"OMG, you need to see this show!!!"

As discussed during our last class, today we're seeing how people's relationships with cultural products have been changing. First, it is now much easier to be part of a community based on a common interest, and second, people are not just consuming, they are also producing.

Ever since I first started to use the Internet, when I was around 12, I started experiencing both. I was quite an anime fan during my teenage years, so I started looking at fan sites. I would save and print lots and lots of pictures of my favorite shows, I would engage in discussions with other fans, read fan fiction, and play games. I actually once wrote a fan fiction story about Sailor Mercury, but out of shyness never published it.

Through the years, my interests have changed (Harry Potter, TV show Alias, the Beatles), but I have always found the need to share them with other people online. One of the things I like about these communities is that they grow out of people's passion for a particular creation. I really don't believe that they are commercially motivated.

I do think, however, that they can be easily exploited. The motivation to share makes it so that people want to keep “spreading the word”, which is certainly convenient to marketers and the people behind the products. I myself have acted that part with many shows, most recently with Misfits. Actually, the story of how I came across this show is a good example of how a phenomenon can spread through the Internet and how others can influence what I consume, and I in turn influence others.

I have a Tumblr account that I check almost every day. During a period of time I kept seeing gifs from a show I didn't know. At first I ignored them, but they kept coming up. I finally payed attention to them and found them very funny. I realized later that a few of my “real life” friends watched the show and loved it. Those two factors, and its availability on Hulu, made me watch it. I am now a huge fan of the show, and a sort of evangelist for it. I tell my friends again and again to watch it, and practically forced my best friend to do so. I don't give a crap if anyone makes money off it, I just like the show and think my friends will enjoy it, too.

However, I do realize that, in a sense, I'm a tool; I'm being used. Andy Forssell, Hulu's senior vice president of content acquisition and distribution, said that they were looking for showsthat would evoke passion for a few people even if not a whole lot of people watch them. Fan communities have become an excellent marketing tool, and although I can't imagine any major consequences out of this, they should be wary of it.