ABSTRACT
What does it mean to be a 40-year-old Once Upon a Time (ABC) fan who live-tweets each episode? Or a 60-year-old Lord of the Rings enthusiast who curates an online catalog of fan art? Or an 80-year-old who collects Spice Girls dolls, not for their profit potential or nostalgia’s sake but out of deep emotional attachment? In short, how are fans and fandoms shaped by age? As scholars have expanded their scope of inquiry to examine how fandom is influenced by multiple aspects of social identity—including not only gender and sexuality but now also race, ethnicity, and national identity—we advocate for the importance of highlighting age and aging in fan scholarship. Fandom in youth and adolescence has received considerable attention over the years from industries and scholars alike, reflecting both the profit potential of the youth market and long-held associations between fan practices and childhood development. In contrast, fandom in late(r) life remains under-examined, even as a rapidly aging global population and increased consumer spending by older adults signal its growing importance to media landscapes (Tedeschi 2006). For example, in the US context, about 35% of movie-goers are now 45 or older (Nielsen 2013), the most active concert-goers are middle-aged (35 to 54; Mazur 2015), and about 45% of all ad-supported cable television (TV) networks have median audience ages of 50 or older (Sternberg 2015). These trends are expected to continue in the future—how might they impact fan identities and practices?
