Week 5 - Taste, Capital and Fan Identities

Recently I went to a Macklemore and Ryan Lewis concert and then posted videos and photos that I had taken of the show onto my Instagram. This can be considered as cultural capital. I am sharing the cultural capital on an easily accessible platform that other fans can reach, and they can simply search through the hashtag “Macklemore” or go onto the tagged photos of Macklemore and easily view my photos. By sharing and liking, I am sharing cultural capital with everyone is in the fandom.

Fiske (1992: 31) argues how cultural capital has a system and “The cultural system works like the economic system to distribute its resources unequally and thus to distinguish between the privileged and the deprived”. This is interesting when linked to music fandom, as tickets to see musicians live can be expensive, thus making those able to afford it privileged and those who cannot, deprived. In terms of sharing and distributing photos of the concert online, it could be argued that I am privileged, and those who do not have the chance to take photos because they could not go to a concert, could be considered deprived.

Perhaps I posted the photos and videos on Instagram so that Macklemore would notice me and repost my photo, or so that people who follow my Instagram can see that I was near the front and that I was capturing this concert. This isn’t the only time I have posted my own fan-made videos of concerts online, I usually always post at least one photo/video of a concert I have been to on my Instagram, and in 2013/14 I uploaded many of them to YouTube. I knew that there would be no financial gain, as the music is copyrighted, however I had these videos for personal use so I thought that it would be useful or entertaining for others to view.

Being a fan of Macklemore forms a part of my cultural identity, and I am actively choosing for it to do so. I am showing everyone that I like Macklemore, so much so that I would pay to go to his concert. As Hills (2002: xi) argues “fandom is always performative, it is an identity which is (dis-) claimed… fandom, then is never a natural ‘expression’ or a singular ‘referent’; its status and its performance shift across cultural sites”. I agree with this argument, as I perform my identity as a fan of Macklemore, I make it apparent by sharing photos of his concert on my social media, I tell people that I like Macklemore. My identity as a fan is obviously not limited to me only being a fan of Macklemore, my fan identity is apparent by the other things that I share about other fandoms I am a member of. I could keep my fan interests quiet and not tell anyone, however, I do not.

 

 

References

Fiske, J. (1992) ‘The Cultural Economy of Fandom’. In Lewis, L. A. (Ed.) The Adoring Audience. London, Routledge, pp30-49. 

Hills, M. (2002) Fan cultures. United States: Taylor & Francis Group.