The Power of Fangirls

Fan culture can cause amazing movements within the pop culture industry. If it were not for their dedication and involvement with spreading their personal favorite shows, characters, and other fandoms many media would not become as well known and widely mainstream as they are today.

Henry Jenkins explains in his book Spreadable Media “Spreadable Media examines the nature of audience engagement, the environment of participation, the way appraisal creates value, and the transnational flows at the heart of these phenomena. It delineates the elements that make content more spreadable and highlights emerging media business models built for a world of participatory circulation.”

Free! or ‘swimming anime’ started out as a one minute commercial during Anime Mirai, a film festival in Japan that showcases recently graduated students and new workers in different anime studios. The participants are to create a short film to showcase their animation and artistic skills.

One particular animation by a worker at Kyoto Animation and Animation Do resonated with all the little Yaoi fangirls of Tumblr. Fans wanted to see more from this animation so much that they started a petition on Tumblr to have this short film become a full animated series. Once the petition proved to be growing in success fans started to create character profiles for the characters of the short film, giving them names, personalities, even defining some relationships between the characters. The following for these textual poachers became so large that the writers of what was soon to be known as Free! took some of these character profiles and implemented them into the animation.

Henry Jenkins explains the success of media, like Free!, on its spreadability. Spreadability is defined as the ways content can travel through social media. Spreadability does not just apply to t.v. shows and fandoms, it can be utilized for understanding how people spread their ideas and the implications these activities have for business, politics and everyday life.

This means the control of which media takes off is within the hands of the fans rather than the marketing team. If a fandom can gain enough proactive fans that spread their fandom across social media then it is more likely to gain a larger following, thus becoming more main stream. Without media spreading to other potential fans it cannot grow in popularity.

Just remember "If it doesn't spread, it's dead".

First Draft of 'I've Gotta Sew' Lyrics

This is what I have been working on throughout the week. It is my first draft lyrics for my parody 'I've Gotta Sew' of 'Domino'. I also discovered that I am not that good of a singer and am now searching for a vocalist who can perform my parody for me. The video is the instrumental version of the song with lyrics to parallel the lyrics I've written.

I look sexy and kawaii
everyone’s attention on me
flash of camera everywhere
Cat ears in my hair

Dressing up around conventions like there’s nobody there
Taking pictures of otaku, making everyone stare
Do you sew? That costume’s out of control

Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh
we can cosplay all night
Damn this costume is tight
sewin’ it on
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh
I'm starting to feel numb
keep ricking my thumb                                     
Otaku, come on!
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh

There’s no time for sleeping tonight
costume’s not ready to be shown
nothing seems to be going right
with this cosplay, now I’ve gotta sew

Every hem needs to be sew tight
When I’m done I will let you know
there will be no sleeping tonight
Can’t stop now because I’ve gotta sew

Fabric spread everywhere
I’m in need of a prayer
Why won’t this piece just stay
costume’s in total dismay

Styling my wig, its not working, I think I need hairspray
new anime distracting me from my own cosplay
I should sew, procrastination

Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh (Its out of control)
We can cosplay all night
Damn this costume is tight
Sewing it on
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh
I'm starting to feel numb
keep pricking my thumb                                     
Otaku, come on!
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh

Pre-reg badge pick up is tonight
guess ill wait in the line tomorrow
nothing seems to be going right
with this cosplay, now I've gotta sew

Forget thread, I’m losing this fight
Cant deal with the stitches anymore
Heat the glue gun, this isn't right
We’ll just hope that no one will know

Ooh, got my tickets to the con
Ooh, I’ll be there with my costume on
Ooh, I cant get contacts in right
Ooh, the corset makes my head light
Ooh, body paint is starting to crack
Ooh, times is rushing I’m losing track
Ooh, let’s get dressed up tonight
Ooh-taku-taku

Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh
Let’s get dressed in cosplay tonight
Make this one the best I’ve ever sewn
We’ll be dancing in the rave lights
Make it worth the time I’ve had to sew

Every hem seems to be sewn (glued?)  tight
We wont stop until they make us go
There will be no sleeping tonight
Gotta start new cosplay, I’ve gotta sew

Media Dependency Theory and the Cosplay Culture

The cosplay community and otaku fan culture in America is still considered a relatively new subculture. Japanese anime has only been in the states for about 40 years. The massive social following and created subculture has only been known of in the last 15 years. One theory that ties into my Capstone project is the Media Dependency Theory.

Media Dependency Theory according to communicationtheory.org “An internal link between media, audience and large social system. The audience learning from the real life is limited, so they can use media to get more information to fulfil their needs. An extensive use of media generates dependent relation in audience and also Media can able to creating dependence relationship with target audiences to achieve their goals by using their media power.”

There are three degrees of Media Dependency Theory:

• ·         Individual: An individual will become more dependent on media, if the medium satisfies their needs. An example of this would be an individual who identifies themselves as part of the otaku subculture but does not share that subculture with another person who is physically in their life. They would then turn to the internet for connectivity with the community or education of culture. It is also the internet that is the source of their media fix.

• ·         Social Stability: According to communicationtheory.org “The individual will reconsider their beliefs, practice and behaviors when strong social change, conflicts, riot or election which will force to re-evaluate and make new decisions. During this time the dependency is dramatically increased, because there is a strong need for information, support and advice.” This would occur when the individual has a large enough supporting group of other individuals with the common interest. The group would feed off of other individuals and the social norms within the anime to create their own social norms that are similar to those in the anime. This is typically where cosplay comes into play. The individual seeks for another way to immerse themselves, attending conventions and cosplaying is one way. Because they are comforted by their social group they also now feel the confidence to express such social norms that would otherwise be unacceptable in our culture. The individual re-evaluates how they behave and speak to suit those within the group. Because the individual gets sucked into the subculture they also tend to become more emerged and look for more information on the culture.

• ·         Active Audience: The individual decides the amount of media they depend on. They can come to the decision through factors such as economic conditions, society, and culture. If their need is fulfilled elsewhere then their dependency will decrease. If an individual only received their anime fix through one source, that being the internet, then they join an anime club they may feel fulfilled and chose not to expand into the subculture anymore. If their primary culture conflicts too much with the subculture they feel they should identify with them they will not immerse themselves into the subculture as much as other individuals. They best example of this is the difference between those who enjoy anime and those who live by it or wear it on their sleeve.

The American Otaku subculture gains all of their knowledge from the same source, Anime and manga. There are different genres and with each genre comes a new subculture and set of social norms. Although there may not be two or more people in the sub culture or otaku community physically living within a common area they can still participate online and at conventions. Over all there are similar messages and tropes being transmitted through the anime that has created the giant community.