Girls who like Boys who like Boys – Ethnography of ... - Yuuyami.com

Though many would answer that “most” fans they know read and write to
some degrees, experience and observation has convinced me that there is a
very substantive proportion of fans who only “lurk.” Often I have seen onetime
posts on Bulletin Boards or on LiveJournals from people who have
obviously been frequenting the localities and are acquainted with the
interactions of that locality, but start their post with sentences such as “I’m
usually a lurker, but…” For some reason or other they will choose to come
forth and speak out about something, but usually do not feel the need to be
active. When fans theorize in the vein of Jenkins about the majority of fandom
reading as well as writing, what might be true for what they can see does not
necessarily cover that invisible portion of lurkers.
Eiko’s main fandoms, which she is actively engaged in, are Harry
Potter and Popslash (specifically Nsync slash). When I write “actively
engaged,” I do not necessarily mean that Eiko openly discusses or writes, but
rather that these fandoms are currently active, as opposed to “standby” mode.
Eiko describes herself as “very much a lurker.” In Harry Potter fandom, she
reads slash fiction, but has not written direct reviews to the authors except
once at the very beginning of her interest in HP slash. She does, however,
recommend good fanfics on her LiveJournal (i.e. with her friends as the
intended audience for these recommendations). She also draws fanart for
Harry Potter, which she does not post. When I asked her why she didn’t, she
replied that partially it was because she had no scanner, and partially, she
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