Company Or Community?
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UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM Company or Community? Samuel Dekker 4/25/2018 Student number: 5893992 Master Thesis Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences: Department of Anthropology Table of Contents Acknowledgements - Page 2 Chapter 1 – Preface - Page 3 Chapter 2 – An Introduction to Rooster Teeth - Page 6 Chapter 3 – The Attraction of Rooster Teeth - Page 12 • Vignette Gavin Rainbow Six Livestream • The Content • The Appeal • Becoming more invested in RT, a large group of ‘friends’ • Personality, Fame, Relatability and Intimacy • The Dream • The Promise of the Front Chapter 4 – RT Corp. - Page 33 • Belonging and the ‘socially awkward and shy’ • The growth of RT and the rise of the fangirl • A changing (digital) landscape • Online Localities and Fields • RT Corp. and the Fullscreen Takeover Chapter 5 – Conclusion - Page 63 Bibliography - Page 67 1 Acknowledgements Without the help, encouragement, moral support and, especially, patience of some people I could have never finished writing this thesis. Above all I would like to thank my parents and brother, who were always there for me. Next to that I would like to thank all my friends who supported me these last few years, especially Lisanne de Wit and Remy Koomen. The knowledge and patience that Peter van Rooden brought to the table as my supervisor has also been vital. And the guidance of Ron Heinrich, as well as Hilda Lanser, Sara Counts and Hilde Smit throughout the process of writing my thesis has been crucial. I would also like to thank all my interlocutors: Sam, Peter, Thijs, Terry, Femke, as well as all the people who welcomed and helped me during my fieldwork, such as everyone in the OCC, the If You’re New And Want To Make Friends group, the RTUK Facebook group and the wider RT community in general. Next to that I would like to thank Annika, Mirjam, Hanna, Emma, Wessel, Sien, Irene Stengs, Phil, Lucrezio, Idil, all of my roommates, everyone in my football team, the UvA anthropology department and my family. Without you I would not have been able to do this. 2 Chapter 1 – Preface In this day and age the internet has become a normal and everyday part of the daily lives of many, especially for the people who grew up with it already being so. Since the last twenty years or so the internet has provided a fertile ground for the creation and assemblage of groups and ‘communities’, based on hobbies and interests in particular.1 Often in contrast with their (offline) daily life, ‘gamers’ and ‘geeks’ found likeminded people on the internet, a digital landscape they were particularly more familiar with than others, including their peers. For some of them Rooster Teeth (RT) became the place of belonging, social network and ‘club-like’ company through which they connected with likeminded others. Almost from its inception in 2003 RT was marketed as a ‘community’ where everyone was welcome, where the community members were involved in the production process of the company, where its employees were like you. RT was and is a good example of the increasing interconnectedness between media and social media. Much more than in the early days of RT, today there is an even larger variety of online localities where ‘gamers’ and ‘geeks’, and everyone else for that matter, can find a place of belonging and where they can connect with likeminded people. More than ever are people able to organize themselves online. In spite, or because of, this development the internet has truly become big business. RT was one of the earlier companies that responded to the urge for people with similar hobbies, interests and consumer preferences to organize themselves online, to find like-minded spirits and a digital ‘place’ of belonging. What sets RT apart from other companies is that they found gaps in what the traditional media had on offer; niches that spoke to people like themselves: ‘gamers’ and ‘geeks’. In general this audience knew the ropes of the internet very well, which RT capitalized on by making their website their center of distribution and by facilitating a, for the time, elaborate social platform where ‘the audience’ could hang out with each other and with the people who worked at RT. To pay for all of this, and to earn some money too, they implemented a ‘Sponsorship system’ that made it possible for members of the site to become Sponsors, granting them early access to certain content, as well as giving them the feeling that they were supporting the cast, the personalities who worked at RT. It also made them feel like they were part of the production. Compared to traditional media the ties between the producers (and the cast) and its audience were strong, the lines were short and the division 1 Note: The success of Reddit is a good example of this. 3 between the public and private was relatively vague, for the members of the site as well as the cast. This was the template of the growth of RT and its community. Fast forward to today and these three cornerstones are still in place.2 RT is still finding niches for ‘gamers’ and ‘geeks’ to enjoy, and increasingly for other audiences too. RT still offers the promise of a community, a group and ‘place’ of belonging, a close connection between community- members among themselves as well as with the cast. The types and amount of content that RT produces has vastly increased, but its attraction is just as much about the content itself as the cast that features in it. RT differs from other (traditional) media in that almost every day a video is uploaded, even just speaking about one division of RT, which often feature the same cast-members. The ‘front’ of RT, the ‘group of friends who hang out, play videogames and have fun together’, has been ongoing for years now.3 For the community-members and fans this performance has given rise to the feeling of a deep connection and a ‘knowing’ of this ‘group of friends’ as well as your fellow fans and/or community members who have lived this with you, or in a similar way as you. Many fans feel a sense of gratitude towards RT (or a specific division like AH), because they have been performing and living their lives parallel to yours, exposing their ‘authentic’ selves for your entertainment, indirectly making it easier for the fans to show who they really are, to express themselves and to ‘put themselves out there’. This has instigated a reciprocal relationship between the fans and the cast-members. The new (and some older) fans gladly grant RT their success, and they gladly give them their money (through buying merchandizing or through being a Sponsor). They are happy with the entertainment and with the people they connect and share their enthusiasm with through fan- and community-activities. However, many ‘old-school’ fans/community members are less happy with their reciprocal relationship with RT. RT has grown a lot and has become different than it used to be: it has become more commercial, the distance between the cast and the community has grown, RT has been (indirectly) taken over by AT&T, one of the largest companies in the world, and on top of all that the old-school community have, in their eyes, lost their communal digital space (the RT site) to which they attached great meaning. They feel like that was the fundament of RT and its ‘community’, and in spite of RT knowing this they nonetheless ‘let it go’. Because of this they often feel like they have lost the close relationship that they once had with RT and its cast-members, as well as with other 2 Note: The three cornerstones being: The niches that RT caters to, the community-aspect, and putting the ‘authentic’ cast at the center of the production. 3 Explanation: In chapter three I will elaborate on Goffmann’s ‘front’. 4 community members. In this process they have also lost their powerful position in the production process of RT and in having a say in what direction RT is going. Community members and fans are central in my thesis, and I will use these terms a lot. To add emphasis I will use one or the other deliberately, but sometimes I choose to use one term for my, and the readers, convenience. Many community members and fans use these terms interchangeably in practice as well. In Chapter 2 I will explain what RT is and briefly summarize its history up until today. In Chapter 3 I will explore the relation between RT, its content and the cast with the community members and the fans. The purpose here is to show what the attraction of RT is, how the community members and/or fans get increasingly invested in its content and the cast, by the inclusive, friendly and familial presentation of RT, as well as the possibility of living the dream one day. In Chapter 4 I will show how RT changed and has become more commercial in the eyes of the old-school community members and what the community has meant for them as well as for the ‘newer’ community members. Then I will show how the digital landscape has changed, what different online localities mean and ‘do’ for the involved community members and fans, and what power dynamics are at play here. Chapter 5 will be the conclusion. Ultimately I hope to shed some light on the ways in which people interact and find belonging and ways of being together through the internet, and what this entails when a media company such as RT plays a central role in this.