Audiobook8 hours
Superfandom: How Our Obsessions Are Changing What We Buy and Who We Are
Written by Zoe Fraade-Blanar and Aaron M. Glazer
Narrated by Josh Bloomberg
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
As fandom sheds its longtime stigmas of geekiness and hysteria, fans are demanding more from the celebrities and brands they love. Digital tools have given all organizations?from traditional businesses to tech startups?direct, real-time access to their most devoted consumers, and it's easy to forget that this access flows both ways. This is the new "fandom-based economy": a convergence of brand owner and brand consumer. Fan pressures hold more clout than ever before as they demand a say in shaping the future of the things they love. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.
In Superfandom, Zoe Fraade-Blanar and Aaron Glazer explain this new era of symbiosis, delving into the history, sociology, and psychology of fandom. From Polaroid to Maker's Mark to groupies of financier Warren Buffett, the consumer relationship has been transformed. Superfandom is an essential guide for those who care, contribute to, and live in this rapidly expanding fandriven economy.
In Superfandom, Zoe Fraade-Blanar and Aaron Glazer explain this new era of symbiosis, delving into the history, sociology, and psychology of fandom. From Polaroid to Maker's Mark to groupies of financier Warren Buffett, the consumer relationship has been transformed. Superfandom is an essential guide for those who care, contribute to, and live in this rapidly expanding fandriven economy.
Author
Zoe Fraade-Blanar
Zoe Fraade-Blanar is a faculty member at New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program and the Studio 20 program at the NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. She is co-founder and Chief Design Officer of the crowdsourced toy company Squishable.
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Reviews for Superfandom
Rating: 3.437500025 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
8 ratings1 review
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5When I first picked this up, I thought it'd be a meditation on what it means to be within a superfandom (such as SuperWhoLock on tumblr, as the kids say). The subtitle should've clued me in: this is actually about how fandoms and identity with them influence our consumption.
Which is not necessarily a bad thing, nor is it new: after the prologue vignette of the authors' own experience with their company Squishable during a virtual Facebook party on the night Hurricane Sandy rolled into town, the first chapter opens on musicophilia/Lizstomania that hit Western civilization in the mid-1800s. Fans, regardless of purchasing power, obsessed by stalking outside musicians' homes, collecting ticket stubs, bribing house staff to actually *enter* some of those said homes. The second chapter begins with Berkshire Hathaway's annual stockholder's meeting, which has become a capitalist comic-con around the Oracle of Omaha and the promise of wealth by association (an aside: my grandparents went once and totally bought a mattress from the furniture store mentioned).
What *has* changed is the relationship between consumers and producers. A small but vocal minority can angrily clog Makers' Mark's feeds after a lower proof to meet increased demand is announced. An organized facebook group can raise money to buy a billboard outside Coca Cola's Atlanta headquarters begging for the return of Surge. Fan consumption doesn't even necessarily have to be a physical good- the experience economy means that Kickstarters can offer one-on-one skype sessions or game nights at a high donation tier and people will pay for the rare experience. Patreon has arisen as a way for fans to support content creators without fussing with physical goods (and although a new website, is in some ways a throwback to literal patrons of the Renaissance except instead of one wealthy donor, it's lots of smaller ones that buy into ownership).
I suspect this was written for people who read business books, as they authors took care to define fan terms and explain things like Cards Against Humanity antics (a whole chapter, actually, in how corporate ethos does not equal corporate values. CAH cares about their customers and will fix the problem first, and THEN rib you because that is their brand). Definitely an interesting read for those within fan communities (the authors do talk about in-group feelings from being part of a fandom), and a read for anyone who's curious about how capitalism influences the culture (or is influenced by).