Journal of Fandom Studies, The - Volume 6, Issue 1, 2018

In recent years, online digital distribution has drawn attention to the myriad ways in which games exist as a dynamic and transitory object. Previously, genres such as the massively multiplayer online game had carved out a unique space in game studies in which version numbers, expansions and changes in player behaviour over time had to be methodologically accounted for. However, today even the relative stability of the single-player game has begun to dissolve as a logic of constant becoming overtakes staid notions of games as singular, fixed historical texts. This article examines this increasing temporal instability of games by turning to bug-exploiting tactics within the player community of the massively popular building game Minecraft (Mojang, official release 2011). In a focused case study, I will analyse the fate of ‘minecart boosters’, an emergent bit of folk exploit-engineering that allowed players to create perpetual motion machines in the game, with help from widely circulated knowledge about a specific bug in the game’s simulated physics during its alpha and beta stages. Given that the effectiveness of Minecart boosters was abruptly put to rest when the game’s beta version 1.6 finally patched this physics bug, it presents an excellent opportunity to discuss how fans of digitally distributed and updated games navigate the volatility of the objects they are devoted to, especially when this volatility can lead to the sudden and unexpected endings of cherished practices and modes of engagement. Here, bolstered by a close examination of fan discourses on message boards, the official Minecraft Wiki, and YouTube comment sections of tutorial and ‘let’s play’ videos, I argue that Minecraft encourages a fan logic of ‘upkeep’ as communities struggle to maintain stability of practices even when attached to a fluid, transitory object.

Stanley Kubrick died suddenly in July 1999, not able to control the release of what was to be his final film Eyes Wide Shut (1999). The resultant marketing was misleading, and many claimed that Kubrick had not completed the film before his death, with edits still to be made. Yet, in recent years, the reputation of the film has grown; new fan documentaries abound on the Internet that praise the film and search for symbolism and hidden meaning (such as freemasonry, or the New World Order) as feverishly as they do with The Shining (1980). But, academic attention overlooks consideration of the fan reception of Eyes Wide Shut, in favour of the obvious cult nature of films such as The Shining and A Clockwork Orange (1971). The article will consider, firstly, the initial fan reception to Eyes Wide Shut, via fan forums including the website alt.movies.kubrick (amk) and how this compared with the press reaction in the face of knowing that this was the last ever Kubrick film. It will explore how such knowledge influenced the reception of the film and how, with the passing of sixteen years, this has changed. Secondly, the article will look to what extent the shaping of Kubrick’s legacy via the donation of his archive to the University of the Arts London and the global tour of the Stanley Kubrick Exhibition has created a narrative that has changed the reception and opinion of Eyes Wide Shut; in addition, the Kubrick legacy is not just to prolong the marketability of a dead auteur but in response to the cult fan base in search of ever more knowledge to help in the deciphering of Kubrick’s films, leading to numerous DVD box sets and coffee-table books containing rare archival material.

Super Voice Girl (SVG) was an Idol-style Chinese reality show that allowed only female contestants. The show became famous worldwide for featuring gender-nonconforming contestants. This article examines the rise and fall of the most popular online Chinese queer fandom of the 2006 SVG in the forum feise chaonv (FSCN). I focus on the fans’ ambivalent play with Chinese-specific female homoerotic imaginaries that initially popularized and protected but eventually led to the decay of FSCN as a queer fantasy space. First, I look at the subtle ways in which the 2006 SVG tactically normalized the female homoerotic imaginaries surrounding its tomboyish national finalists. Then, I examine FSCN fans’ struggles with both this female homoeroticism and the stigmatization of real-world lesbianism. I demonstrate that the fictional imagination of female homoeroticism sustained FSCN as a popular queer fantasy space after the show ended. Additionally, I detail the fans’ self-contradictory reactions to several real-life lesbian incidents involving the finalists that gradually came to light in the post-show years. I argue that the fans’ confinement of female homoeroticism to a youthful, memorable fantasy scenario that was substantially shaped by both Chinese mainstream and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender cultures eventually contributed to the abrupt end of FSCN’s queer-themed practices.

HBO used the tag line ‘True to the End’ to advertise the final season of True Blood (2008–14). Building on existing scholarship on active fandom, this article explores viewer responses to this final season by analysing the posts by fans on the HBO-sponsored True Blood Facebook page. This page encourages communication within the fan community and also tries to guide the direction of the communication through various posts, including ones by cast members. Yet despite this guidance, the fan posts express overall disillusionment with the plotline of the final season, with the discontent bordering often on what Jonathan Gray (2003) has termed ‘antifandom’. Drawing on the literary critic Frank Kermode’s (2000) theory about the sense of an ending, this article will provide an innovative paradigm for analysing fan responses to the series ending. Thus, although readers take pleasure in complex plots, they nevertheless simultaneously wish to rest assured that the ending will fulfil a set of narrative expectations. In analysing the Facebook fan posts, the article discusses the alternative endings that fans were most ardently wishing for and whether it is possible to make any generalizations about the fans who supported the plot developments and those who opposed them. The article illustrates how fans can successfully navigate promotional spaces aimed at them and use them for their own purposes, thus undermining the promotional discourse of the sites. It also aims to encourage further debates about the possible benefits of applying traditional literary paradigms to new media contexts.

This article analyses audience postings to two online locations where reports leading up to the release of the Twin Peaks: The Entire Mystery Blu-ray set were posted between January and August 2014. Theorizing this release as a paratextual return that coincided with the show’s ‘dispersed’ 25th anniversary (Garner 2016), the article argues three points: firstly, greater recognition of fan discourse within studies of anniversary-orientated returns is required as, to date, these have been avoided, creating an unquestioned assumption that affective responses to these occasions are uniformly positive. Secondly, discussing fans’ affective responses to paratextual returns permits re-engaging with Grossberg’s arguments and extending these to consider the range of contextual factors that can structure how and where fans express affect. Thirdly, by analysing the responses of Twin Peaks fans, work on the perceptions of the fan object that fans express can be extended to recognize affective textualities that react to the text in multiple ways in accordance with the significance afforded to Twin Peaks within individual mattering maps.

The 2016 launch of the stage production Harry Potter and the Cursed Child presented fans with their final opportunity – the first in nearly a decade – to reunite with the characters of their beloved series. Running in London’s West End since summer 2016 and transferring to Broadway in 2018, Cursed Child presents an unusual case study of what happens when an author working in other media chooses to continue their own storyworld onstage. This makes it the ideal focus point to explore what happens when theatre and fandom collide. The play script was also published in book format, and quickly became the fastest-selling theatre script since records began. But what did audiences themselves make of this dual rebirth? This article explores how the live performance and the playtext were received by fans as very different forms of afterlife. This has prompted important questions about access. Presented with an extension to their beloved storyworld after so many years, what happens when Harry Potter fans found themselves unable to actually take part in this new theatrical experience? And to what extent was the publication of the script a fair compromise in return for audiences’ undying loyalty? This article analyses both the specific example of Cursed Child and offers a more general exploration of fan-led efforts to democratize access to exclusive live events.