Replies, Retweets, and Reblogs: Modes of Participation in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Meredith Dabek Maynooth University, Ireland
1. Introduction
In an April 2012 YouTube video that would eventually accumulate more than two million views, a 24-year-old postgraduate student named Lizzie Bennet introduced herself to the world. That video marked the opening chapter of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, a year-long digital narrative which updated and reimagined Jane Austen’s beloved novel, Pride and Prejudice. Over the course of a year, Lizzie’s story world would expand to include four additional YouTube channels, numerous interconnected Twitter feeds, Tumblr blogs, Facebook profiles, and countless interactions between characters and readers on social media platforms. Austen’s original print novel was transformed into a small screen narrative that could be accessed on laptops, tablets, and mobile phones. Moreover, individual readers had the opportunity to control their preferred level of engagement with and participation in the narrative by making specific choices as they navigated the text. The Lizzie Bennet Diaries differed from previous adaptations of Austen’s novel by actively inviting readers to interact with the narrative and its characters through various participatory elements. As a transmedia narrative, different components and elements of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries were distributed across multiple digital and social media platforms in “a deliberate attempt to make media converge around shared narrative content” (Ryan 2). Consequently, during the initial release of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries in 2012 and 2013, readers were faced with multiple entry points and narrative paths, and therefore had to decide which components to consume, and in which order.1 In this sense, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries operated as a cybertext, in which the process of reading the narrative required deliberate decisions by the reader as she consumed the text (Aarseth 2). Did she choose to follow and converse with Lizzie on Twitter, but not Darcy? Did she comment on Lydia’s YouTube videos, or reblog Jane’s fashion posts
1 While The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is still freely available on its various media platforms, and the narrative does still incorporate and allow for some level of participation, for the purposes of this article, the participatory and interactive elements discussed will refer to the narrative as it unfolded in 2012 and 2013.
Paradoxa, No. 29 2017 264 Meredith Dabek on Tumblr? Additionally, each specific media platform leveraged by the narrative had its own unique functions and affordances that helped shape a reader’s overall experience with Lizzie’s story. Those features were a crucial and integral part of a reader’s literary exchange with the text—features not present in the print format of Austen’s novel (Aarseth 1). The various functions and affordances of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries’ media platforms, existing as they did within the convergent digital media environment, presented different modes of participation to readers. Broadly organized into three categories, these modes enabled readers to: participate through sharing, in which readers engaged with and shared the narrative through digital social tools; participate through interactivity, in which readers could interact with the narrative’s characters to create a deeper level of immersion in the story; and participate through fan creations, in which readers produced and circulated original media creations as members of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries fan community. These various avenues of participation helped deepen readers’ overall sense of narrative immersion and reinforce readers’ engagement with The Lizzie Bennet Diaries small screen text.
2. Convergence and Participation
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries exists within the convergent media environment, where a story like Pride and Prejudice can be deconstructed and distributed across multiple media channels, where the line between creator and consumer is blurred, and where audiences play an integral role in shaping the media they consume. Convergence, as defined by media scholars Graham Meikle and Sherman Young, represents “the coming together of things that were previously separate” and allows information and content to flow freely within media environments (2). The lack of boundaries within the convergent media environment also makes it possible for consumers, readers, and fans to connect across great distances. Indeed, consumers, readers, and fans are, in large part, the active drivers behind the convergent media environment. These individuals’ engagement and participation “across different media systems, competing media economies and national borders” helps propel the creation of texts such as The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (Jenkins, Convergence Culture 3). Consumers, readers, and fans in the convergent media environment are not at all passive; rather, as media scholar Henry Jenkins points out, they “refuse to simply accept what they are given” and “insist on the right to become full participants” (Convergence Culture 131). Consequently, participation is a defining feature of the convergent Replies, Retweets and Reblogs 265
media environment, particularly since the continued development of digital technologies and tools has removed obstacles often found in traditional media. Within the context of the convergent media environment, “participation” refers to a user’s active involvement in some task and/or the sharing of an action by a user acting as a part of a group or community (“Participation”). Participation in digital spaces can also be loosely categorized in three different, though overlapping, ways: as the specific behaviors of users in these digital spaces; as the characteristics of digital communities and groups; and as the affordances and features of social and digital media platforms. Users in digital spaces, for example, can be classified by how they participate and the types of behavior they exhibit. According to the American research firm Forrester Research and its Social Technographics ladder, users might participate by being creators, critics, conversationalists, collectors, joiners, or spectators (Fleming; van Dijck “Users like you?”). Moreover, many users often participate in a variety of ways, depending on the situation and circumstances and therefore may be both creators and spectators, collectors and critics, or any other combination. During The Lizzie Bennet Diaries’ initial release in 2012 and 2013, for instance, readers of the narrative were also creators who uploaded fan remix and reaction videos, conversationalists who communicated with characters and fellow readers on social media, and above all, spectators who watched, read, listened, and observed. Each of these participatory behaviors helped form an important part of the audience for digital media content. Participation in digital spaces may also take the form of community or group characteristics. In his 1992 book, Textual Poachers, media scholar Henry Jenkins coined the term “participatory culture” to refer to groups of users who have leveraged digital technologies to form online communities where anyone can contribute to the creation of media objects and texts (Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers). Jenkins defines participatory cultures as groups or communities with “relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement [and] strong support for creating and sharing creations with others” as well as ones whose members “believe that their contributions matter” (Jenkins et al 7). Jenkins, along with fellow researchers Aaron Delwiche and Jennifer Jacobs Henderson, propose that these participatory cultures can be further defined by their purpose; consequently, a participatory online community might be an affiliation culture, an expression culture, a collaborative problem-solving culture, a circulation culture, a consensus culture, a creative culture, or a discussion culture (Jenkins et al; Delwiche and Henderson). In applying Jenkins’ definition toThe Lizzie Bennet Diaries, it is easy 266 Meredith Dabek
to see how this digital narrative also operated as a participatory culture. The various elements of Lizzie’s story were (and still are) freely available on a variety of social media sites and readers did not need accounts on those sites to read or consume the content. Those with accounts could comment, ask questions, or share their opinions, activities that were supported by other readers and The Lizzie Bennet Diaries production team, and thus also contributed to readers feeling like their contributions mattered to the overall story. Moreover, and perhaps most importantly, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries fan community still exists years after the narrative’s initial release, and fans continue to participate. Lizzie’s videos on YouTube, for example, still receive comments on a consistent basis, while readers continue to share fan fictions, artwork, and other fan creations on Tumblr. Essentially, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries as a narrative led to the creation of a much larger, more enduring participatory culture. Lastly, participation in digital spaces is also enabled by the specific and sometimes unique features and functions of digital media platforms, features that often trigger social behavior on the part of users. These features provide opportunities for users to interact with others and, in the case of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, participate in a digital narrative. In a 1977 article titled “The Theory of Affordances,” psychologist James Gibson introduced the idea of an affordance, an action (or an opportunity for action) made possible by the properties and environment of an object (68). Over time, Gibson’s original intended definition has shifted and changed as it has been adapted by other disciplines outside of psychology. Consequently, the concept of an affordance in the digital media environment often refers to social affordances or sociotechnical affordances—features of digital media platforms that invite social interactions by users. For media scholar danah boyd, social affordances are “the particular properties or characteristics of an environment” that “make possible— and, in some cases, are used to encourage—certain types of practices, even if they do not determine what practices will unfold” (It’s Complicated 10-11). The specific affordances of digital and social media help researchers understand how individuals can use a particular media platform, which in turn can help those researchers better understand how users experience (and, potentially, benefit from) digital and social media. As boyd points out, these social affordances are not new phenomena; rather, these affordances offer “technical features that people can use to engage” with other users, with specific social practices, or with media content (It’s Complicated 13). For The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, the social affordances of the narrative’s various digital media platforms largely determined the different modes of participation and interactivity Replies, Retweets and Reblogs 267
available to readers. Understanding those affordances is essential to understanding how readers leveraged the tools and features of YouTube, Twitter, and Tumblr to engage with and experience Lizzie’s story, and their participation may have altered or influenced their overall experience of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries narrative.
3. Participation Through Sharing
One of the key modes of participation for readers of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries was the ability to spread and share different parts of the narrative, primarily through the sharing tools available on YouTube, Twitter, and Tumblr. These three social media platforms have features, as boyd reminds us, that are “designed to help people [share] information, whether by explicitly or implicitly encouraging the sharing of links, providing reblogging or favouriting tools that repost images or texts, or by making it easy to copy and paste content from one place to another” (It’s Complicated 12). To track the favorite posts of users, for example, Twitter and Tumblr invite users to click on the now-familiar icon of a red heart, while YouTube offers a “thumbs up” icon to encourage users to indicate “I like it.” YouTube, Twitter, and Tumblr also encourages users to spread content beyond the platform through the inclusion of sharing tools. On the YouTube website and in its mobile applications, for instance, each video in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries narrative includes the option to share videos through a variety of other social media platforms; by copying and pasting a direct hyperlink to the video; by emailing the video; or by embedding the video on a blog or website. Moreover, the producers of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries leveraged some of YouTube’s more advanced features to offer other avenues of participation to readers. The YouTube end screen (which is sometimes also known as an end card or an “outro”) enables video creators to add an interactive element at the end of a video, with hyperlinks to additional YouTube content and outside websites. At the end of Lizzie’s videos, for example, the end screen provided a glimpse of the next installment, invited readers to watch previous installments, included links to The Lizzie Bennet Diaries’ other social media accounts, and prompted readers and viewers to “jump” to Lydia’s YouTube channel, or Darcy’s. By providing this additional functionality, the end screen served to further readers’ engagement with the narrative and encourage non-linear reading choices. 268 Meredith Dabek
Fig. 1.
Twitter’s sharing functionality is featured most prominently through the retweet. Retweeting is “the practice of reproducing another user’s tweet on one’s own profile and distributing that tweet to one’s own followers” (Draucker and Collister). Retweets allow users to promote content other than their own within their individual networks; as boyd explains, “retweeting brings new people into a particular [conversation] or thread, inviting them to engage without directly addressing them” (“Tweet, Tweet, Retweet”). Retweets can introduce new content to an individual’s network, serve as a method for amplifying others’ messages, or offer a tacit approval of a tweet’s message (Halavais 35). Originally an ad hoc practice devised by Twitter’s early users, retweeting has since become a standard feature of the Twitter platform. During the initial release of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries in 2012 and 2013, Twitter’s retweet tool reproduced an original tweet in its entirety, with no option for users to modify or add content. In an article for the Open Library of Humanities journal, Fawn Draucker and Lauren Collister refer to this type of retweet as the “Preserving Retweet” as it preserved the tweet’s content and original author. In this preserving retweet, Lizzie shared with her followers another user’s tweet exactly as it was published:
Fig. 2. Replies, Retweets and Reblogs 269
However, for users who wished to add some comment to the original tweet, the older style of retweeting—the “Adapting Retweet”—still persisted, as frequently seen on Lizzie’s Twitter feed. The Adapting Retweet typically followed a standard formula: added or commentary text, followed by the letters RT (as a shorthand for “retweet”) and the original author’s username, and then the original tweet as it was published. The Adapting Retweet allowed users, including Lizzie, to add comments before the retweeted content, thereby adding to the conversation in addition to sharing the original message.2
Fig. 3.
In addition to facilitating the spread of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries narrative, retweets can serve as a tracker for user and reader engagement and participation, by noting how many times a tweet was shared. The same functionality applies to Tumblr as well. On the Tumblr platform, sharing occurs most often through the “reblog” button, which allows users to post content created by other users on one’s own blog, either entirely as is, or with the addition of comments by the reblogging user. Thus, Tumblr’s reblogs function much like Twitter’s retweets, circulating the original content to user’s individual networks (which often contain a new set of users unfamiliar with the original content, thereby expanding the reach of the original post). Lizzie’s first tweet, for example, shows a modest 54 “likes” and 28 retweets. In contrast, the tweet announcing the release of her final video approximately one year later shows that 310 different users liked it, while 297 retweeted it.
2 Twitter has since updated its interface and, as a result, the Adapting Retweet has been largely replaced by the Quote Tweet function. 270 Meredith Dabek
Fig. 4. Similarly, the Tumblr post for Lizzie’s first installment, shows that users reblogged or favorited the post 864 times.
Fig. 5.
A year later, the Tumblr post for Lizzie’s one-hundredth installment shows a reblog and favorite count of 3,111—nearly four times the count from the first post (“My Name is Lizzie Bennet;” “The End”). While the reasons behind the increase in retweets on Twitter and reblogs on Tumblr are likely due to a variety of factors, those increases occurred while the narrative progressed and could also suggest increased reader engagement and participation.
4. Participation Through Interaction
Another mode of participation for readers of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries came through the elements of interactivity found within the narrative. In the convergent media environment, “participation” and “interactivity” are sometimes used interchangeably, when in fact they often refer to different functions. As previously discussed, participation can be defined as a specific action or sharing of an action by a user. Interactivity, Replies, Retweets and Reblogs 271
meanwhile, defines reciprocal actions, where another user or the media system itself returns or replies to some user’s action. In this sense, interactivity is therefore focused on the “two-way flow of information” (“Interactivity”). The Lizzie Bennet Diaries’ media platforms (e.g., YouTube, Twitter, and Tumblr) not only encouraged participation on the part of the readers, but also included elements of interaction by having “Lizzie” or the narrative’s other characters respond to readers and users. On YouTube, for example, the comments section is a widely-used feature that users leverage to offer their opinions on a particular video and interact with other users. Lizzie’s YouTube videos typically received, on average, around one thousand comments, with some of the most popular videos (such as the first appearance of Darcy) receiving upwards of seven thousand comments.
Fig. 6.
The commenting function also allowed Lizzie, Lydia, and other characters in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries to respond to reader questions, either by replying directing in the comments section themselves or by incorporating those questions in question-and-answer videos. Over the course of the narrative, Lizzie made ten question-and-answer videos in which she directly answered specific questions from readers. Furthermore, some of her “regular” videos include brief asides in which she indirectly answered reader questions. In episode 38, for example, Lizzie mentions that readers and fans “keep asking in the comments” about her relationship with George Wickham (“A Tale of Two Gents”). In addition to providing an aspect of interactivity to Lizzie’s story, the commenting function on YouTube gave readers a mode of participation that enabled what Professor Stephen Coleman calls “the feeling of being counted, or the affective character of an experience that renders it fulfilling for individuals” (qtd in Papacharissi, Affective Publics 25). By answering specific questions and including those answers in the 272 Meredith Dabek
narrative, the writers and producers of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries not only indicated that they were reading and listening to reader comments, but also that those comments and questions mattered to Lizzie’s story. The Twitter platform, meanwhile, provided some of the greatest levels of interactivity for The Lizzie Bennet Diaries readers. The narrative had thirteen interconnected Twitter feeds for various characters, including Lizzie, Jane, Lydia, Darcy, Wickham, Charlotte, and others. Lizzie and her friends “spoke” to one another through these Twitter feeds and, since all the feeds were public and open, readers could “eavesdrop” on these conversations. More importantly, however, by using Twitter’s @ messages and @ replies functions, which are also known as mentions, readers could “converse directly with other specific users, drawing their attention to particular content or attempting to capture their attention in general” (Papacharissi Affective Publics 36). Furthermore, as communications scholar Gina Chen asserts, “mentions signal the start of a conversation” on Twitter and through those conversations and the other functions of the platform, “people gratify their need to connect with others”—even if those others are fictional characters (757). The conversations and interactions on Twitter offered readers a sense of immediacy that wasn’t as obvious on other media platforms in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries narrative. Lizzie’s YouTube videos, for instance, were consistently uploaded in the mornings on Mondays and Thursdays in Pacific Standard Time. Thus, readers and fans not only had to wait for a Monday or Thursday to watch the next video, but readers and fans in different time zones had to contend with time differences. With Twitter, however, readers had more of a “real time” feeling to the interactions because they could (and did) converse with Lizzie and the other characters at any time. By participating in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries narrative through Twitter, readers had the experience of being a part of the story, rather than simply viewing and reading it from a distance.
Fig. 7. Replies, Retweets and Reblogs 273
The Tumblr platform offered readers of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries interactivity through the development of the narrative’s fan community. Fan communities, or fandoms (a portmanteau of “fan” and “kingdom”), have flourished in the convergent digital media environment, where it is easier for people to seek out content from a variety of sources, create their own content, and connect with other users over shared interests across distances. Moreover, media convergence has motivated consumers and users to become more active and engaged within certain fandoms, such as The Lizzie Bennet Diaries fandom, by making participation easier through readily available tools and platforms. On a platform such as Tumblr, readers and fans of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries could circulate original artwork, narrative theories, fan videos, and more, while also interacting with other fans to solicit feedback, share posts, and search for new content. Perhaps more importantly, though, Lizzie’s own Tumblr blog became a channel for reblogging and reposting fan creations, demonstrating that Lizzie (or, rather, the writers and producers of the narrative) listened and paid attention to the fandom and, where appropriate, offered feedback. This “strong support for creating and sharing creations with others” (per Jenkins et al’s definition) was not only a key component of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries as a participatory culture, but also continually encouraged readers and fans to create and contribute.
Fig. 8.
5. Participation through Fan Creations
In addition to offering modes for participation through sharing and interactivity, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries provided readers with an avenue of participation through the creation of fan-made media objects, 274 Meredith Dabek including GIF sets, fan-generated Twitter accounts, and YouTube videos and playlists.
Fig. 9.
In her discussion of the affordances of social media, danah boyd points out that “technology has introduced a series of tools to help people duplicate text, images, video, and other media.” Furthermore, because of the sharing tools previously discussed, the content produced with these tools is easily copied, altered, and distributed by individuals. This is especially true on Tumblr, a microblogging platform specifically designed “so that music, art, fashion, photography, videos, GIFs, graphics, quotes, and other types of text could easily fit into one single output” (Ehlin). Unlike blogging platforms such as WordPress or Blogger, Tumblr is highly visual and often operates more like Twitter, in that long text posts are discouraged in favour of shorter, more eye- catching content. Such content often appears as GIF sets, a series of frames containing animated GIF images. These looping, moving image sets are abundant on Tumblr and were often created by readers and fans of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries as a way of capturing and sharing favorite moments from Lizzie’s videos. A cursory search of “The Lizzie Bennet Diaries” on Tumblr, for example, finds dozens of such posts, with the average post recording thousands of likes and reblogs. As a mode of participation, GIF sets offer readers and fans of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries a method of expression “that surpasses the limitations of the symbols on a keyboard” and enables them to engage with the narrative through a creative activity (Gürsimsek 331). Replies, Retweets and Reblogs 275
Fig. 10.
Moreover, GIF sets can also offer readers a method of commenting on and analyzing the narrative text. For instance, Tumblr user “halfagony- halfhope” created a GIF set that juxtaposed scenes from The Lizzie Bennet Diaries with similar scenes from other adaptations of Pride and Prejudice, and in doing so, offered a kind of quiet commentary on the similarities and differences between the adaptations (“December 6”). The creativity of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries readers extended to Twitter as well. One of the defining features of Lizzie’s videos was her use of “costume theater” to portray characters not seen in the videos, such as Mr. and Mrs. Bennet and, for a time, Darcy. At different points in the videos, different on-screen characters depicted different off-screen characters. Many readers and fans delighted in Charlotte’s portrayal of Mr. Bennet or Jane’s portrayal of Darcy, and consequently, a series of parody Twitter accounts appeared. Parody accounts are both a feature of the “playful practice” of the Internet and an example of critical fandoms, through which fans critically engage with the media they enjoy. Moreover, according to Francesca Haig, a parody account’s “reinterpretation of the source text can be seen as an extension of ‘an existing canon, and demonstrates an extensive knowledge of, and pleasure in, that canon’” (qtd in Highfield 2031). The readers and fans who created The Lizzie Bennet Diaries parody accounts leveraged the Twitter platform to add themselves into the story, while simultaneously paying tribute to an element of the narrative that they especially enjoyed. By referencing and appropriating content from Lizzie’s videos, these readers demonstrated a “recurring participation in and reimagination” of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries narrative through the parody accounts (Highfield 2032). In addition to creating GIF sets and parody accounts, readers and fans of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries also participated in the narrative by creating and sharing YouTube videos and playlists. During the narrative’s initial release, for instance, prior to Christmas 2012, Lizzie asked her viewers 276 Meredith Dabek to record their own videos about their favorite holiday traditions. These were later compiled as a playlist on Lizzie’s channel and shared through the narrative’s various social media accounts. The holiday traditions playlist was just one of many pertaining to The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, most of which were created by readers. Playlists are lists or collections of media (most frequently audio or video) that “usually have some internal organization logic” (Bonnin and Jannach 26:1). That internal logic may result in a playlist dedicated to Lydia’s appearances, all the videos with costume theater portrayals, or the videos that depict Lizzie and Darcy’s evolving relationship. As media critic Myles McNutt pointed out in a 2013 blog post, playlists such as “The Dizzie Bennet Diaries” allowed readers to create their own version of Lizzie and Darcy’s relationship “isolated from the larger narrative” (“Lydia, Legacy, and the End of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries”). As a result, the playlist served as both a fan creation and a form of participatory textual analysis.
Fig. 11.
The creation of YouTube playlists and videos was aided by the availability of video-editing tools in the convergent digital media environment. Readers and fans of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries were not required to have extensive video editing knowledge to participate through this creative activity. In addition, some readers and fans took the video-making process one step further and crafted remix videos. Remixes, or mash-ups, which are a feature of what Lawrence Lessig calls “the Read / Write culture,” involve users taking existing media content and altering or adapting it to create something different (28). On the YouTube platform, and particularly within The Lizzie Bennet Diaries fan community, remix videos provided an additional method of expression for readers. Though the holiday video invitation was issued by Lizzie through the narrative, the remix videos represented the readers and fans pushing the boundaries of the so-called approved modes of participation and choosing for themselves how they wanted to participate. This Replies, Retweets and Reblogs 277
assertive behavior by readers and fans of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries was especially important because, according the Lessig, the meaning conveyed by remixed videos “does not come from the content of what they say; it comes from the reference, which is expressible only if it is the original that gets used” (74). By re-editing clips from Lizzie’s videos, readers and fans of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries were not only able to convey their own feelings and opinions about the narrative, but they are also able to generate feeling among their fellow readers and fans by associating with the existing narrative content.
Fig. 12.
Furthermore, in providing the functionality necessary to produce these fan creations, YouTube, Tumblr, and Twitter invited “forms of expression and connection” among readers and fans of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries that helped “liberate…individual and collective imaginations” (Papacharissi, “Affective Publics and Structures of Storytelling,” 310).
6. Reader Expectations and Narrative Immersion
As the modes of participation in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries discussed above suggest, the experience of reading this narrative was heavily dependent on individual choice and behavior. Unlike Austen’s novel which relates the same story to every reader, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries encouraged readers to make their own unique decisions when navigating through the story, and consequently, each reader’s narrative experience became highly individualized. Some readers might have chosen to only watch Lizzie’s YouTube videos, while others may have interacted with Lydia and Charlotte on Twitter. Some readers may have consumed the narrative in a linear fashion, while others may have jumped from one media platform to other, reading in a non-chronological order. The modes of participation in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries also gave readers 278 Meredith Dabek the opportunity to share their opinions, ideas, and contributions while also providing them with the sense that those opinions, ideas, and contributions mattered. In her book, Affective Publics, Zizi Papacharissi ponders the potential for affective investment in a story when digital narratives (including those like The Lizzie Bennet Diaries) “connect people in ways that make them feel like their views matter” (32). Certainly, with Lizzie’s YouTube question-and-answer videos, the various Twitter conversations, and the development of the fan community on Tumblr, the participation of readers was an integral and important part of the overall narrative. Their participation even resulted in a small degree of influence over the trajectory of the narrative itself. In a 2012 “ask me anything” thread on Reddit, Hank Green, co-creator and executive producer of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, confirmed that Lydia’s increased presence in the narrative was “entirely…due to viewers’ reaction to her” (“Hank Green Ask Me Anything”). Whereas readers do not have the opportunity to change or alter Austen’s novel, in contrast the writers and producers of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries did adjust and expand some story elements in response to reader input and enthusiasm for Lydia’s character. By offering readers an individualized narrative experience, creating a feeling of value and connection through the narrative’s media platforms, and presenting opportunities for readers to provide feedback and suggestions, the modes of participation in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries point to readers’ shifting engagement with narratives, and specifically with digital and small screen narratives. These narratives’ use of social media networks and platforms “help activate and sustain latent ties” between readers and “empower individuals by enabling them to connect” with others (Papacharissi, “Affective Publics and Structures of Storytelling,” 310; van Dijck, Culture of Connectivity 34). By leveraging sites such as YouTube, Twitter, and Tumblr, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries gave readers the opportunity to communicate with characters, other readers, and even the writing team, while also generating a sense of belonging and connection. Readers no longer simply read The Lizzie Bennet Diaries; they became immersed in Lizzie’s story world, participating in the story as it unfolded. According to digital anthropologist Frank Rose, immersion is “the experience of losing oneself in a fictional world” (“The Power of Immersive Media”). For many literary scholars, reading has long been considered an immersive or deeply engaging experience, usually through literature’s creation of textual worlds, with “the most immersive texts [being]…the most familiar ones” (Ryan Narrative as Virtual Reality). In updating a classic and timeless story for the convergent digital media environment, and offering modes of participation that enabled readers Replies, Retweets and Reblogs 279
to engage in the narrative the same way the characters did, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries gave life to an immersive story world. This sense of reader immersion was most evident in the anticipation and emotion surrounding “Darcy Day.” In The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, “Darcy Day” was the day the Darcy character first appeared in Lizzie’s videos. While Darcy is present in Austen’s novel from the first few chapters, in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, he is spoken of, but never seen, for the first 59 episodes. Since those episodes corresponded to approximately seven months in real time, readers were understandably anxious to finally get a glimpse of a character they knew only through tweets and costume theater portrayals.3 Furthermore, as many fans of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice novel know, the relationship between Lizzie and Darcy represents the core of the narrative, and the success of any adaptation of the novel often hinges on the depiction of that relationship. As a character, Darcy is “one of a small number of characters in literature that enjoys a single name” while also embodying a “hybrid form of hero… [with] lasting appeal and attractiveness” (Malcolm). Consequently, many readers, especially those already familiar with Austen’s novel, had high prior expectations for Darcy and those expectations were amplified on the narrative’s social media platforms. The anticipation for the Darcy Day episode was exceptionally high because, as one reader suggested, “it would be impossible to live up to everyone’s expectations for a character who’s most famously been played twice by Colin Firth” (Romano). The writers and producers of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries wisely capitalized on readers’ high expectations by having Darcy tweet in the months leading up to Darcy Day and by giving fans a tantalizingly brief glimpse of the man “at the last second of [episode] 59…to build up all the anticipation” (Su). The careful and deliberate planning paid off; episode 60, “Are You Kidding Me!” became one of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries most successful videos. While the video received “over 100,000 views in its first 24 hours online,” it was the considerable “level of fan engagement that…made #darcyday a landmark one” for the narrative (Miller). The writers and producers of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries managed to work with the emotions and expectations of the narrative’s readers to increase anticipation of the reveal, and to encourage further engagement with the narrative. And since the Darcy reveal unfolded on a social media platform, readers could immediately offer feedback and 3 Since The Lizzie Bennet Diaries was told visually through Lizzie’s first-person vlog entries, Darcy’s absence from the videos makes sense. The character was active on Twitter for months before he appears on screen, and of course, Lizzie offers her own interpretation of him through costume theatre. 280 Meredith Dabek reactions through YouTube’s comment section, send tweets to Lizzie and Darcy, and connect with other fans on Tumblr to speculate about what would happen next.
Fig. 13.
Rose points out that “immersion takes place when the audience forgets that it’s an audience at all” and gives readers that ability to “delve into a story at any level of depth they like” (“The Power of Immersive Media”; “Henry Jenkins Interviews Frank Rose”). In their expectations for and reactions to Darcy Day, readers of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries demonstrated a truly immersive commitment to and investment in the narrative. From the #darcyday hashtag on Twitter and the thousands of Tumblr posts and GIF sets, the “anticipation over who Darcy was grew astronomically” (Romano). Some readers even conveyed the feeling that Lizzie and Darcy were real people. In the comments section on YouTube for the Darcy Day video, readers left comments directly addressing the characters:
“LIZZIE!!! YOU LOVE HIM!!!! (You just don’t know it yet...)”
“I can’t believe Darcy would say that he loved you of all things!? He made Bing break Jane’s heart and was totally rude to you!!”
(“Are You Kidding Me!”)
The direct comments to the narrative’s fictional characters demonstrated a blurring of the lines between reality and fiction, and indicated that readers could easily “imagine the reality [the] story depicted,” fully immersing themselves in Lizzie’s world (Papacharissi Affective Publics, 60). By offering different modes of social media participation to encourage engagement and using reader expectations to their advantage, the writers and producers of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries helped strengthen Replies, Retweets and Reblogs 281
the immersive quality of the narrative and ensured that readers would be invested in Lizzie’s story.
7. Conclusions
In early April 2012, Hank Green, co-creator and executive producer of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, posted a video on his personal YouTube channel announcing his latest project: a vlog-style update of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Part of his rationale for working on the project, he explained, was a desire to take “a previous work and [transfer] it to this new media” (“Introducing Lizzie Bennet”). The Lizzie Bennet Diaries did indeed transform Austen’s novel for the convergent digital media environment by distributing the narrative across multiple media platforms. In doing so, the writing and production team behind The Lizzie Bennet Diaries used the tools of those platforms (YouTube, Twitter, and Tumblr being the primary ones) to offer different modes of participation to the story’s readers and fans. Through sharing, interactivity, and fan creations, readers could actively participate in Lizzie’s story, craft their own individual reading experience, and develop connections with other readers. These modes of participation also represent the changing and evolving ways in which readers engage with narrative, especially within digital spaces. As digital cultural scholar Frank Rose points out, “the Internet has redefined our expectations from stories” (“The Power of Immersive Media”). Readers are no longer required to passively read a story; they can immerse themselves in a fictional world by becoming a part of the narrative. By offering readers specific, concrete ways in which to participate in and engage with the narrative, the modes of participation in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries reinforce the overall feeling of immersion in Lizzie’s world. Readers feel invested in the outcome of Lizzie’s story, which in turn may compel them to continue to participate and engage with the narrative, creating a reader-narrative loop. Readers’ immersion in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries may also encourage them to seek out and read Austen’s original novel, in an effort to further their level of immersion and engagement. Of course, the process of reading a small screen fiction such as The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, with its various participatory modes, non-linear narrative paths, and individualized reading experiences, is noticeably different from the process of reading a print novel like Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. However, digital reading techniques (what N. Katherine 282 Meredith Dabek
Hayles refers to as “hyper reading”), like those utilized when reading The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, may serve to help strengthen more traditional close reading methods. Hayles proposes that close reading and hyper reading can “operate synergistically” by having hyper reading identify texts of interest for further close reading (How We Think 73). Among the many YouTube comments for the “Darcy Day” episode 60, there were readers who specifically mention opting to read Austen’s novel because of the digital version:
Ok this kind of makes me want to read P&P now because I am such a freaking romantic.
I didn’t have an inkling what the plot in P&P was like before I started watching these. About halfway in I got curious and started reading along, just to compare.
(“Are You Kidding Me!”)
Perhaps immersive digital narratives and small screen fictions likeThe Lizzie Bennet Diaries can encourage readers to reconsider analogue literature and close reading techniques. Given the success of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, it may be worth asking how other digital and small screen narratives might learn from the narrative and use readers’ “affective investment [in the story]” to not only drive similar digital narratives forward, but to also encourage a reconnection to print texts and close reading techniques in tandem with digital practices (Papacharissi Affective Publics, 32).
Works Cited
1. Aarseth, Espen. Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Print. 2. Are You Kidding Me! YouTube, uploaded by Lizzie Bennet, 1 November 2012,
5. ––. Social Network Sites as Networked Publics: Affordances, Dynamics, And Implications. In Networked Self: Identity, Com- munity, and Culture on Social Network Sites. Ed. Zizi Papacharissi. New York: Routledge, 2010, pp. 39-58. Print. 6. boyd, danah et al. Tweet, Tweet, Retweet: Conversational Aspects of Retweeting on Twitter. In Proceedings of the 2010 43rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 5-8 January, 2010. Kauai, HI. Paper. 7. Chen, Gina Masullo. Tweet This: A Uses and Gratifications Per- spective on How Active Twitter Use Gratifies a Need to Connect with Others. In Computers in Human Behavior, Vol. 27, No. 2, 2011, pp. 755-762.
30. Lizzie Bennet Diaries. My Name is Lizzie Bennet. Tumblr,
42. ––. Transmedia Storytelling: Industry Buzzword or New Narra- tive Experience? In Storyworlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2015, pp. 1–19.
Meredith Dabek (@McMer314) is a PhD candidate, Irish Research Council Scholar, and Hume Scholar in the Department of Media Studies at Maynooth University (County Kildare, Ireland). Working under the supervision of Dr. Jeneen Naji, her research focuses on reader experiences, participation, and interactivity in digital narratives. Her work has been presented at electronic literature and digital humanities conferences, as well as research seminars in Ireland. Meredith holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Fordham University (New York), a Master of Science in Public Relations from Boston University’s College of Communication (Massachusetts), and a Master of Arts in Digital Humanities from Maynooth University. More information about Meredith and her work is available at (www.meredithdabek.com).