This Is Us Rhetorical Analysis
THE PERCEIVED NEGATIVITY OF BEING A FAN AND THE IMPORTANCE OF THE AUDIENCE/ARTIST RHETORIC
How fans communities create new rhetoric and meanings, and how can the creation of said rhetoric challenge the negative perceptions non-fans have of them?
In the wake of Liam Payne’s new baby, and the several reactions of fans and anti-fans I decided to take a closer look at the rhetoric between artist and fans, as well as the ill perceived image of fans by other audiences. In 2013 the movie “This Is Us” by Morgan Spurlock was released. The movie is a documentary about the biggest boy band since Take That and Backstreet Boys, One Direction. The motion picture didn’t only focus on the band and their Take Me Home tour, it also had an emphasize on their …show more content…
Often refers to as “haters” within the fandoms, in the fandom studies they are referred to as “anti-fans”, in 2003, Jonathan Grey in his book New Audience, New Textualities: Anti-fans and Non-fans, argued that “anti-fans” worked in the same way as fans, identifying themselves through their immense hate for a subject, where fans identify themselves through their love for the subject. In the Directioners’ case “anti-fan” often criticize the obsessive nature of the fans as well as the hysteria they seem to show, and the perception some fans have that they somehow know the boy band without ever meeting them. What is, more often than not, overlooked is the sense of belonging within the community, the production some fans come up with and the aids a whole fandom can manage when they put their mind to …show more content…
In the example of One Direction’s fandom, there is massively present content which is based on One Direction and their surroundings, but goes beyond reality to create a whole new one. One striking example is the book “After” written by Anna Todd, which before being it’s own story was a fan fiction about Harry Styles, member of One Direction. This is a perfect example of a text which was based on a subject became, a subject itself. However, even if fan fiction has been around for as long as fan cultures has been, the development of the internet age gave the possibility to fans to express their own interpretation of a subject through different platform, one of the most influential one being YouTube. On YouTube you can find various forms of fan creations, from covers, to “funny moments” videos, or even videos with a song by the artist and several pictures or videos throughout being shown, if it is based on a movie or book you will find many videos showing the relationship between different characters which are not canon (what happens and is in the original text) for example in Harry Potter, Ron and Hermione together is canon, however within the fan community many people will
How fans communities create new rhetoric and meanings, and how can the creation of said rhetoric challenge the negative perceptions non-fans have of them?
In the wake of Liam Payne’s new baby, and the several reactions of fans and anti-fans I decided to take a closer look at the rhetoric between artist and fans, as well as the ill perceived image of fans by other audiences. In 2013 the movie “This Is Us” by Morgan Spurlock was released. The movie is a documentary about the biggest boy band since Take That and Backstreet Boys, One Direction. The motion picture didn’t only focus on the band and their Take Me Home tour, it also had an emphasize on their …show more content…
Often refers to as “haters” within the fandoms, in the fandom studies they are referred to as “anti-fans”, in 2003, Jonathan Grey in his book New Audience, New Textualities: Anti-fans and Non-fans, argued that “anti-fans” worked in the same way as fans, identifying themselves through their immense hate for a subject, where fans identify themselves through their love for the subject. In the Directioners’ case “anti-fan” often criticize the obsessive nature of the fans as well as the hysteria they seem to show, and the perception some fans have that they somehow know the boy band without ever meeting them. What is, more often than not, overlooked is the sense of belonging within the community, the production some fans come up with and the aids a whole fandom can manage when they put their mind to …show more content…
In the example of One Direction’s fandom, there is massively present content which is based on One Direction and their surroundings, but goes beyond reality to create a whole new one. One striking example is the book “After” written by Anna Todd, which before being it’s own story was a fan fiction about Harry Styles, member of One Direction. This is a perfect example of a text which was based on a subject became, a subject itself. However, even if fan fiction has been around for as long as fan cultures has been, the development of the internet age gave the possibility to fans to express their own interpretation of a subject through different platform, one of the most influential one being YouTube. On YouTube you can find various forms of fan creations, from covers, to “funny moments” videos, or even videos with a song by the artist and several pictures or videos throughout being shown, if it is based on a movie or book you will find many videos showing the relationship between different characters which are not canon (what happens and is in the original text) for example in Harry Potter, Ron and Hermione together is canon, however within the fan community many people will