28 Comments

Excellent effort post, you're too hard on yourself.

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Or as a marxist would say, fandom is politics.

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I'm currently obsessing over how the way ideology adherents in general exhibit exactly the unhealthy thought patterns for which CBT was designed to address.

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The more I find out about the internet, the less I like it. I came across this study via Rob Henderson which has concluded that the top 10% of Twitter users account for 92% of tweets in the US. It’s striking how this mirrors the monopoly on other online platforms. Everyone what’s influence, money, status but only it’s only possible for a handful: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/10/15/differences-in-how-democrats-and-republicans-behave-on-twitter/

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Apr 24Liked by Katherine Dee

This is neither here nor there but tbh I doubt that my mom knows who Thiel is lol. Although maybe, due to his political entanglements? I should ask

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Wow I have been blind to this. I mean I was aware of Musk fandom but I never thought there was a sincere Thielbuxx cult. Let me process this.

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I think that politics is sometimes not a fandom because fandoms are quite obssessional over "the thing in itself" (i.e. the particular), for instance being in the BBC Sherlock fandom means not caring at all about the other Sherlock Holmes TV shows, or even necessarily Benedict Cumberbatch, or British culture, or any other "universal" or "category", but instead caring very intently and seriously about the particular concrescence of all these things into this one show.

Whereas, in politics, its often the opposite. Party politics is the key example. It doesn't matter to the Democratic base in the general for instance, whether the candidate (the particular) is Bernie, Hillary, Biden, Kamala, Yang, or whoever - they will always vote Democrat (the universal). The particular is disposable but the universal is essential.

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Potentially dumb question - which Amy Bruckman paper are you referencing in the footnote?

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"fandoms are just the organizing principle in a consumerist society." Sounds about right

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