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Reflecting On Serial Nashville

I’ve loved the TV show, Nashville, ever since it started, especially because I’m such a big fan of country music. I decided for my serial project for the semester to create a Storify that recapped and reflected on each week’s episode for Nashville’s second season. My plan was to string these Storify’s together on a Tumblr blog, and hope to gain just a few followers. I posted about two weeks of Storify’s when I realized that my original plan wasn’t going to cut it. I had exactly 1 follower - I needed to re-evaluate. So, I decided to make a Twitter account for the new Nashville-fandom part of me. I called this Twitter account SerialNashville, and made the account pictures photos of Scarlett and Rayna from the show. Immediately I picked up some followers. I remember being excited when I hit 20 followers - all people i didn’t know, just other fans of the show! I was even more excited when they started liking and re-tweeting my posts. By the end of the semester, I had a total of 73 followers (I promise none of which were friend or family I had bribed to help me out)! This was more than I had ever expected and I was very pleased. I noticed that throughout the semester my Storify’s started getting a little longer. I was becoming more invested in them with more followers on my Twitter account and I wanted to make them better! I also noticed that the tweets and comments from other people that I pieced together to make my stories were starting to affect the way I felt about the show. When the majority of tweets I read rooted for Scarlett, I started root for her too and stopped thinking she was annoying. When the fans were enraged with Teddy and sympathetic toward Deacon, I was as well. This project drew me in to Nashville even more - it drew me into the Nashville fandom family. If I could go back and start this project again, one thing I would change would be to be more interactive with the other fans. I didn’t like or re-tweet my followers' tweets very often, but I’m sure if I had I would’ve picked up even more followers. There’s a limit to the success you can have with something like a Twitter account when you aren’t involved in it on almost a day-to-day basis. Overall however, this project was a success to me, and I’m counting down the days (2!) until season two of Nashville starts back up again!

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A Challenge to Johnson’s Claim

The title of this article, “Watching TV Makes You Smarter,” is misleading. This is a very general phrase that implies that watching any kind of TV makes you smart. It also seems like this is what the author of the article, Steven Johnson, is trying to argue. However, the phrase just isn’t true. I look at the “informing-ability” of a television show the same way I look at the informing-ability of a book. Yes, some books are extremely intellectually stimulating and will probably contribute to making you a smarter person. Others, like the Sweet Valley High series I read when I was younger, probably won’t challenge your thinking skills in the same way that “The Da Vinci Code” might. Similarly, “The Bachelor” isn’t going to be as intellectually stimulating as “24” is. I agree that TV can make you smarter, but I don’t agree that all TV will make you smarter. Although Johnson’s claim doesn’t have complete truth, it does have some truth to it. I believe that the more informational and intellectually engaging shows are much more so than they have been in the past. However, I believe this is owed to improvements in technology. Educational channels, like the “Animal Planet” can create much more accurate and detailed programs because they are able to film in places they couldn’t safely before, and with improved equipment they didn’t have before. Shows like 24 are much more complex and detailed than similar shows were in the past. Technology is improving the quality of television in general. The quality of books hasn’t changed over time. Some of the most complex books I know were written hundreds or even thousands of years ago. So, if the complexity of books hasn’t increased over time, why would television shows suddenly get “smarter”? This is just another sign that the improvement in (some) television shows isn’t due to anything but technology. The correlation over the past couple decades between technological advances and improved television shows is undeniable. Instead of looking at the complexity of television shows themselves, it might be more interesting to look at who watches what. Do television shows really make you smarter? Maybe those with lower IQs chose to only watch “simpler” shows, while those with higher IQs enjoy the more complex shows more. This is another area that could be explored in Professor Chow’s (hopefully) further fandom research lab!

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Nashville 2-19 Storify!

[View the story “Nashville 2-19: Crazy” on Storify]

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Episode 18 Storify: Your Wild Life's Gonna Get You Down

[View the story “Nashville 2-18: Your Wild Life’s Gonna Get You Down” on Storify]

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Harry Potter and Fan Fiction

In the article, “The Boy Who Lived Forever,” actress Racheline Malese compared writing fan fiction to acting. She says, " ' You have known the characters. You apply a set of given circumstances to them. Then you wait and see what happens.' " This makes me wonder what kinds of similarities people have that participate in fan fiction. Is it common for other actors/actresses to see fan fiction as an "improvisation exercise," like Malese does? Are fans that participate the most often different from fans that participate only occasionally? And if so, in what ways? The author of the article Lev Grossman, writes, " Right now fan fiction is still the cultural equivalent of dark matter: it's largely invisible to the mainstream, but at the same time, it's unbelievably massive." I hadn't even heard of fan fiction until a few years ago, when my younger sister finally got around to reading the Harry Potter series, fell in love with them, and refused to let them last page of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" be the end of it for her. She would read for hours and hours and tell me of the new adventures Harry, Ron, and Hermione would go on, or more about the less-known characters’ lives after Hogwarts. I never actually read any fan fiction myself, but I could see why my sister was obsessed with it. There have been multiple book series that I've finished, like The Series of Unfortunate Events, where I felt sad to be "leaving the characters." However, unlike my sister, unless a movie came out, I would let myself forget about them with time. Why is it that my little sister was sucked into fan fiction and I wasn't? We both loved the Harry Potter books. Grossman writes, "Fan fiction predates the Internet, but the Web has made it exponentially easier to talk and be heard, and it holds hundreds of millions of words of fan fiction." I think a lot to do with my sister being a fan fiction-fanatic is that she grew up in a world that was even more enveloped in technology than my world was. She uses the Internet constantly, and doesn't know of a time when she hasn't had her cell phone or computer right by her. She doesn't find her sources of entertainment by playing outside or with Barbie dolls. She has fun surfing the Internet, watching videos on YouTube and Skyping her friends. I think it's likely that future generations will be even bigger fan fiction-fanatics, and that although right now it might be, "largely invisible to mainstream," that this might not be the case forever.

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Percy Weasley Throughout hp

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Episode 17 Storify: We've Got Things to Do

[View the story “Nashville 2-17: We’ve Got Things to Do” on Storify]

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Frozen and the Art of Narrative

“Not only do we tell stories, but stories tell us; if stories are everywhere, we are also in stories.” Disney stories, like almost all narratives, have many concepts, themes, and situations that stem from our real life. Frozen is a story of love. But unlike many other Disney classics, it is a story that revolves around sisterly love. The postulate reads, “stories tell us.” I can’t know for sure, but I assume the writers of Frozen were inspired by moments of their own lives to come up with this story. Anyone who has siblings can remember times when they fought with them, and maybe even had “falling outs” with their sibling, just like Anna and Elsa had. Even though Frozen lies in the category of fiction, the general idea of sisterly love is not fictional at all, and probably stems from the writers’ own experiences. “The telling of a story is always bound up with power, property and domination.” This quote might be the most obviously true one of the Disney classics. In Frozen, Hans is obsessed with power. His goal is to reach the head of the throne – the ultimate position of power – and he’s willing to break Anna’s heart to get there. His desire for power and domination is what gets the plot going, and the ultimate message of the movie is to show that desire for power shouldn’t be anyone’s focus of life. If you have those you love around you (especially your siblings!), your life will be happy and complete! “Stories are multiple: there is always more than one story.” Frozen starts with a backstory – a story to give us context before we get to “current time.” This backstory is when Anna and Elsa are young girls, and it reveals to the audience why Elsa is so cold to Anna. This is an example of a story within a story. In every Disney classic, and in many narratives in general, there are many backstories/sidestories like this one that give background and context, and help create a more complete Disney story.

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Episode 2-16 Guilty Street

[View the story “Nashville 2-16: Guilty Street” on Storify]

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Episode 2-15: They Don't Make Em Like My Daddy Anymore

[View the story “Nashville 2-15: They Don’t Make ‘Em Like My Daddy Anymore” on Storify]

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The Scarlett O'Connor Storify!

[View the story “*Scarlett*” on Storify]

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Juliette Barnes….the Storify! Take a look!

[View the story “Miss Juliette Barnes” on Storify]

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Genre Thoughts

Todorov’s essay, The Typology of Detective Fiction, started with him defining and explaining genres. I found his claim interesting that masterpieces could be said to create their own genre. I started to think about whether the novels I considered masterpieces truly “created their own genres,” and if they did, were the masterpieces the sole piece of work in the new genre? Or were books that followed and were inspired by the masterpiece accepted into the new genre as well? I came to the conclusion that Todorov’s claim is only a theory. Of the many masterpieces from history, I can’t think of any I know that created their own genres. Romeo and Juliet wasn’t the first tragedy! Harry Potter wasn’t the first fantasy novel series! Todorov went into great detail trying to distinguish the differences between Whodunits, Thrillers, and Suspense Novels. I started wondering, what’s the point? What’s the point of trying to list all the subtle differences between genres of writing? Is it just so we know where to place books in a library or bookstore? No! I think the reason why Todorov tried to distinguish between these genres is because he was looking to see patterns over time (evolution of genres!), which is much more interesting. He claimed different genres seem to fulfill a social need. For example, the Thriller appeared in the U.S. around WWII, perhaps to respond to the terrors of stories people heard in the news. How does modern detective serial fiction fulfill a social need? There are shows like CSI, Criminal Minds, and Pretty Little Liars that I classify as detective fiction. Are they also inspired from stories we hear in the news today? And is this why these shows are so popular right now? Defining genres allows us to ask bigger questions that relate to world – questions that connect fiction to non-fiction.

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2-14 Too Far Too Gone Storify

[View the story “Nashville 2 - 14 Too Far Gone” on Storify]

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The World of Chinese Literature

My mom grew up in Taipei, Taiwan, an island right next to Mainland China. She knows a lot about Chinese culture from living so close by, and I know from hearing her childhood stories over and over how strict many of the Asian governments are. I know that the Chinese and Taiwanese newspapers have been censored, but I never thought about how people might learn of the “real” news. Eileen Chow tells about the Unofficial History, which was in the literary supplements of the newspapers. This Unofficial History would, “speak for the ordinary people,” and although fiction, would sometimes give insight into the true political situation of the country. This search for the “real news” created a serial following. The Chinese people would read the supposed daily or weekly literary fiction for any info of the nonfiction world. Another Chinese characteristic I learned of from my mom is that the Chinese strive (many to an extreme!) to succeed in the workplace. The article Working Titles tells of the extent to which the Chinese want to get ahead. They want it so bad that one of their most popular categories of novels is the work novel. These novels are very different from Western ones. They blatantly strive to be guidebooks, giving rules like, “If your boss makes a pass at you, smile and flirt back. Hire subordinates who are barely adequate or they’ll make you look bad.” They also choose to leave out romance when they can. That is not what the publishers think the people are looking for! The culture of the Chinese is one that encourages people to be as successful as they can, and not always in honest ways. But, this difference in culture (from Western culture) has created a following for different types of series. There are serial followings all over the world, but what I’ve failed to realize before was how much the literary or visual works differ in other countries. They aren’t always going to be similar to my Western TV shows and novels! They are affected by history and culture. Reading about Chinese serial followings of the Unofficial History and the popularity of the work novel opened my eyes to the possibility of all the other kinds of literary works I’ve yet to encounter!

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Getting Intimate With My TV Shows

There is a difference between a connection and intimacy. Every TV show has its fan population, but what makes the connection between a show its the fans an intimate one? - One reason is because we (meaning, us, the fans!) get involved emotionally. I can remember crying when one of my favorite characters in Grey’s Anatomy, Mark Sloan (or McSteamy) died from a plane crash. I think many fans would agree that they love their shows’ characters. When our favorite characters are sad, we can get sad, and when they are happy, it can make us feel good too. - Another reason is that the relationship we have with our shows is interdependent. We already know that we are emotionally involved, but are the shows invested in us? Yes! Sometimes, what happens in a show can be affected by the fan population. For example Arrested Development was cancelled early in the second season, but the fans sent the network so many letters, they agreed to bring it back for one more short season. - Distance makes the heart grow fonder. When I was in high school, I dated a guy who was in college so we only got to see each other every couple of weeks or so. I think the longing for each other made our relationship more intense – when we were together I was more than just happy, I was exuberant. It would be a stretch to say I’m exuberant when I watch the next episode of Nashville each week, but because I get to miss it, I get excited to see it again. - TV shows look forward. Hughs and Lund in write that many serial plots have a structure that, “encourages the interpretation of a particular action in the light of what it will have meant at a future moment that it is simultaneously determining and resisting.” A lot of the events in each episode of a show foreshadow a future episode. The key word is future! Fans know that they will have a future with the show, unlike a movie or novel (which I think of more like a one night stand than a relationship), and so they’re more likely to let intimacy develop. It’s a little weird to think of yourself as being in an intimate relationship with a TV show, but in many ways that’s the kind of connection modern-day fans have. Embrace it!

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Nashville Season 2 Episode 13 Storify

Check out my storify here!

[View the story “2 - 13: It’s All Wrong, But It’s All Right” on Storify]