Media and Fan Culture: Case Study My LIttle Pony

This week we will consider the nature of fan culture and the segmentation of cultural experience into overlapping communities. We will look at a recent documentary about Bronies and the suggested readings for this week include some My Little Pony work in comics as well as a comics parody of brony fan culture. Consult the course resources.

Among the questions we will consider is the nature of "hating" and social networks and the position of the artist in relation to fan communities. Also to be discussed are the relationships between such popular franchises and the role played by remixers and internet memes in establishing and nurturing the fan culture.

Highly recommended is to watch My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, Season 5, Episode 1 & 2 an interesting two part story called the Cutie Map. You can watch it here.

A must see is this My Little Pony parody about Income Equality by Adam McKay.

Writing Assignment: Write a blog post and discuss a fan community that you belong to. Describe this fan community, it preoccupations and interests, its obsessions. What are the values and narratives shared by this community? What are the central cultural works that serve as binders and reference points for this community?

My Little Pony fan art by Trudifish