Final Project: The Internet & Fandom Culture
When I was thinking about my final project for this class, I was originally considering creating a slideshow or infographic about the various ways we interact with the internet, taking from what we’ve studied this semester. However, as I was reading through other students’ posts about their final projects, one caught my eye: “Self-Presentation” by Grace Bailey.
In her project, Grace discusses the show Avatar: The Last Airbender and its relation to online identity. An idea sprung to my mind: my web project could be focused on fandoms and the internet.
Fandoms are communities of fans of media (TV shows, movies, books, etc.), and “fandom culture” on the internet is very prevalent in my generation. I decided to create a Prezi slideshow that investigates the internet itself in brief, background information on fandoms, and how the two intersect.
I wrote the information about the internet based on what we read and discussed throughout this semester. Although I already knew everything I included in my presentation about fandoms (seeing as I’m in more than a few myself!), I found some articles and studies to back up my definitions and statements.
Fandoms are not the be-all and end-all of the internet, but they certainly make up a fair amount of websites and activity online. I would consider them to be a generally positive part of the internet because of how they can bring people together through shared interests.
I’ve truly enjoyed this class. It’s been fascinating and fun learning more about the internet and the digital world, using my creativity to expand on what I’ve learned, and interacting with my classmates both through Slack and on their Medium posts. My only regret is that I wasn’t able to spend as much time on the assignments as I would have liked, given that my other classes required a lot of energy and focus. I’m still working on my game, since I’m quite invested in developing it, and I’ll be exploring coding that I didn’t finish earlier this semester.
Finally, there’s a song I found this semester that I wanted to share. It’s called “Virtuality” by Rush, one of my favorite musical artists. Since Rush is a band whose most well-known hits are from the 70s and 80s, I was surprised to come across this song from them about the internet and human connection through the virtual world. It was released in 1996 on their album “Test for Echo”. I think it’s a fitting song for the topics this class has covered. The lyrics reflect on the nature of the internet and how we use it in the context of humanity, and the music itself is fantastic.
