ABSTRACT
The academic analysis of fans has frequently foregrounded two dimensions: creativity and collectivity. These characteristics of fandom in turn appear to set the practices of fans apart from other less productive and tightly knit audience groups. Yet, the growing ubiquity of fandom in the era of digital media challenges notions of fandom as exceptional and distinct from ‘normal audiences’ (Fiske 1992). Based on the study of ordinary, everyday life fandom we therefore suggest that the quintessential, constitutive condition of fandom is transitive rather than collective or creative – and maintained through the affective bond with a given fan object that is constructed through processes of textual selection facilitated by digital media.
