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What am I doing here?

I’m more than halfway through my senior year in college, and tumblr is a godsend: there is no better tool for rapid-fire procrastination, and I’ve carefully curated the dashboard of my main blog into a collection of art, photography, comics, news, and discussion to satisfy my interest in literature, film, television, and fandom. My personal tumblr has been running for more than five years, and over the course of my membership I’ve observed exciting growth, change, and development on this social networking site. These observations and my recent awareness of and interest in the emerging arena of Digital Humanities study have led me to a possibly-prohibited practice: thinking critically about what I see scrolling past me on tumblr and the Internet in general. As such, I've embarked on a study project as part of my senior curriculum in an attempt to bring this important sector of critical response culture to academic attention, and that project is manifesting itself as this tumblr.

In her 2010 essay "Personal Readings and Public Texts: Book Blogs and Online Writing about Literature," Ann Steiner explains the concept of "the Pro-Ams," a professional amateur defined by Charles Leadbeater and Paul Miller: “A new kind of amateur has appeared that operates in a more professional manner than previous individuals or groups have done. They are knowledgeable, educated, committed, and have large networks…the pro-ams do not regard themselves as professionals, rather they use their amateurism as a tool for networking, writing, and creating new structures…They may lack a certain degree, or the right job title, but they can often work in new and experimental ways. There are also examples of how the pro-ams have influenced and inspired professionals, and this is also the case within the book trade." I found this definition of a pro-am to readily apply to fandoms on the Internet, and particularly on tumblr: tumblr fandoms are huge networks that connect people around the world, people who are passionate about and committed to the text or texts of their fandom and whose discussion is valuable despite its casual setting. Once I recognized that tumblr fandoms are discourse communities, I started to pay closer attention to their activity.

Steiner writes about "book blogs," websites where one or several writers post reviews and commentary on various texts they're reading. While reading Steiner's argument, I was eager to draw a distinction between these book blogs and the sort of valuable discourse I see on personal blogs. According to what I’ve seen on tumblr, the distinction definitely exists and should be recognized—personal tumblrs include reviews in posts about reading, some tumblrs identify as “fandom-specific” and post or comment on the various texts (books, television, films) related to that fandom. It’s very casual, but it happens and I’m not sure there was a channel previously available that provided a similar sort of connection among and between audiences who love the same texts (besides formal book clubs, but the people writing on these tumblrs are usually between 15 and 28 and post from around the world, which makes it more exciting in my mind). I’m sure that the casual environment of tumblr fosters this sort of community feeling in a way that a “book blog” writer and his or her commenters do not, and this is where my interest lies. These bloggers write because they want to, not because they need to—they don’t have any sort of obligation to contribute, and I feel like the title “book blog” places that obligation upon the blogger, which fundamentally changes the discourse that results.

Elsewhere in her essay, Steiner claims that "the critics at large daily papers are influential, but the young, globally oriented, and ideologically aware groups of readers that blog and comment on different online communities may be equally important." Steiner says "may be," and I insist that her wording change to "are definitely." Ideologically aware groups of readers that blog and comment on different online communities are definitely equally important, and that is what I hope to demonstrate through exploration of fandom and casual critical response on the Internet—discourse that doesn't directly call itself discourse is still significant.

Tumblr is a unique community where literary and social reading collide to incite discussion. Participation in a fandom demands actual authentic affection for the topic or central work of that fandom; otherwise, you are not a fan, and you do not belong in that fandom. The importance of the personal reading experience is emphasized on tumblr: emotional response is important, and identification with others' responses engenders discussion. In another essay, "Private Criticism in the Public Space: Personal writing on literature in readers' reviews on Amazon," Steiner helpfully defines "text" for my purposes: "reading is not seen as an activity different from watching films or TV; they are all acts of consumption for pleasure, escape, or the understanding of one's own situation in life, and all social practices." When I say "text," I do not mean literal ink on a page or words on a screen; I mean anything that can be viewed and interpreted by an audience, including television and films as well as books in all their manifestations.

With this blog, I hope to explore in an attempt to explain the development, participation, and importance of critical response on the Internet through various and sundry "themed" posts on a weekly basis. Some questions I'll be focusing on to guide my thinking are as follows:

Where is the line between professional discourse and casual discourse, and does it matter?

Does the presence of some degree or sense of professionalism increase or affect one's relation to the texts he or she is consuming?

What is the cultural value or function of casual discourse and analysis? What is the payoff of engaging in this sort of critique or discussion?

Do these analyses contribute to an understanding of the text in a new way?

Does this culture grow out of literacy instruction or is it running on its own? Do we have the impulse to respond publicly to texts because we learned it, or is it simply a matter of passion? Is it both?

To borrow from Steiner once more, "the main issue is positioning the self in relation to culture, society, and other readers." I believe that casual response culture on the Internet (and specifically on tumblr) is one very real way of coming to grips with this issue of positioning, and its widespread and rapid growth lends to the evolving profile of academic literary study in an important way.