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

justifiable, and believable. 1
It is almost impossible for a scholar and fan to write the obligatory
passages on fandom; though it is very easy to expound on minuscule details of
fanfiction production, or on the intricacies of interaction online, it is, at the
same time, very difficult to give a definition of fandom and fans. Such a
definition is necessary in the context of academic work – after all fans are like
an obscure tribe at best for many who do not identify as “fan.” Though in my
opinion, academia works in frighteningly similar ways to “conventional”
fandom, e.g. conventions are conferences, and discussions regarding the
interpretation of texts are academic rather than media texts, the truth is that I
have found this point to be rather useless. Of course, one could use a
comparative approach to juxtapose academia and fandom, and in the process
of comparison find new nuances and angles to the structure of both; a
comparative methodology would after all take these two fields out of their
contexts and approach them differently than we are accustomed to. Such a text
may serve very well to breach the gap between academia and fandom, or
rather their respective prejudices of the other.
I have found, however, that what interests me most, is to attempt an
accurate “translation” of fandom. The difference between academia and
fandom lies not only in the perceived importance of both fields, but more so in
the fact that this difference, perceived as it may be, is a lived experience (as
1 Fan-scholars are scholars who have become fans, or who are studying fans/fandom. Scholarfans
are fans, who analyze and theorize with academic theoretical concepts about their
fandom(s).
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