Crowdfunding: A Spimatic application of digital fandom (Booth)
Date completed: 30 July 2016
Using Bruce Sterling’s technosocial concept of the Spime as a means of investigating the relationship between crowdfunding and effect on particular audiences, through examples of the Veronica Mars film, Wish I was here film and Darci’s Walk of Shame, we find that this ecosystem is a technosocial system, and fan participation in this requires a more procedural examination of the relationship between fandom and technology.
Spime is a mix of the words ‘space’ and ‘time’, expressing the idea that objects exist not only physically but in moments of time. The object becomes a lifecycle of technological transformation and uses time as another dimension an object can be measured. Spimes are individual and unique, and a Spimatic fandom sees the PROCESS of fan activity as key to fan affect through participation. Since every fandom is special, so is every fan unique. Their individual interaction creates a temporal exploration of crowdfunding and fandom. The spimatic effect of a kickstarter campaign means that even if a product fails to materialise, the overall process continues to exist. (The HanFree) As a product, it is nowhere, as a Spime, it is everywhere.
Different fans embrace different aspects of the web for different purposes, hence not everything can be summarised in broad sweeping terms about whether fans are being exploited or not. Some fans are aware, while others might not be.
In the Digi-Gratis economy, monetary, social and cultural values for products are interchangeable. Each element is a node in a networks of value and exchange within an affective media environment, and fan productivity isn’t always sanctioned by the industries but continues anyway.
Each of the fan groups lobbying for continued seasons were active and participatory in the media environment only AFTER they had already been consumers of the show.
