#queer fandom survey

[221bashamedofyourselves]

Opinions Solicited

Serious question I need help with: 

I’m writing my methods section of my dissertation right now, and since a lot of my theoretical underpinnings and also the findings I’ve gotten from my survey are resistant to binary distinctions, I don’t want to always be using ‘women’ as a catch-all term for my respondents, when speaking in broadly theoretical terms as opposed to specifically engaging with the results of the survey. (Obviously, when I’m doing that, I’ll be much more specific with the language that I’m able to use as far as gender and especially about non binary gender identities.)

My current solution is to use the phrase ‘women-aligned’ when talking in broad theoretical strokes, with a ‘therapeutic’ (for me) footnote calling attention to the purposefulness of that language. 

Does that suck? Are there problems that anyone can see with that language that I am missing or not considering? Seriously, any help is appreciated. Thanks!

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[221bashamedofyourselves]

Hi, I just wanted to say a huge thank you really. I just completed your survey and it took me a really really long time to click my answer on the sexuality question but I finally clicked bisexual and I just really wanted to thank you for getting me to admit it to myself. I don't think I would have otherwise! Thanks again and I wish you all the luck in the world with your thesis. 🙂❤️ xx

OH HOLY COW, ANON! Congratulations, and welcome to the family! I’m so happy for you and so proud of you and so honored if this work had even a little bit to do with such a wonderful, important moment in your story. Sincerest well wishes and love to you; I know moments like this (for me, at least) can be pretty emotionally intense, so if you’re looking for a listening ear, mine is always free. I hope you take a little time right now to celebrate with yourself and just bask for a minute in your own complete awesomeness. I’m so very, very happy for you! <3

This message made my whole night. Thank you for sharing such a lovely moment with me. xx

[221bashamedofyourselves]

Gendered Fan Performance and Experiential Legitimacy in Transmedia Fandom

Hi!

A huge, beaming thanks to all of you who have reached out in support of this dissertation research of mine, and who have completed the survey that I’ve launched as part of it. The response has been overwhelmingly positive and encouraging, and your enthusiasm thus far has helped me remain super excited and engaged with the work when prolonged exposure might have otherwise by this point drove me insane. As always, this community of people has my deepest respect and admiration, and you give me energy every day. 

Sorry I’ve been a bit AWOL with this lately; a holiday with my best friend ended, and immediately we heard about Orlando, and I, like so many of you, have had a really hard week in the wake of it. It’s been difficult to feel like doing anything other than cry. Especially because I’m returning to the States indefinitely in a little over two weeks, and all of the hate and fear and uncertainty of living inside that national discourse will once again be my everyday lived reality. I’m, to put it lightly, not psyched. 

But all of this pain and mourning and talking and solidarity has also had the effect of making me just unholy pissed off (more than usual) about the heteronormative and homophobic bullshit that normalizes this kind of unspeakable violence, and made it feel more important than ever to engage with how we as fans encounter our own and others’ queerness, as well as the ways in which it can be used against us. I’m so angry right now, but it feels like the kind of fire that might burn down bullshit structures, and not consume me before I can watch. 

So as I start to dive into this stuff for real, I hope you’ll join me over on the WordPress that I’ve made. It’s still not finished or polished, but I wanted to give you the opportunity to read the first thing that I’ve put up there, and hopefully talk back to me about what you’re thinking around this stuff, too. 

Thanks again for being awesome; reblogs of this post are appreciated, if you think your own followers would be interested in joining the convos. 

Thanks for giving me energy and hope. xx

-- Maggie 

[221bashamedofyourselves]

Hey Maggie! I just finished your survey and really, really liked it! I'd love to read the final work when it's done, any chance you will post it or share it here somehow?

Hi Anon! Thanks so much for taking the survey; you’ve got no idea how helpful it is! I’ve been kind of overwhelmed (in a good way, here!) by the positive response and support that I’ve gotten in this work, and the answers I’ve got coming in are SUPER interesting, enlightening, and make me respect and admire the people in this community even more than I already did. 

I’ve been out of the country on holiday with my best friend for the last ten days, and am now fully getting back into the swing of work. I’m designing a WordPress on which I’ll be publishing more of my findings and interpretations, and I hope that everyone will join me there to continue the conversations once it’s launched. Having not done this kind of web-publishing before, I’m trying to be really purposeful about how I organize the site so that it will be as user-friendly and make as much sense as possible. So… it’s taking a little longer than I thought. I hope that I’ll have it up by early next week, at the latest. There’ll be a post about that on this blog. 

Thanks again for your help! I look forward to more conversations about this stuff soon! xx

[221bashamedofyourselves]

Just completed your survey, thanks so much for working academically on this topic, I think it's so important to show how differently being part of a fandom can affect people. I really liked the questions and they made me reflect on my own sexual identity and how being part of the Sherlock fandom influenced it and the way I identify. All the best for your dissertation!!

Thanks! I’m so happy that you found the survey thought-provoking in a positive way. I know that my involvement with this fandom has been pretty important for my own ideas about my identity and the structures that have made me this way. :-) I’m so pleased that other people have been thinking about this stuff too, and I’m really looking forward to the conversations we’ll get to have as the results of this initial survey come in. Stay tuned, and thanks so much for the encouraging words!

[221bashamedofyourselves]

Is there a way to read your thesis once you're finished? I'd be very interested in the results, the premise is very exciting.

Hi there, and thanks very much for the support! I was quite frankly a bit nervous to launch the survey yesterday, and the response thus far has been really awesome. I’ll be putting together a wordpress in the near future where I’ll be posting about my thesis and the results of this survey. I’m hoping you’ll all join me there when it gets up and running– I’ll be sure to post links here, so if you follow me you’ll be able to follow along and join in the conversations I hope this thing generates. I’m going to see a play tonight, so I’m going to take the day off from schoolwork and go screw around in central London, but my goal is to get the wordpress live by early next week. :-) 

[221bashamedofyourselves]

In news totally unrelated to this, I’m going to see Kit Harrington in Doctor Faustus tomorrow! 

Anyone want an autograph? 

[221bashamedofyourselves]

I'm an American who just wrote an undergraduate thesis on a topic related to fandom (fanworks as fan activism) and I'd be very interested in seeing your bibliography to this point, if you'd be willing to share!

Hi there! Exciting to hear from another fan/academic; I’d love to read your work, as it sounds super interesting, and potentially cite-able for me, if you’re willing to share. :-) I’ll be putting together a blog site where I’ll be posting the findings of this research and my own writing about it, and I’ll certainly be sharing my bibliography there. A major influence (positive) for me has been Matt Hills, who writes about fandom as inherently contradictory and therefore queer. He deviates pretty broadly from the ‘norm’ discourse, and I’m using him a lot to talk about how fandom fucks with binary delineations. The book is called ‘Fan Cultures’: check it out!