An Ethnographic Analysis of an On-Line Buffy the Vampire Slayer Fan Community
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ABSTRACT Title of Document: SUBJACENT CULTURE, ORTHOGONAL COMMUNITY: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS OF AN ON-LINE BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER FAN COMMUNITY Asim A. Ali, Ph.D., 2013 Directed By: Professor John L. Caughey Department of American Studies This dissertation presents an ethnographic analysis of the community of fans of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer whose members frequented the online linear posting board known as The Bronze. Buffy originally aired from 1997 until 2003, but the community that formed at the official Buffy fan site in 1997 continues on in real life and on line, having survived the end of Buffy and the closure of all three of its official posting boards. This study uses an interdisciplinary combination of textual analysis and ethnographic techniques (interviews, participant observation, autoethnography, cyberethnography) to ascertain the importance, relevance, and meaning of The Bronze community to its members, known as Bronzers. I argue that the nature of the linear posting board allowed Bronzers to form a unique and long-lived community by using The Bronze in creative and imaginative ways. In particular, language—to some degree appropriated from Buffy—was used by Bronzers to write a better world for themselves on line. Hence, the community is built on (and maintained by) language that is used in an unusually postmodern manner. As a group, Bronzers tend to be highly educated, literary, and artistic. To Bronzers, much of Buffy’s appeal was its emotional realism and imaginative depth. Unusually for television, these elements were combined with strong female leading roles, a cast of bookish and somewhat countercultural characters, and a foregrounding of emotionality and interpersonal relationships. Bronzers were drawn to these aspects of Buffy—which formed its “gothic aesthetic”—and in turn created their own somewhat countercultural community, one that came to reflect their own close ties and emotional attachments. I argue that The Bronze community exists subjacent to mainstream cultural formations, and orthogonal to real life communities. Using this framework, a number of implications emerge for computer-mediated communication in general, including an explanation for the prevalence of hostility in online communication. Furthermore, when situated in its broader context, The Bronze can be seen as a meager palliative to the damaging effects of contemporary post-industrial capitalism, one that nonetheless illumines the brightly stultifying commonplaces that lead people to seek shelter in dimly- lit imagined spaces. SUBJACENT CULTURE, ORTHOGONAL COMMUNITY: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS OF AN ON-LINE BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER FAN COMMUNITY By Asim A. Ali Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2013 Advisory Committee: Professor John L. Caughey, Chair Professor Katherine C. McAdams Professor Jo B. Paoletti Professor Sheri L. Parks Professor Mary Corbin Sies © Copyright by Asim A. Ali 2013 Table of Contents Table of Contents ................................................................................................................ ii List of Figures .................................................................................................................... iv Chapter 1: Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1 Notes ............................................................................................................................. 24 Chapter 2: Literature ......................................................................................................... 27 Ethnography in American Studies ................................................................................ 27 Ethnographic Method .................................................................................................... 28 Theory and Practice ...................................................................................................... 40 Buffy Studies ................................................................................................................. 54 The Bronze Studies ....................................................................................................... 57 Postscript: Goth, Buffy, and the Myth of America ........................................................ 61 Notes ............................................................................................................................. 65 Chapter 3: Watching Buffy, Reading Buffy ....................................................................... 67 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 67 Words and Culture, Dialogue and Ethnography ........................................................... 70 Language and the Postmodern Self: Decentering and Diegesis ................................... 82 Decentering and Dialogue ......................................................................................... 82 Diegesis, Fantasy, and Reality .................................................................................. 92 The Postmodern and the Gothic .................................................................................... 96 The Gothic Aesthetic ................................................................................................ 96 Fantasy and Truth ................................................................................................... 100 Inversions and Satire ............................................................................................... 109 Subverting and Punning .......................................................................................... 111 The Scenes That Set Scenes ........................................................................................ 126 Alienation in the Buffyverse ................................................................................... 127 Losers Who Save the World—With Knowledge and Feeling ................................ 130 Normativity and Interpersonal Relationships ......................................................... 133 Human Exceptionalism ........................................................................................... 135 Religion in the Buffyverse ...................................................................................... 139 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 141 Notes ........................................................................................................................... 145 ii Chapter 4: Buffnography, Part I: Community, Language, and Postmodernism at the Mouth of Hell .................................................................................................................. 152 A Note on Tense ..................................................................................................... 152 The Bronze .................................................................................................................. 152 Bronzers ...................................................................................................................... 168 The Mayberry Bronzers .............................................................................................. 180 Destiny .................................................................................................................... 180 Writing a Better World ........................................................................................... 192 Blade-The Vampire Hunter ..................................................................................... 199 Taster’s Choice ....................................................................................................... 206 Postmodern Community: Who Did This? ............................................................... 211 Conclusions ................................................................................................................. 214 Notes ........................................................................................................................... 224 Chapter 5: Buffnography, Part II: Interstices of Meaning and Absence ......................... 230 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 230 Participant Observation ............................................................................................... 233 There’s No Place Like Home Page ......................................................................... 233 Things Bronzers Do and the Rules by Which They Do Them ............................... 240 Scale and Scope of the Community ........................................................................ 269 “New Moon Rising” ............................................................................................... 272 The Beginning of the End ....................................................................................... 283 Ethnographic Interviews and Systems of Meaning .................................................... 290 The Toronto Bronzers ............................................................................................. 290 Melanie ..................................................................................................................