Fan Studies Network 2014 presentation: 'As Long As You Love Me' : Insights in the long-term fandom of Dutch Backstreet Boys fans (original) (raw)
Bourdieu (1992) considers the habitus to be ‘the active presence of the whole past of which it is the product’. This past becomes ‘accumulated capital, which produces history on the basis of history and so, ensures the permanence in change’ (Bourdieu, 1992: 56). Rimmer’s (2007) musical habitus offers a framework through explore how music forms such permanence in one’s life. The musical habitus namely helps to explain how an individual’s connection to music perpetually relates to socialization and social location. This study explores this permanence by analyzing how and why 24 post-youth women are still fans of the Backstreet Boys. Findings indicate that the Boys – and their music – form a constant factor in their lives. This importance can in-/decrease at times (as Hills, 2002 argues as well), yet the music of the boys offers a safe-haven to which the fans can return when they need a break from their current responsibilities and duties. So, the music and concerts are not just a ‘time-out’ from their current social role (e.g. a mom, working full-time); it is a moment in which the fans connect with their younger Selves again. They return to a previous habitus, to a starting point of a musical habitus that has grown more complex over recent years. Yet, because of their current social and economic position they are also able to engage in practices they previously could not engage with (e.g. buying meet & greets or going on a cruise with the band). So the changes in meaning and practices they now employ are ways of appropriating their ‘fanship’ into their current social location, which helps them, endure (their musical habitus and younger identity) in this location and its social world.
Related papers
Still ‘Got the Feelin’’: Exploring Post-Youth’s Enjoyment of Music from their Recent
Jennings and Gardner (2012) unfolded how women in their 40s and over keep making and enjoying music – albeit passing the ‘culturally appropriate age’ of popular music consumption. This study highlights how post-youth women (Bennett & Hodkinson, 2012) are already occupied with explaining their enjoyment of music icons from their youth, such as the Backstreet Boys (BSB) or The Big Reunion acts (e.g. 5ive, Blue), which their peers consider age-inappropriate. Post-youth are those in their late twenties to late thirties gaining new tasks and duties due to growing older (e.g. motherhood or working full-time). The interviewees legitimize their music consumption by considering their revived fandom (the Big Reunion) as a space to take a break from everyday life, because it is reminiscent of their childhood. On the other hand, the perpetual BSB-fandom offers the fans a continuous safe haven - where fans can turn to when coping with the challenges of ageing. These music-related spaces are constructed, and activated, by putting to use one’s roots capital: capital that is claimed through one’s narrative reflection and helps to explain the attachment to a cultural artifact from one’s roots – (both) the place and time (Zeitgeist) in which one grew up. Hence, this paper discusses how these music-fans are already as post-youth challenged to renegotiate their music consumption.
Larger than life: Exploring the transcultural practices of the Dutch Backstreet Boys fandom
This study examines how the media use of non-Anglo American fans of the Backstreet Boys played a role in maintaining their long-term fandom. It does this by exploring how Dutch fans of the group negotiated its global reach and impact. The findings indicate that in the early days of the band’s fame, fans could rely on frequent (translated) coverage of this cultural text in the Dutch media. However, when the group disappeared off the Dutch media’s radar, the fans had to themselves become gate-openers and gatekeepers; they felt responsible for (continuing) circulating news, created their own Dutch fan-sites and fan-forums and befriended other (Dutch and international) fans online to sustain their fandom. Consequently, this study exposes how transcultural practices feature in this Dutch fandom, as well as how adapting and implementing new forms of media use helps to uphold long-term fandom in general.
2013
The objective of our research is to investigate fandom from a psychological perspective. As a departure from previous research relying on a sociological approach, we focus on the nature and strength of fan-idol relationships. To this end, this study reports the findings from qualitative research carried out in the field of music on how fandom is expressed through fans' interactions with their favourite singer/band, its associated significations and behaviour. We identify four significations: the musician as a brand, as a public personality, as an intimate and as a god. We highlight that fandom is initially an individual phenomenon whereby an individual creates a specific relationship with a musician, and that all fans can be considered valuable consumers independently from the relationship's strength.
Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 2019
This paper seeks to identify kinds of relationships fans who celebrate their passion individually might have with their music icons and focuses on a better understanding of the content of these relationship (how these fans interact with their music icon and valuable consumption practices associated). It relies on recent works considering fandom as an intensely personal phenomenon that can occur in the absence of a group or social context. The theoretical background builds on subcultures studies, consumption practices related, and the attachment consumers can develop with celebrities or teams. Through a qualitative study with popular music fans who live their passion independently of any community or subculture, findings underline that some fans can intentionally gravitate more toward an individualized (rather than a collective) celebration of his or her object of fandom and that may result in various consumption practices. Also, this research highlights that being a fan does not nec...
Fans or friends?: Seeing social media audiences as musicians do
In the last decade, engaging audiences through social media has become an important element of life as a musician. This paper analyses interviews with thirty-six musicians to understand how they perceive their interactions and relationships with audiences online. It highlights the blurred boundaries between fans and friends, identifying how online interactions can bring interpersonal rewards for musicians, as well as how they can raise interpersonal challenges. Musicians balance these tensions through a range of strategies that depend on their need to protect themselves, their loved ones, and the integrity of their fans' experiences. Rather than approaching online audiences as 'fans' who are necessarily less powerful, many of the musicians engaged them as equals.
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.
Related papers
in Guerra, Paula; Tania Moreira, eds (2015) Keep It Simple, Make It Fast! An Approach to Underground Music Scenes. Volume 1, University of Porto, 569-580