SENSE OF COMMUNITY IN TODAY’S TWITTER FAN CULTURE

ABSTRACT:

This paper will examine how pop music fan accounts on Twitter utilises its affordances – namely, the @ symbol for usernames, mentions and replies, hashtags, and retweets – to fulfill the four conditions of McMillan and Chavis’s notion of ‘sense of community’ within the platform. It will primarily examine the online behaviours of these types of fans do when using these affordances to retain the on-going interaction and connection between other fans and their favourite artists and how it can also be the root cause of toxic interactions within the fandom. Based on the previous findings, research and personal experience, this paper will prove as to how the authors’ concept of ‘sense of community’ within online, virtual communities like Twitter were practiced online today.

KEYWORDS: Twitter, pop music fans, sense of community, hashtags, retweets, usernames, mentions, replies, fan culture.

Virtual communities are a type of online communities in which members share common interests and passion for a particular topic (Porter, 2015, p. 161). The on-going communication happening within these virtual communities started to see another potential of the Internet, that is, creating stronger interpersonal connections with other like-minded users (Kendall, 2011, p. 310). From being a microblogging website, Twitter has revolutionised the way people interact with each other in the platform and it has become an excellent example of how virtual communities form on social media, creating a new wave of participatory culture in today’s digitised society. Utami (2016) argues that the proliferation of social media platforms plays an important role in today’s fan culture, as these platforms became a hub for fans to help increase the branding of the celebrity through their tremendous support that they have shown online (pp. 31-32). Most pop music fans choose Twitter as their preferred social media app to use when integrating themselves in the said online community, as the platform’s affordances, such as mentions (@), hashtags, and retweets, made it easier for them to interact and connect with other fans worldwide. While these affordances are useful for sustaining and retaining the on- going fan interaction, the statistical data (i.e. number of reactions/engagements of the post) shown in these affordances can sometimes induce some sort of a competition between opposing fandoms, establishing a toxic environment for fans to interact in, and resulting for a number of fans to potentially disintegrate themselves from the group. This conference paper will further examine how pop music fans on Twitter utilise the platform’s affordances, such as mentions and usernames, hashtags and retweets, to fulfill the four conditions of McMillan and Chavis’s (cited in Gruzd et al., 1986) notion of ‘sense of community’ – namely, membership, influence, integration and fulfillment of needs, and shared emotional connection – and how this

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concept is being applied and practiced online to retain the on-going interaction with other fan accounts in the said platform.

The @ symbol can either mean one or two things: a person’s username on Twitter and the creation of infinite interactions and connections through replies. Both of them fulfil the first condition of McMillan and Chavis’s definition of creating a ‘sense of community’ in virtual communities – membership. In the case of fan communities, membership in the fandom can be determined through the way they construct their usernames, commonly including an adjective that describes the overall personality of their preferred celebrity, plus the first name or surname of their favourite celebrity. There are cases where they combine it with a song title or the name of another preferred artist if they are participating in multiple fandoms. According to Kehrberg (2015), fan usernames are made to be in that way to show their admiration and support for their favourite celebrity in order to get noticed by them easily (p. 92). Fan news accounts on Twitter has used the @ symbol effectively when disseminating important information to fans, where fans tag other fellow fans to keep them updated about what is happening in the fandom. This behaviour can potentially spark and create a number of meaningful conversations with other fans in the same community (McCollum, 2011, p. 14).

Despite all of these things happening, there will be some accounts who would take advantage of this affordance to trick fans into engaging with their posts (Muscanell et al., 2014, p. 392). This type of internet trolling has been on the rise recently, particularly in the case of the K-Pop fan community – loyal and dedicated fans of a number of well-known K-Pop boybands and girl groups – in the West, who claimed to have started this internet trend, where they reply to the most controversial tweets with fan cams or video footages (taken by fans) focusing of one member of the group. Morin (2020) pointed in the article that it these types of replies are turning to, more of, a distraction rather than entertaining. Fans usually post these types of videos under the replies of controversial tweets, aiming to turn their attention away on the controversial tweet on focus it on a video (para. 6). It has also fulfilled McMillan and Chavis’ second condition, influence, as these videos had created a domino effect online, encouraging fans to do the same behaviour for the purposes of free promotion of the artist/band. Although the current fan cam culture is not the appropriate way to stop or combat the hate that was accumulated from the conversation, it can sometimes show the behaviour of the fans towards controversial tweets. Anderson (2019) has argued that fans usually do this to explicitly show their disengagements and apathetic reactions towards controversial issues (para. 15), which can sometimes lead to toxic interactions between K-Pop and non-K-pop fans. Despite this, it may also be a great segue for fans, as well as non-fans, to turn their attention to something positive and can ease their stresses from the negativity surrounding in the contemporary society today. To summarise, fans have utilised the @ symbol of Twitter in a both positive and a negative way, as well as the fact that utilising it has fulfilled the first two conditions of McMillan and Chavis’s concept of ‘sense of community’ – membership and influence. Despite the fact that their usernames may signify their overwhelming passion and support for their preferred artist, it can also lead to the toxic online behaviours, much like the fan cam culture on Twitter. Although this online culture may encourage fans to be apathetic towards the current issues, it can also be a great tactic to neutralise the overwhelming reactions accumulated in the replies section of a controversial tweet and to appreciate musical talents. Pamela Getalado [19794486] Assignment 1: Conference Paper (Final version) Page 2

Hashtags are commonly written with the pound (#) symbol and they are used to categorise certain phrases or topics that rose from different conversations on Twitter. These folksonomy tags allow people to follow their preferred topics to look at or are interested in looking (Twitter, 2020). Hashtags are still a norm in today’s Twitter fan culture, and it is also a great example of how participatory culture plays in today’s digital age. In fact, Arvidsson et al. (cited in Santero, 2015) studied the behaviours of fan communities when it comes to using hashtags for trending purposes, arguing on the fact that these fans resemble more of a crowd rather than a community coming together. This argument may be true, on one hand, as there are fans living in different time zones around the world and were not committed to continually participate and contribute to increase the exposure and the discoverability of the hashtag over a long period of time. However, on the other hand, it contradicts this argument as most fandoms on Twitter today come together as a community and strategize on how to get their hashtags included in the local or worldwide trending list on Twitter, fulfilling the third condition of McMillan and Chavis’s concept of the term ‘sense of community’ – integration and fulfillment of needs. As more fans are integrating themselves in online fan communities much like Twitter, the only goal that they need to acquire from this is to become recognised by their artist and to express the never-ending support that they have given to them for a long time. Recuero et al. (2012) underwent a study of how the fans of Restart, a famous pop band in Brazil, used hashtags to create and encourage fans to join a public conversation on the platform and how they have used this strategically to achieve their goal, which is to get their hashtag included in Brazil’s top trending list on Twitter. According to the authors’ study, these online fans underwent a so-called “nomination process”, where big accounts encourage small, active accounts to nominate their online friends to participate in a planned public conversation, as well as giving them the opportunity to increase their follower count (pp. 9-10). This on-going fan behaviour online has made it easier for fans to further strengthen their relationship with the artist and other like- minded fans, even when it is done so online (p. 9). Having a fandom’s hashtag becoming part of the local or worldwide trending list is a huge achievement for them as a collective – highlighting and meeting the ‘fulfilment of needs’ condition – as it further authorises their online identity as fans, due to the fact that these hashtags are now recognised and were seen by their favourite artists as well as non-fans who most likely will listen to their music (p. 11). To conclude, it has been proven that the power of Twitter hashtags has become a powerful feature for these fans to come together as a community and show their never-ending love and support for their preferred artists. Through organising and joining in the so-called ‘Trending Parties’, popular and small, active fan accounts feel like they have become more integrated and involved within the online community than ever before, which creates a sense of fulfilment for them as it further legitimises their identity as a member of the fandom.

Retweets (abbreviated as RTs) are re-posted versions of the original tweet (post). A person has the choice to retweet their own tweet or another person’s tweet. The only way to distinguish that the tweet is retweeted is the ‘Retweeted by…’ sign at the top of the original tweet. This is Twitter’s efficient and quick way to disseminate information to a large following (Twitter, n.d.). Not only that RTs serve to spread information from one user to another, but it is also a recognition of one’s presence online (Jensen, cited in Ratka, 2017). For example, on the

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29th of March 2020, Argentine singer/actress, TINI (@TiniStoessel) posted a tweet encouraging users to follow the dance steps to her newly released single, Ya no me llames (Don’t call me anymore), that was posted on her Instagram account. Since then, multitude of her loyal fans started posting their own creative versions of the singer’s dance steps across multiple social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and TikTok, with the hashtag #YaNoMeLlamesChallenge and started retweeting a number of entries on Twitter, which later have fans posting tweets expressing their heightened excitement and reactions about their post being noticed and retweeted by the Argentine star. Fans have started inviting unnoticed fans to reply and post their versions of the dance challenge, increasing the chances of getting them noticed by the singer as well. This type of behaviour fulfills the fourth and final condition of McMillan and Chavis’s notion of the term ‘sense of community’ – shared emotional connection – as fans that got retweeted by their favourite artist share the same emotional, relatable and euphoric feeling of being recognised by an artist that they admired for a long time. Overall, Twitter’s retweets feature has enabled users to spread viable information, as well as to repost relatable or similar experiences in order to create a sense of emotional connection between each other. Fans have utilised this feature effectively in order to sustain the on-going connection and interaction between the artist and the fan, further strengthening the relationship between them. Although there are times that they may not have or get the opportunity to see them in person, retweets will always be there to remind the user that the artist will forever be appreciative for their never-ending support. Clearly then, it has been proven that online music fans have effectively utilised the affordances of Twitter – such as @mentions/@username, hashtags, and retweets – to further strengthen the artist-fan relationship online, as the microblogging platform has revolutionised the way people communicate through the means of social media platforms. These features, as well, has truly fulfilled the four conditions of McMillan and Chavis’s notion of the term ‘sense of community’ as fans wanted to make the overall fandom experience more memorable and less isolating online, encouraging fans to speak out their minds, as well as uploading user-generated content online to show the influence that artists have done to these fans for supporting them for a long time, and revealing the other side of themselves that they have not shown to their social relations in real life. Social media today has become a powerful tool for fans to communicate and connect with their favourite artists and other fans on the platform, because without it, how can fans explicitly express their love and support to them in a priceless kind of way?

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