker 6: especially with properties that have been around for more than
Speaker 6: ten years, that have robust cultures around them, that are
Speaker 6: pretty easy to find somebody else who likes those things
Speaker 6: all of Star Wars, Star Trek, doctor who right, supernatural,
Speaker 6: that sort of thing.
Speaker 4: Oh, I forgot to ask, what Harry potterhouse are you?
Speaker 4: You're not Gryffindor.
Speaker 6: I'm not Gryffindor.
Speaker 1: I am.
Speaker 6: I'm a raven Claw. And if I had to pick
Speaker 6: a second house, it would be Slytherin.
Speaker 4: From my limited knowledge, I think you are a raven Claw.
Speaker 4: You're so like academic and brainy and analytical and smart.
Speaker 4: But that is me only knowing you for fifteen twenty minutes.
Speaker 4: But my limited.
Speaker 6: Knowledge, I'm definitely a knowledge for the sake of knowledge
Speaker 6: kind of person. And then I think the secondary trait
Speaker 6: might be ambition, which gets a really bad rap it
Speaker 6: Harry as an unreliable narrator, and the things I could
Speaker 6: say about Harry Potter fandom also of like what happens
Speaker 6: when you have a body of work that trains a
Speaker 6: generation of people to be activist because of the themes
Speaker 6: in the text and like what it's actually representing to
Speaker 6: people at a young age, only to be expanded, commodified
Speaker 6: and lose those activist undertones in the narrative itself, and
Speaker 6: also like the author, And so basically a generation of
Speaker 6: fans were raised to be more liberal than the franchise
Speaker 6: was willing or able to sustain.
Speaker 4: Yeah, greater than the some of its parts. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And I was going to ask how you felt about that,
Speaker 4: because I know so many people who grew up on
Speaker 4: it are not disappointed but devastated rightfully by the personal
Speaker 4: choices that the authors made and opinions that in platforms.
Speaker 4: Is there any kind of grief of identity or disillusionment
Speaker 4: that you have noticed or felt? Yes, yeah, I'd call
Speaker 4: that a big years.
Speaker 6: It's mourning the loss of what was a big part
Speaker 6: of one's identity. Because we have all these frameworks and
Speaker 6: in all of this cultural shorthand amongst a generation of
Speaker 6: people who were raised on these texts who now have
Speaker 6: the question of should this be an inner generational ip?
Speaker 6: Do I teach this to my children? Where is the
Speaker 6: merit of the story versus all of the stuff surrounding
Speaker 6: the story, and what are the ethics of financially supporting
Speaker 6: an institution that people no longer agree with?
Speaker 4: Hm, I'm so disheartened by it and grossed out, But
Speaker 4: it's not woven into necessarily my history the way it
Speaker 4: is you know, some other people's. But that was definitely
Speaker 4: a question we got from patrons. It's like, what do
Speaker 4: you do especially since things like appropriating indigenous language about
Speaker 4: spirit animals. It's like, well, patronis is a better way
Speaker 4: to say that? And now it's like, you know, like
Speaker 4: there's all these shorthands that felt like a safe, inclusive
Speaker 4: space that no longer feels that way, you know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And the question is also like how much how
Speaker 6: much does the infrastructure behind the IP and the author
Speaker 6: impact the experience of the IP? And from a literate
Speaker 6: media perspective, it's, well, the answer to that is a
Speaker 6: lot because of how the intersection of media and storytelling
Speaker 6: and commerce of like, well, do you support the Fantastic
Speaker 6: Beast franchise as a result or not? Do you continue
Speaker 6: to by merch or not? Or do you only by
Speaker 6: merch by like fan artists, or to what extent is
Speaker 6: this artist making livelihoods and where does all of that intersect,
Speaker 6: And all of that is deeply personal and very complicated,
Speaker 6: and I wish there was a good right answer, but
Speaker 6: the answer is it's deeply personal and really complicated.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so from what I understand, it's really complicated and
Speaker 4: deeply personal. I mean, real talk. Would it be easier
Speaker 4: if she were not alive? Still, I'm not in any
Speaker 4: way talking about putting a hit on her. I hope
Speaker 4: she knows what I mean? Does she know what I mean?
Speaker 4: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 4: The way it is to separate the art from the
Speaker 4: artist in posthumous works, you know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean maybe there's also the like John Green
Speaker 6: notion of books belong to their readers, of like the
Speaker 6: author doesn't matter. So also it depends on the kind
Speaker 6: of fan one is, and if authorial intent matters, or
Speaker 6: is only what matters? What's what ended up on the page?
Speaker 4: Right? That's so interesting. You know, you mentioned really early
Speaker 4: on something about a kind of moral parallel to the
Speaker 4: fandoms that you choose. Can you tell me a little
Speaker 4: bit more about that? What fandoms tend to have? What ideals?
Speaker 6: Yeah, so media fandoms tend to be a little bit
Speaker 6: more liberal and activist.
Speaker 4: M h.
Speaker 6: Sports fandoms tend to be a little bit more conservative.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 6: Music fandoms tend to be very like live and let live.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 6: Music fandoms also like really experience flow states from their fandoms.
Speaker 4: Oh what does that mean?
Speaker 6: So like a scholar whose name I'm about to butcher,
Speaker 6: that's okay, me hichink sent me high.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 6: Did a lot of research on flow states, and with music,
Speaker 6: it's easy to like be at a concert or be
Speaker 6: listening to an album or something and feel the state
Speaker 6: of timelessness, effortlessness, sensory richness.
Speaker 4: This was discussed in the book Stealing Fire by Steven
Speaker 4: Kohler and Jamie Wheel, who called this flow state stir
Speaker 4: st er selflessness, like a sense of self disappears, timelessness,
Speaker 4: hours just seem like minutes, microseconds can drag on and
Speaker 4: you can see them in vivid detail. Effortlessness and are
Speaker 4: for richness, gaining a lot of in and insight and
Speaker 4: really vivid detail. Again. So, according to their book, getting
Speaker 4: into this flow state increases creativity and productivity by four
Speaker 4: hundred percent. So sick jams the cure for what ails.
Speaker 6: Us when you have a moment where the world feels
Speaker 6: bigger than yourself and you feel connected as like just
Speaker 6: one tiny piece of this giant electric experience of life. Yeah,
Speaker 6: and that everything just kind of melts away for a
Speaker 6: little bit.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: There's a book called Stealing Fire all about this and
Speaker 6: how people get to this state. Music is one of
Speaker 6: those things, so are like adrenaline junkie type things like
Speaker 6: base jumping or skydiving. So our meditation is like the slow,
Speaker 6: long road. Drugs are the fast kind of dangerous road.
Speaker 6: There are a lot of ways to achieve this state,
Speaker 6: and it's one of those states that people genuinely love
Speaker 6: being in.
Speaker 4: Maybe because of that, do fanthropologists think that music fans
Speaker 4: are less judgmental?
Speaker 6: Yeah, a little bit, I mean now, So the Internet
Speaker 6: also has changed a lot of that experience for some
Speaker 6: kinds of fans, depending on how Internet literate they are
Speaker 6: and how organized an activist they are, and so, like
Speaker 6: K pop fans are really good, and this past year
Speaker 6: has shown just how good K pop fans are, like
Speaker 6: organizing for something outside of their cause in order to
Speaker 6: wreak a little pro social trolling on parts of the
Speaker 6: Internet that they do not agree.
Speaker 4: With such goblins for good, cobblins for good.
Speaker 6: Yeah, like they're a delight. They are a delight and
Speaker 6: a force not to be messed with.
Speaker 4: Yes, why is that? Why do you think they're so
Speaker 4: pro social, so organized, so zealous. I know I have
Speaker 4: a niece, Sophia, who is a big K pop fan,
Speaker 4: And what do we find, especially in that age group?
Speaker 4: Maybe it's under identifying specific is is there a reason
Speaker 4: why K pop just gets its hooks in people's hearts?
Speaker 6: So I haven't done a ton of research on this subject,
Speaker 6: and I'm sure there are a lot of scholars in
Speaker 6: the fan study's community who have taken dives extensively into it.
Speaker 6: But from my more broad experience researching fandom, there's the
Speaker 6: Internet nature of it and a concept that Henry Jenkins
Speaker 6: I think. I think it was Henry Jenkins's coin called
Speaker 6: pop cosmopolitanism mm HM, which is essentially being a citizen
Speaker 6: of the world and importing your culture from elsewhere, and
Speaker 6: that used to be very difficult in the days of
Speaker 6: anime and manga and like coded vhs per country code,
Speaker 6: and like needing to mail things, and that used to
Speaker 6: be prohibitively difficult. But with online spaces. It is now
Speaker 6: much much easier. There's a lot more of an opening
Speaker 6: to what life is like in other places. I mean,
Speaker 6: K pop and jpop have a little bit more of
Speaker 6: like an androgenous culture about them. Asian country is also
Speaker 6: a little bit more like communally oriented. And part of it,
Speaker 6: I think is just now, like this is all happening
Speaker 6: at a time when gen Z has access to it.
Speaker 6: And I was at CS a couple of years ago
Speaker 6: listening to a longitudinal study about generational differences and gen
Speaker 6: Z is different from preceding generations because of how pro
Speaker 6: social they are. They are much more communally oriented and
Speaker 6: much less individually minded than prior generations.
Speaker 4: Is there any knowledge that you have on how they
Speaker 4: got that way, because I feel like with the rise
Speaker 4: of social media in the last you know, thirteen fifteen years,
Speaker 4: there was such so many drums being beaten about like
Speaker 4: this is going to be the most narcissistic set of
Speaker 4: assholes the world has ever raised, and then they're like
Speaker 4: the most pro social, Like how did how did it happen?
Speaker 6: That's a great question. I think part of it has
Speaker 6: to do with thinking about the cultures of the generations
Speaker 6: around them and the world that they're inheriting. So like
Speaker 6: I still was at the tail end of a generation
Speaker 6: who like played outside in the middle of my street
Speaker 6: with neighbor kids.
Speaker 4: M too.
Speaker 6: I don't know to what extent that happens now on
Speaker 6: supervis I don't have kids, but I would be curious
Speaker 6: from listeners of the pod like whether or not that's
Speaker 6: I mean COVID aside like pre COVID, is that still
Speaker 6: a thing that like parents do because oftentimes with device culture,
Speaker 6: like the device is the connectivity to friends in absence
Speaker 6: of geographic communities.
Speaker 4: Right, I wondered do parents let their kids play outside?
Speaker 4: And in googling it, I found out that there are
Speaker 4: actually laws now making it illegal to just let your
Speaker 4: kids peace out and hit the park solo, despite crime
Speaker 4: rates being lower than they were perhaps a generation to go.
Speaker 4: And I don't have kids. I just have one very
Speaker 4: hairy daughter and I have to watch her like a
Speaker 4: hawk outside so she doesn't feast on katpoo. So we
Speaker 4: all have different challenges now, speaking of challenges and parenting,
Speaker 4: each week we donate to a cause of the ologies
Speaker 4: Choosing and Meredith Chow's partner in helps and the Sierra
Speaker 4: Leonian Ministry of Health's work to reduce maternal mortality in
Speaker 4: Sierra Leone's Kno district and that money will go toward
Speaker 4: everything from hiring more community health workers to building and
Speaker 4: supplying a maternal care Center of Excellence and a neonatal
Speaker 4: intensive care unit. And this effort was organized by the
Speaker 4: vlog brothers Green and more info about it can be
Speaker 4: found in the link in the show notes, and that
Speaker 4: was made possible by sponsors of the show, who I'm
Speaker 4: going to talk about for a second.
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Speaker 4: Okay, back to right interview. So Meredith continued saying that
Speaker 4: kids finding connection through devices is a double edged sword.
Speaker 4: It's been great when we needed the physical distance of
Speaker 4: the last year in particular, but also that the content
Speaker 4: delivered is controlled algorithmically by the platform itself.
Speaker 6: And I could go on and on about algorithmic curation
Speaker 6: and its role in trends and culture, which is where
Speaker 6: a lot of my research is now. Oo Oh my gosh,
Speaker 6: this is where a lot of my re orch is
Speaker 6: now of like creator culture and algorithmic trends and how
Speaker 6: that shapes communities and also how that shapes the creative process. Yeah,
Speaker 6: in influencer culture and parasocial relationships, like that's where a
Speaker 6: lot of my research is.
Speaker 4: Is the thesis that it's fucked or is it set
Speaker 4: the basic thesis that you are getting people are getting
Speaker 4: fucked by the algorithm. I feel very lucky that podcasts
Speaker 4: seem untouched by the algorithm, and I'm knocking on like
Speaker 4: all of the wood possible, But it seems like the
Speaker 4: algorithm is like capital T, capital A, and it feels
Speaker 4: a little bit like a specter.
Speaker 6: So yes and no. In prior media eras there was
Speaker 6: commercial exchange for the piece of media. In a lot
Speaker 6: of instances, yeah, like movie tickets or live shows or
Speaker 6: something like that.
Speaker 4: In the olden days, you paid dollars of money to
Speaker 4: see stuff.
Speaker 6: Such that having a good end product was the point.
Speaker 6: Media was a product, and some industries can get away
Speaker 6: with still treating it that way, especially because the metrics
Speaker 6: of success often come from a body of peers giving
Speaker 6: out awards where metrics of success can be decoupled from commercial.
Speaker 4: Success, think movies and oscars, maybe even streaming services that
Speaker 4: are ad free and eligible for Emmys and Academy Awards
Speaker 4: and Golden Globes and SAG Awards and Toni's and Grammys,
Speaker 4: So prestige trophies, bragging rights, face masks that match your
Speaker 4: curture gown, and lots of publicity.
Speaker 6: Ah okay, But now we're in a place where the
Speaker 6: creation of media media is not the point, Like it's
Speaker 6: not a product, it's a process, because the business models
Speaker 6: have changed in a lot of instances such that what
Speaker 6: matters is not the it's the process. Because what's happening
Speaker 6: is it's an industry of audience development where we're shifting
Speaker 6: into attention economics here of like what is the value
Speaker 6: of an audience who is receptive to messaging. Ah, and
Speaker 6: this is where it's going to get meta and weird,
Speaker 6: I guess, because here I am talking about this to you,
Speaker 6: a professional creator, part of an audience who enjoys listening
Speaker 6: to you, and maybe it would be happy to hear
Speaker 6: you read the phone book. But like, there's a lot
Speaker 6: that goes with that, because there is the process of
Speaker 6: getting better over time, where like the early work, if revisited,
Speaker 6: is noticeably worse, oh yeah, than contemporary work. But that's
Speaker 6: part of the process and part of the point, because
Speaker 6: there is this emotional ownership and stake in these businesses
Speaker 6: because the model is so transparent mm hm, it is
Speaker 6: without an audience, this work would not exist. Yeah, Versus
Speaker 6: if you're at like a major film studio. There are
Speaker 6: a zillion layers between the audience and the creative process. Yeah,
Speaker 6: because media is viewed as a product, not a process.
Speaker 6: And so in those instances where media is a product
Speaker 6: not a process, it is absolutely counterintuitive to contemporary methods
Speaker 6: of distribution, namely algorithmically distributed platforms, because measurement is different.
Speaker 4: In the Amazing Futurology episode with flash Forwards, Rose evelyth.
Speaker 4: We talked about the adage coined by a guy named
Speaker 4: Andrew Lewis, who once mused via a comment on MetaFilter,
Speaker 4: if you're not paying for it, you're not the customer.
Speaker 4: You are the product being sold. And attention economy right
Speaker 4: there in a nutshell, folks, which is one reason why
Speaker 4: I love Patreon so much. But that's a whole other episode.
Speaker 6: Whether you're an advertiser measuring like the impact of a campaign,
Speaker 6: or a creator like measureasuring success metrics for a YouTuber
Speaker 6: or podcaster or whatever, they're very different things. If you're
Speaker 6: concerned with opening box office weekend, that's time bound, it
Speaker 6: either hits or it doesn't, which is essentially saying, like
Speaker 6: the viral video strategy, it's either good or it is
Speaker 6: in't straight out of the gate.
Speaker 4: Yeah, as opposed to the platforms providing distribution altering that
Speaker 4: distribution via algorithms to weigh the better producing or emerging products.
Speaker 4: Meredith explains, so it's the the person who is disseminating
Speaker 4: the product is kind of like putting their thumb on
Speaker 4: the scale, sort of like, well, let's take eyeballs away
Speaker 4: from this, which is getting mediocre eyeballs, and let's throw
Speaker 4: those eyeballs on this thing which is getting a little
Speaker 4: bit better to sort of propel it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, or like subcreator made a creative choice to do
Speaker 6: something different and a fewer percentage of that audience stuck
Speaker 6: around to care about it. Let's just stop showing that
Speaker 6: content to those people because clearly they have stopped being interested,
Speaker 6: regardless of any actions they have taken or not taken
Speaker 6: to indicate disinterest.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that is so terrifying for creators because it's like
Speaker 4: you to grow as a creator and to keep your
Speaker 4: fan base and be engaged. It seems like you do
Speaker 4: need to have growth, you do need to keep things interesting.
Speaker 4: But at the same time, if you take a creative
Speaker 4: risk that someone doesn't like, say ten percent of people dip,
Speaker 4: you could fuck your whole.
Speaker 8: Career well, temporarily, temporarily temporarily because with enough persistence, like.
Speaker 6: The rebuilding process happens. But like it's like the stock
Speaker 6: market almost like stuff happens and then people get spooked
Speaker 6: and then you all show up again, depending on what
Speaker 6: the thing is. In the nineteen seventies, if you didn't
Speaker 6: like a creative decision on television, you want to write
Speaker 6: a letter to a studio, yeah, with no guarantee that
Speaker 6: anybody would read it. Yeah. And now all that has
Speaker 6: to happen is a tweet.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And if people are sufficiently unhappy, it's possible to community
Speaker 6: organize to get a lot of people to tweet. I
Speaker 6: just read a book called so You've been Publicly Shamed?
Speaker 6: Just read that one. And it's really interesting because it
Speaker 6: means that shame can be wielded by communities in any direction,
Speaker 6: because that's the that's one of the big tools that
Speaker 6: they have. So like K pop is really interesting right
Speaker 6: now because they're not wielding shame. They're wielding randomness like
Speaker 6: this whole like pictures of pancakes for the million Maga
Speaker 6: march thing right Like they're wielding internet culture to like
Speaker 6: derail thing.
Speaker 4: Yes, the pen is mightier than the sword, and the
Speaker 4: meme is mightier than the pen is what we're.
Speaker 6: Learning, Yeah, pretty much, pretty much.
Speaker 4: Meredith says that businesses are starting to realize that the
Speaker 4: object of fandom, the influencer or the TikTok star, wouldn't
Speaker 4: exist as a commodity without the fandom supporting and flocking
Speaker 4: to and fueling it. So the pandemic brought us to
Speaker 4: light even further.
Speaker 6: And like we're starting to see this with sports a
Speaker 6: little bit, because there are no stadiums with live sports fans,
Speaker 6: and so now like where do they congregate and where
Speaker 6: do they go? And how do these businesses sustain themselves
Speaker 6: and what happens to their like licensing and merchandising divisions,
Speaker 6: and like there are all of these networks built up
Speaker 6: in these business models around communities being able to congregate
Speaker 6: mm hm and have these experiences. Now there's threat to
Speaker 6: identity as much as there is the ability to find
Speaker 6: and choose and build anuity as well.
Speaker 4: How do you feel about names for fandoms like Trekky's
Speaker 4: Twyhart's ologites, for example. I feel like that's something you
Speaker 4: can't name yourself, but someone else can name it and
Speaker 4: then you can go along with it. Where do those
Speaker 4: come from? How long have those been happening?
Speaker 6: I think it's really important personally mm hmm to be
Speaker 6: able to address the community as a name. They come
Speaker 6: from a sense of community and a sense of like
Speaker 6: wanting to actually belong. I mean, ultimately, as humans, we
Speaker 6: all want to belong, and so I think it's a
Speaker 6: really important thing to have if it works, like Beyonce
Speaker 6: has the beehive and their swifties. There are a lot
Speaker 6: of them, and sometimes they come from point of origin unknown,
Speaker 6: possibly a journalist, possibly fans themselves, possibly something that someone
Speaker 6: said offhand as an object of fandom. I haven't dove
Speaker 6: super deep into the etymology of names of fandoms, but
Speaker 6: I think from a community building perspective, it's important.
Speaker 7: Mm hm.
Speaker 4: You know what would be amazing is if Vonnagut fans
Speaker 4: called themselves the grand Faloons. Have you ever met a
Speaker 4: lot of Vonnegut like only in school? Like Vonnaguet used
Speaker 4: to talk about, a grand falloon is like a group
Speaker 4: of people who think they're connected, but they're not like hoosiers,
Speaker 4: but like the grand Ooh, are you a grand Falloon?
Speaker 4: I am as well. But okay, I just looked on
Speaker 4: the book website Goodreads and there is a Kurt Vonnegut
Speaker 4: fan club and they are called the Kurt Vonnegut Fan Club. Okay,
Speaker 4: this is a big question I feel like has come
Speaker 4: up in the last couple of years. People who are
Speaker 4: called famous for the sake of being famous or famous
Speaker 4: for being famous. What is the difference between an influencer
Speaker 4: and a celebrity. I feel like celebrity is still a compliment,
Speaker 4: but an influencer there's something kind of snide about that.
Speaker 4: How does that come up in phanthropology?
Speaker 6: So the whole study of celebrity and fame m h,
Speaker 6: it's almost like the inverse of panthropology, where fandom is
Speaker 6: concerned with the community, and like celebrity fame is object
Speaker 6: of fandom, but celebrity and fame generally refers to a
Speaker 6: person okay, rather than like ip okay, so like one
Speaker 6: could be famous or a celebrity. Helen Zaltzman on The
Speaker 6: Illusionists had like a great episode of that.
Speaker 4: This was the October twenty twenty episode of The Illusionist
Speaker 4: titled Celebrity. It also happens to feature Hank Green as well.
Speaker 4: Hello Hank. Also for more of the just phenomenal Helen Zaltzman,
Speaker 4: you can listen to her Ology's episode, which is Etymology,
Speaker 4: and you can listen to me fanatic girl over her.
Speaker 6: The other thing about like celebrity and fame is oftentimes
Speaker 6: one of the distinctions he made that I really liked
Speaker 6: is like, do you care about their personal lives or not?
Speaker 6: M not everybody cares about the personal lives just the work,
Speaker 6: like Jennifer Andison is famous, but like, do we care
Speaker 6: about her personal life? And would you buy a T
Speaker 6: shirt with her on it?
Speaker 4: I mean I do care about her personal life a
Speaker 4: little bit. I just want for her to be happy
Speaker 4: and for tabloids to stop painting her a fit, wealthy
Speaker 4: woman as a tragedy because she didn't have a lot
Speaker 4: of babies and she went through a divorce. So yes,
Speaker 4: maybe I do care a tiny bit. And maybe I
Speaker 4: did google Jennifer Aniston t shirts and aside from the
Speaker 4: ninety eight percent of search returns that were just paparazzi
Speaker 4: photos of her wearing a thin shirt when it was
Speaker 4: apparently a little chilly out, I did find some shirts
Speaker 4: with her face on them, and earnestly, there was one
Speaker 4: that was just wall to wall, all over, full color
Speaker 4: print of various stages of Aniston and hairstyles, all her
Speaker 4: face and no joke. I kind of want to wear
Speaker 4: this shirt, but I can't decide if it would be
Speaker 4: like post post post ironic or just too casually vulnerable. Anyway,
Speaker 4: that is totally up to you.
Speaker 6: And like, this is one of those magical things where
Speaker 6: like the community of people who care, abuse the power
Speaker 6: and to stuck caring, like willfully stop caring, not just
Speaker 6: like it fades out of your life. Stop caring is
Speaker 6: really hard.
Speaker 4: You do a lot of work too with brands and
Speaker 4: cultivating brands, and when you look at fandoms of IP
Speaker 4: or of people, how do you translate that to kind
Speaker 4: of encourage at least authenticity.
Speaker 6: This is the brand loyalty question.
Speaker 4: I didn't even know this was my question, but I
Speaker 4: love Merit. It's so much for knowing that this was
Speaker 4: going to come up.
Speaker 6: She rolls, like, how does it translate to brands? So
Speaker 6: most people, many people will have brand loyalty but not
Speaker 6: identify as a fan because the brand is not a
Speaker 6: proxy for identity necessarily, like on display proxy of identity
Speaker 6: if you go into someone's house, which I'm just that
Speaker 6: kind of nosy person who does like if I'm back
Speaker 6: back when there used to be dinner parties, I was
Speaker 6: the kind of person who would absolutely I'll look in
Speaker 6: the fridge of the host.
Speaker 4: I'm telling you I love her.
Speaker 6: Like because everything like it. From my perspective, what you
Speaker 6: own is also a proxy for a value system, which
Speaker 6: is why aesthetic I think has come up so much
Speaker 6: in like internet culture of like cottage core or like bohemian,
Speaker 6: because it's the kind of thing that is a little
Speaker 6: bit more of a beacon. And there are some assumptions
Speaker 6: to be made of you based on brands. What does
Speaker 6: it mean if you have Toms of Maine toothpaste? Is
Speaker 6: anybody gonna be a fan of Tom's of Main toothpaste?
Speaker 6: When I say this, I'm sure someone in the comments
Speaker 6: will be like, well, I'm a fan of Tom's of
Speaker 6: Main toothpaste, but really? Or do you just like it?
Speaker 6: And are using the word fan as a proxy for
Speaker 6: the idea of liking something? Is it the kind of
Speaker 6: thing that you would wear, merch for or like talk
Speaker 6: to other people about? So there is brand loyalty, which
Speaker 6: largely has to do with did you inherit the brand?
Speaker 6: Is it what you grew up with? Or does it
Speaker 6: serve a function for you that such that other brands
Speaker 6: can't compete. I was reading some white paper I think
Speaker 6: that was talking about how we inherit our mother's tampon
Speaker 6: brands and like something big has to be different. There
Speaker 6: either has to be like big innovation such that it
Speaker 6: makes it a markedly better product, or there is some
Speaker 6: other factor like price point that shapes a choice other
Speaker 6: than that choice, which I can say is true for me,
Speaker 6: and with toothpaste was true for me until my dentist
Speaker 6: recommended I used toothpaste for sensitive teeth, and then I
Speaker 6: deviated from my family's inherited brand because of a product
Speaker 6: a feature of the product, And sometimes it can be
Speaker 6: about identity. So like you have like Tom's Shoes, and
Speaker 6: values based brands, the whole concept of a benefit cor
Speaker 6: and nonprofits as brands, and like transparency of production.
Speaker 4: You know, those feel good, do good brands that we
Speaker 4: gravitate toward like moths to an energy of fission led light.
Speaker 6: Because it turns out that the story of the product
Speaker 6: is a story that in telling reflects on ourselves. Okay,
Speaker 6: So like if you were to come into my home,
Speaker 6: I would tell you the story of our dining room table,
Speaker 6: which was my grandmother's, which was a Gerald McCabe dining table,
Speaker 6: which came from a collaboration he did with a furniture
Speaker 6: maker and an architect in the era of mid century furniture,
Speaker 6: which was unusual because Gerald McCabe primarily made guitars. Yeah,
Speaker 6: but like the table is a table. You've probably seen
Speaker 6: a lot like it, But the story of the table
Speaker 6: is more interesting than the object itself. And so are
Speaker 6: we building social capital for ourselves when we get to
Speaker 6: tell the story of the brands products, we surround ourselves
Speaker 6: with bottom which is a different thing than fandom. It's
Speaker 6: it is personal social capitol building of Like are you
Speaker 6: a taste maker in your friend's circle? Is this an
Speaker 6: interesting story? Is this something that reflects some level of
Speaker 6: values for you, like conservation and ecology or upcycling or
Speaker 6: vintage culture, or wellness and holistic medicine. Like if I
Speaker 6: were to come into a friend's house and it was
Speaker 6: you know, dreamcatchers and poofs and burning incense, you know
Speaker 6: that's a whole vibe that communicates like a belief system
Speaker 6: and a value system.
Speaker 4: PS weave the dream catches to indigenous folks as they're
Speaker 4: an item originating with the Ojibway people and not something
Speaker 4: you should casually buy cheap knockoffs of or make yourself
Speaker 4: out of stuff from hobby lobby because it's boho. I'm
Speaker 4: saying this to make it less awkward. I feel like
Speaker 4: stakeoms is killing it. I don't know if you've seen
Speaker 4: stakems on Twitter, but just real chef's kiss. They've just
Speaker 4: been they it's a frozen beef brand. But whoever they
Speaker 4: got as their social media manager just goes full on
Speaker 4: about like progressive politics. I should say, not so much
Speaker 4: progressive politics, but pro science sentiments, which I feel like
Speaker 4: in the heart of twenty twenty's anti mask movement was important.
Speaker 4: On April six, twenty twenty, Stakom's official verified account tweeted
Speaker 4: friendly reminder in times of uncertainty and misinformation, anecdotes are
Speaker 4: not data. Good data is carefully measured and collected information
Speaker 4: based on a range of subject dependent factors, including, but
Speaker 4: not limited to, controlled variables, meta analysis, and randomization. Nineteen
Speaker 4: thousand retweets, seventy thousand likes who knew twenty twenty could
Speaker 4: deliver a blast of fresh air from the bullhorn of
Speaker 4: a really disgusting process to meet product.
Speaker 6: So then follow up question to you, have you bought stakhums.
Speaker 4: I've thought about it. I've thought about it. Then I'm like,
Speaker 4: I'm trying to eat less beef, so.
Speaker 6: Yeah, like because they're also there's also the like everyone
Speaker 6: now has to be a publisher, the type mentality that
Speaker 6: exists with the Internet. That means the product can't stand
Speaker 6: on its own anymore because now every brand is in
Speaker 6: the audience development game m hm, and every brand wants
Speaker 6: fans right like everyone wants fans, right.
Speaker 4: I think probably to a point. It's interesting because actually
Speaker 4: I'm going to make us go through Patreon questions because
Speaker 4: there are questions I want to ask you that patrons asked,
Speaker 4: and so I'm going to ask it. There are questions
Speaker 4: through my mouth. Is that cool?
Speaker 6: Great? Okay, let's do it.
Speaker 4: So next week we will ask this very smart and
Speaker 4: lovely person plenty of pretty basic questions, because that's how
Speaker 4: do it around here now. Whether you're trying to build
Speaker 4: a brand for yourself or you want to have more
Speaker 4: perspective on why you like what you do and why
Speaker 4: you like other people who like what you do, Tune
Speaker 4: in next week. Trust me, we cover all gods, some
Speaker 4: really juicy stuff. Meanwhile, you can follow at Meredith Jane
Speaker 4: on Twitter and on Clubhouse, where she's been leading discussions
Speaker 4: on things like fandom and the attention economy. You can
Speaker 4: follow me Ali Ward at Ali Ward on Twitter and Instagram.
Speaker 4: We're also at ologies on both. You can join the
Speaker 4: Facebook Ologies podcast group. Thank you Aaron Talbert for admitting
Speaker 4: that you can find other ologites in the wild with
Speaker 4: merch at ologiesmerch dot com. Thank you Shannon Feldis and
Speaker 4: Bonnie Dutch of the comedy podcast You Are That for
Speaker 4: managing that. Thank you Noel Dilworth for helping manage all
Speaker 4: my shoot and recording schedules, which I'm very bad at.
Speaker 4: Thanks Emily White and all the transcribers for making transcripts
Speaker 4: available on our website at aliwar dot com, slash Ologies
Speaker 4: dash Extras. There's a link to those. They are free.
Speaker 4: The link is in the show notes, as well as
Speaker 4: bleeped episodes. Thank you Caleb Patton for bleeping them. Thank
Speaker 4: you editors Jared Sleeper, who hosts Core Calisenics every weekday
Speaker 4: at ninety am Pacific on Twitch, and to Jurassic Park
Speaker 4: Fanatic and Kitty Lover, Stephen Ray Morris of the podcast
Speaker 4: see Jurassic Write and the per Cast and the new
Speaker 4: Everything but the Movie A Star Wars Books podcast. Nick
Speaker 4: Thorburn of the very good band Islands wrote and played
Speaker 4: the theme music and at the end of each episode,
Speaker 4: I tell a secret, and this week the secret is
Speaker 4: I was able to get my first Maderna shot this
Speaker 4: past week because I work on an educational TV show
Speaker 4: and I can't wear a mask on camera for it,
Speaker 4: and I travel a lot for it, and I'm really
Speaker 4: so thrilled to be vaccinated. I can't even tell you.
Speaker 4: The roll out in California has been a little weird.
Speaker 4: Last week they were shelving or throwing away more vaccine
Speaker 4: doses than they were administering, so there were tons of
Speaker 4: open Dodger Stadium appointments, and as I was waiting in
Speaker 4: the car to get the shot, I scrawled thank you
Speaker 4: and a heart on my arm in Ballpoint pen To surprise,
Speaker 4: the health check gave me the shot and it was
Speaker 4: very corny, but they liked it, and I'm glad I
Speaker 4: did it. In My arm hurt for a couple of days,
Speaker 4: but my heart has never been more at ease. So
Speaker 4: I hope your turn comes soon, and I hope when
Speaker 4: it does that you take it okay until next week.
Speaker 4: I'm a fan of you.
Speaker 6: Bybye.
Speaker 4: Pacodermatology, hobology, ry doo, zoology, lithology, new technology, meteorology, paratology, ethology, ceriology, ethology.
Speaker 4: I am not one of.
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