The commodification of affections among Taylor Swift's and Travis Kelce's fan communities and the Cetaphil Super Bowl 2024 advertisement

The Super Bowl 2024 Cetaphil commercial, influenced by the Taylor Swift–Travis Kelce relationship, shows how the media not only exploits the closeness between fans of different worlds but also uses the commodification of emotions to sell a positive experience associated with product consumption

The historical marginalization of Black fans at Major League Baseball games

There are many explanations of the decline in Black American baseball players and some explanations of the decline of Black American fans at Major League Baseball (MLB) games, but few of those explanations analyze the role of the historical fan experience at MLB games. When examined, it becomes clear that the persistent, but adaptable, historical marginalization of Black fans at MLB games—from describing them differently to treating them differently to segregating them to building new ballparks far removed from Black communities to not marketing to Black audiences to making it difficult for Black fans to reach games—is a major contributing factor to the disproportionately low number of Black American fans at MLB games today

"Pass it to your girlfriend!": A collaborative autoethnography of a friendship through women's sports fandom

Like broader transformative fandom, women's sports spaces are constructed as queer and feminist despite structural anti-Black racism and reinforcement of neoliberal consumerism. Being queer women's sports fans involves embracing the love of the game and many of the players while grappling with troubling politics in both the sports and their fandoms. We use collaborative autoethnography to examine our friendship as a critical feminist sports scholar and a transformative fandom member who have formed a fandom of two around our love of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) and Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) in the United States, while feeling alienation from many other women's sports fans, including at live games and in women's sports real person fiction (RPF) spaces. Drawing on the works of Sara Ahmed and Rukmini Pande, a feminist/fandom killjoy approach is useful for negotiating such contradictions as fans, for cocreating fan practices together, and for articulating hopes for the future of women's sports

Disordered eating, disordered reading: Wintergirls and the fannish practices of pro-ana

Since the emergence of pro-anorexia (pro-ana) online communities in the early 2000s, the role of written materials in these communities has received substantial attention, with some scholars theorizing that pro-ana readers consume texts in a distinctly disordered way. I interrogate that theory by examining the fannish practices of pro-ana communities on Tumblr and X (formerly Twitter). The 2009 young adult novel Wintergirls serves as a case study for how pro-ana readers negotiate between their own disorders and authors' anti-anorexia/pro-recovery intentions. Despite the highly controversial nature of their content, pro-ana reading practices mirror many of those found in modern transformative fan communities. Further, the communal nature of these practices serves to not only reinforce individual pro-ana readings but also turn originally anti-anorexia/pro-recovery texts into signifiers of a pro-anorexia sensibility. Analyzing these practices within a fan studies context allows for a more nuanced and detailed discussion of how pro-ana readers transform and deploy texts to perform their eating disorders online

Controversy, social media, and Formula One: Examining #VoidLap58

The sport of Formula One racing is classically characterized by speed, glamor, and ever-present controversy. In recent times, the conclusion of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix likely stands as the most prominent controversy in the twenty-first-century guise of the sport. Decisions made by then–race director Michael Masi led to a wave of outrage and disbelief among fans, sparking the emergence of the #VoidLap58 hashtag. To understand the complexity of fan dynamics within online Formula One communities, I examine the interplay between fan participation, the spread of conspiracy theories, and the polarization of the fandom, highlighting the role that fans play in crafting narratives

Detroit wants Ty Tyson: National and regional fandom and the 1934 NBC World Series radio broadcast

I examine a 1934 fan campaign which collected over six hundred thousand signatures to get popular Detroit Tigers broadcaster Ty Tyson to handle the play-by-play for the World Series. The campaign shows how fans developed strong opinions about the best ways to broadcast sports, as well as how media industries have historically tried to capitalize on audiences' split identities as both regional and national listening audiences

"Sartorial fandom: Fashion, beauty culture, and identity," edited by Elizabeth Affuso and Suzanne Scott

Elizabeth Affuso and Suzanne Scott, editors. Sartorial fandom: Fashion, beauty culture, and identity. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2023, paperback, $29.95 (294 p) ISBN 978-0472056040

Come as you are: Sex, race, and writing in f/f slash fan fiction communities

Writers of f/f slash fan fiction are a significant and growing presence within online fan communities. Fan fiction studies, however, pays little attention to f/f slash and even less to the queer women and nonbinary writers who create these works. To address this gap, I present the results of an in-depth interview study of twenty-three adult f/f fan fiction writers from diverse racial, national, and fandom backgrounds, with specific focus on sexually explicit writing. Drawing extensively from interview data, I explore the ways that f/f slash writers create and navigate community online, as well as the joys and challenges of writing sex that aligns with lived identities. Rooted in intersectional analysis, I pay close attention to the perspectives of writers of color and document their contributions, insights, and experiences. In doing so, I present a fuller picture of fan fiction communities than is typically reported and highlight the considerable labor that f/f slash writers contribute to the field

Japanese anime song fandom in crisis: Live music attendance during and after the COVID-19 pandemic

I focus on Japanese anime song fandom during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, analyzing the changes in fans' live music attendance and their social relationships. Specifically, semistructured interviews were carried out with nineteen fans of anime song singer Nana Mizuki, all of whom had regularly attended her live music events before the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were recruited using snowball sampling; twelve of the interviews were conducted online. During the temporary cancellation of in-person live shows, fans of Nana Mizuki experienced a suspension of the everyday routines arranged for live music attendance. Some accumulated a desire for live music, whereas others experienced mental health struggles. Online streaming did not serve as an alternative to in-person shows because it was completely different from the form of participation that fans enjoyed before the pandemic. After the restart of in-person shows, fans' decisions (not) to attend them depended on their relationships with their family members, neighbors, and colleagues. Refraining from attending for a few years caused some fans to lose enthusiasm for fandom and close ties with fellow fans. While scholars of live music have studied the extent to which the COVID-19 crisis damaged the music industry, it was not only a crisis in the music industry but also a crisis in fans' everyday lives and fandom

The legend of Taylor Heinicke: An autoethnography of unexpected, passionate fandom

Passionate fandom is not a novel phenomenon in the field of sport. The fervor of fans builds stadiums and has allowed the sport industry to grow exponentially in the past few decades. Scholars have examined the passionate fan through many theoretical lenses, but comparatively little scholarship has looked at sport fandom fervor from inside. An autoethnographic examination of my unexpected journey as a fan of journeyman National Football League (NFL) quarterback Taylor Heinicke demonstrates how fandom can stir passions and create rituals in sport followers. A multimedia diary of Heinicke's unexpected ascension to starting quarterback of the Washington Commanders provides insight into how fandom can overwhelm an orientation toward critical distance