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

Barb sees herself as a fan, and fan-mode is undeniably a very large part of
who she is and how she lives her life online as well as offline. But being part
of a fandom community means being active and participating in active
interaction with other fans online or offline– in this sense the concept of
fandom takes on an additional connotation of a very specific locality (i.e.
online in our case) and community does no longer imply any way of
productive interaction with the source-text and the shared fan-texts, but takes
on another dimension of active or reactive online actions by the members of
that community.
Unfortunately, the terms used are anything but solidly defined; fandom
is multi-layered in its engagement with source-texts and fan-texts, and
similarly implies multiple communities, or sub-fandoms. Being a fan does not
necessarily imply being a fan of the source-text, as one can be a fan of the fantexts,
or, of course, vice versa. Equally, it does not necessarily mean active (as
in online traceable) involvement with a community. It is not really an
inadequacy of theoretical methodology which denies us a clear and simple
definition of these terms, rather, it is a testimony to the constant process of
development and growth of this small part of the online and offline world.
Instead of being set back by what we deem contradictions in definitions and
explanations given to us by fans, we should see these discrepancies as details
and particulars pointing out the various spatial, temporal and modular
dimensions of a larger whole, which are always in formation and re-
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