CONSUMING AND PRODUCING HUMAN BRANDS: A STUDY OF ONLINE FANS OF REALITY TV

MARIE-AGNES PARMENTIER

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1+1 Canada CONSUMING AND PRODUCING HUMAN BRANDS: A STUDY OF ONLINE FANS OF REALITY TV

By Marie-Agnes Parmentier

a dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of York University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

© 2009

Permission has been granted to the LIBRARY OF YORK UNIVERSITY to lend or sell copies of this dissertation, to the NATIONAL LIBRARY OF CANADA to microfilm this dissertation and to lend or sell copies of the film, and to UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS to publish an abstract of this dissertation.

The author reserves other publication rights, and neither the dissertation nor extensive extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's written permission. ABSTRACT

This dissertation is divided into two separate papers. The first one investigates the

practices of a virtual community of consumption where multiple brands are used as

resources. Conducting a netnography of online sites frequented by fans of fashion

modeling reality TV shows, I find that fans' practices entail using multiple brands for

communal purposes. My study, therefore, furthers our theoretical understanding of how

fans consume by identifying previously neglected practices that can emerge in virtual

communities of consumption. It also contributes theoretical insights to our understanding

of brands by identifying previously unexamined brand properties and the ways in which

these properties enable certain brands to become resources for the community,

reinforcing existing practices and promoting new ones. Finally, managerially, it explores

implications for brand positioning, brand loyalty and attachment, and co-branding.

The second paper examines the process by which fans, in conjunction with reality

TV show's producers and contestants, co-produce new "human brands", i.e. the set of

associations that a group of people beyond the individual's social network identify with a

particular person. Using longitudinal data from the online fan site Television Without

Pity, I explore the co-creation process and different branding outcomes in relation to

fans' interpretive practices. Specifically, the study furthers our understanding of the emergence process for nascent brands, human or otherwise, i.e. those that are in the earliest stages of developing a set of associations. The study offers implications for brand and celebrity theory and human brand management.

IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to share the last five years with such a wonderful group of individuals. First and foremost, I want to thank my amazing supervisor: Eileen Fischer. Thank you Eileen for your immense generosity, inspiring rigor, and genuine interest in both my work and overall well-being. I don't think this journey would have been remotely as rewarding and enjoyable should I not have had the great pleasure of working with you. I also sincerely thank the other members of my

"golden" committee: Russ Belk whose encyclopedic knowledge has been completely inspiring and whose detailed and incredibly timely feedback is so useful; Rob Kozinets whose fascinating work encouraged me to pursue my own interest in fans, brands, netnography, and virtual communities and whose enthusiasm and expertise have been a wonderful source of motivation; and, Christine Oliver who always provides insightful and clever feedback in the most thoughtful way. I also thank John Schouten, for doing me the great honor of agreeing to serve as the external committee member, and Marlis

Schweitzer, who graciously accepted our invitation as the internal/external committee member.

The next group of people I want to thank is the Marketing department's faculty and staff. Over the course of my studies, I have had the chance to interact freely and frequently with them and I especially want to thank stellar professors Detlev Zwick,

Ashwin Joshi, Markus Geisler, Peter Darke, Brenda Gainer, and Sammy Bonsu. I also extend my thanks to the nicest staff members: Lynn Brewer, Sheila Sinclair and Vilda

Palmer. v I would not have had as much fun as I did on this journey without my Schulich peers. So, I thank (from my office to the next and so on): Sutapa Aditya, Brynn

Winegard, Andrew Wilson, Jacline Abray-Nyman, Kamilla Sobol, Mei-Ling Wei, Yesim

Ozalp, Yikun Zhao, Daiane Scaraboto, Ahir Gopaldas, Aron Darmody, Sarah Wilner,

Eric Li, Leah Carter, Mary Ann Cunningham-Kim, Peter Lee, Chris Fredette, Tom

Medcoff, and those Marketing students from elsewhere who visited us: Ashlee

Humpreys, Richard Kedzior, Jeppe Linnet, Marius Luedicke, and Bill NP. I also want to acknowledge the great support of my friends/co-authors in the United States: Katherine

Sredl, Catherine Coleman, and Linda Tuncay. And I am thankful to my dear friend,

Daniel Montpetit, for introducing me to the fashion modeling reality TV virtual community.

The final group of individuals I want to thank is my family: my patient and incredibly supportive parents, Francis Parmentier and Helene Mondou, who have instilled in me the value of hard work and have always allowed me to follow my own path, and my dear and loving husband, Martin Lauzon, whose presence by my side has been an incredible source of happiness, stability and strength.

At last but not least, I want to offer some special thanks to my loyal companion of thirteen years, Chanel, the best cat a writer could ever ask for.

vi TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 1

CHAPTER 1: Brands as Resources for Virtual Communities of Consumption 5

Introduction 6

Theoretical Framework 11

Method 14

Findings 21

Discussion and Conclusion 62

CHAPTER 2: Co-Producing Nascent Human Brands 68

Introduction 69

Theoretical Framework 74

Method 78

Findings 81

Discussion and Conclusion 118

REFERENCES 125

APPENDICES 142

vii LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Overview of Online Forum Activity 8

Table 2: Characteristics of Informants 14

Table 3: Research Engagement 15

Table 4: Community Practices 21

Table 5: Interaction Brand Properties-Community Practices 50

Table 6: Typology of Sources and Materials 83

Table 7: Graduating Outcomes: Nascent Human Brand Types & Meanings 110 LIST OF IMAGES

Image 1: Consumer-Generated Advertisements 26

Image 2: Promotional Banners 27

Image 3: Avatars 28

Image 4: Venting through Fan Art 60

Image 5: Makeovers "Before & After" 86

Image 6: "Tootie Ramsey" 87

ix LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Nascent Human Brands and the Co-Production of Meanings Process 92

x INTRODUCTION

Prologue. This study arose from my interest in the reality TV modeling series

America's Next Top Model (ANTM). I began watching in the Fall of 2004 as I was working on a research project that focused on fashion models as (human) brands. I enjoyed watching the series immensely and had a hunch that it would prove to be more significant in popular culture than most pundits thought. My own experience in the modeling world, as a model (once upon a time), and in the fashion industry later, told me that a television program that provided viewers with exclusive behind-the-scenes access to the world of modeling was an unusual first. I felt that it was bound to be appealing to the many followers of fashion who longed for what seems like an insider's view. It turns out that my instincts were right. ANTM is now broadcast over a hundred countries around the world and has sold franchises for local productions in many of them, including Canada. And with the launch of similar series (e.g., Make Me a Supermodel,

The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency), fashion modeling reality TV seems to have become more or less of a permanent fixture on North American television.

What I did not anticipate, however, was the growth of fashion modeling reality

TV's following online. A few years back, a friend introduced me to the different discussion boards where fans can discuss the series and their contestants at length and share updates about the same contestants once they leave the show. Sometimes, the ex- contestants even join the conversations and as social networking sites becomes more popular, you can visit their MySpace profiles or LiveJournal blogs and/or add them to your own Facebook network. As I started frequenting these online venues quite regularly 1 / realized that what was happening in cyberspace was as interesting — if not more

interesting from a scholarly point of view — than the shows themselves. Thus as my

interest in the online activities grew in parallel with the growth of the virtual community,

I started and conducted for more than 20 months, a rich netnography (cf Kozinets 2002)

of this online fan culture.

Overview of thesis papers. Cultural and consumer culture studies have an

established tradition of viewing fans as knowledgeable, invested, active and producerly

individuals. Study after study has contributed to our understanding of fans/consumers (I

consider fans as invested consumers of brands [see Baym 2007; Gray et al. 2007]) who

embrace the consumption object of their interest by engaging in creative practices through interpretive communities (e.g., Baym 1999; Brown 2007; Brown et al. 2003;

Fiske 1987; Hill 2007; Jenkins 1992, 2006a, 2006b; Kozinets 1997, 2001, 2007; Lanier and Schau 2007; Schau and Muniz 2004).

With the fragmentation of media markets into specialized narrowcast offerings, the increasing accessibility of the Internet, and the advent of social media, fans' productive culture has exploded in cyberspace (e.g., Gray et al. 2007). Of particular interest in this thesis, reality TV shows seem to entice fans to join online communities

(e.g., Andrejevic 2008; Montemurro 2008) as these communities offer fans a venue to discuss their readings of the shows and their interpretations of the contestants who star on them.

The focus of most studies of reality TV thus far can be split into three main categories. The first circumscribes the genre and classifies the numerous shows that fit 2 under the umbrella of reality TV (e.g., Hill 2005). The second analyzes the production

and political economy of reality TV and the related issues of commodification and

exploitation of worker/consumers labor (e.g., Hearn 2006, 2008; Ouellette and Hay

2008). The third is concerned with audience response (e.g., Hall 2003; 2006; Hill 2002

Jones 2003; Rose and Wood 2005). None of these has dealt extensively with online fans of reality TV (see exceptions Andrejevic 2008; Jenkins 2006a; LeBesco 2004; Maher

2004; Wilson 2004). However, online fans responses to the genre of reality TV, in particular to the shows that exhibit a competitive element, share commonalities with fans' engagement with other objects. For instance, online fans of reality TV are engaged in a search for the "truth" in the programs and in their contestants and their practices are thus much like those of fans of stars and celebrities that Gamson (1994) describes as "game players" (146). Game players want to discern the "real" vs. the manufactured in celebrity texts. Online reality TV fans also sometimes exhibit practices similar to fans of fictional genres, such as interpreting the series' characters or producing fan art (e.g., Baym 1999;

Jenkins 1992). Yet while studies of fans of other genres provides some insight into the practices of online fans of reality TV, it seems likely to be insufficient in part because it does not share the "reality" promise (however fictional that may be) of reality TV and because the stars of reality TV shows are not yet "real" celebrities.

Investigating the ways in which fans of reality TV consume and co-produce the object of their interest - the different brands of shows and their different human brands

(i.e. the contestants and celebrity judges) - has led me to theorize how fans use these resources for communal purposes (Chapter 1) and co-produce nascent brands through 3 interpretive practices (Chapter 2). Each chapter is thus structured as an individual paper while a combined references list, as well as the appendices section for both papers, are located at the end of the manuscript. And given that the construct of "human brands" (cf.

Thomson 2006) is central to both papers, I offer my definition of the term. In this dissertation, the term human brand refers to the set of associations that a group of people beyond the individual's social network identify with a particular person.

4 CHAPTER 1:

BRANDS AS RESOURCES

FOR VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES OF CONSUMPTION

5 INTRODUCTION

On May 20th 2003, African-American supermodel Tyra Banks launched the reality TV series America's Next Top Model (ANTM,), a show that exposes the trials and tribulations of aspiring fashion models as they compete in a "highly accelerated modeling boot camp, a crash course to supermodel fame"

(www.cwtv.com/page/topmodel about.html, last access: 02-02-2007). Six years and twelve cycles1 later, ANTM is now considered "one of the most popular reality/competition shows on the air" (www.buddvtv.com/articles/americas-next-top- model/americas-next-top-model-copies-4838.aspx, last access: 03-09-2007), earning numerous nominations and wins in popular award shows

(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363307/awards; last access: 11-17-2008). A worldwide sensation syndicated in more than one hundred countries, ANTM is also licensed to forty nations producing local versions such as Canada's Next Top Model, Germany's Next Top

Model, Israel's Next Top Model, Brazil's Next Top Model, Australia's Next Top Model, and China's Next Top Model. Furthermore, the success of the reality TV series has seemingly precipitated a host of copycats (see Appendix A for North American examples), creating in the process a new category of reality television programming: fashion modeling reality TV.

1 According to Television Without Pity, ANTM has "cycles" instead of "seasons" because of the short length of time for which the show runs. A season is usually 22 to 24 episodes long. A cycle is much shorter: 11 to 13 episodes. (http://forums.televisionwithoutpitv.com/index.php?showforum=666).

6 The popularity of fashion modeling reality TV among viewers may be attributed

to several inter-related factors. One is the current fascination with celebrity culture

(Gamson 1994; Turner 2004). Another is that these shows offer a tantalizing peak at a

coveted and relatively exclusive world (Sadre-Orafai 2005). A third is the focus on self-

transformation, a phenomenon of great importance in late modernity (Giddens 1991;

McCracken 2008). Further, the shows' promises of upward mobility speak to a meta-

narrative that is hallowed in contemporary culture (Frank and Cook 1995). Finally, the

dramatic undertone that typically colors aspirational reality TV makes it relatively

entertaining (Fairchild 2007). For television networks, the appeal of these series most

likely results from the ability of such programming to offer advertisers an ideal platform to promote fashion, beauty, and other products ranging from cell phones to cars targeted

at those 35 or younger (Hibberd 2005; Frutkin 2007; Olijnyk 2007).

As in other cases of contemporary consumption of television (e.g., Baym 1999;

Jenkins 2006a,b), interest in fashion modeling reality TV has spilled over to the Internet where an active virtual community of consumption has flourished. Indeed, the web offers an extraordinary space for fans from every corner of the world to connect and engage in discussion about the series and their contestants. While millions watch the shows at home and may discuss them face-to-face with fellow fans when the opportunity arises, many go online and engage with others who share a similar appreciation of this kind of television programming (see table 1 for an illustration of forum activity).

7 Table 1: Overview of Online Forum Activity*

Online Beginning End Threads Posts Venue date of the date 17/11/08 17/11/08 forum Television June 2004 697 259,864 Without Pity (TWoP) Fans of May 2003 May 1,825 347,379 Reality TV 28th (FORT)** 2008 TheCW September 11,670 312,226 Model 2006*** Lounge Reality TV October 159 44,469 Games 2006 (RTVG) * This table presents data only from the ANTM forums to give a general example. The reader should note however that most discussion forums have subforums or specific threads devoted to several Next Top Model franchises and other fashion modeling reality TV shows such as Make Me a Supermodel. Fans typically watch and discuss online several of these programs, i.e. different seasons of a same program (e.g., ANTM) and different fashion modeling reality TV programs altogether. **FORT closed down the ANTM forum on May 28th 2008, a move provoking anger and dismay in the community. Past patrons of FORT expressed their incredulity on other forums, suggesting that fans use RTVG as a substitute venue. It is unclear why FORT made its decision. It has been suggested that the sites' moderators were unhappy with the many heated arguments that were taking place in the forum. Whatever the reasons, the ANTM forum remains closed at this time, although threads posted prior to closure remain accessible. *** Only threads posted after October 1st 2007 are available.

Prior consumer culture theorists have documented the importance of communities of consumption in contemporary consumer culture (e.g., Celsi et al. 1993; Schouten and

McAlexander 1995; Kozinets 2001; Muniz and O'Guinn 2001). These communities are found to have significant influence on an array of phenomena of interest to marketers such as: the shaping of a brand's or consumption object's meanings (Kozinets 2001;

2002); the dynamics of social relationships among consumers, and between consumers and marketers, consumers and products, and consumers and brands (McAlexander et al.

2002); purchase intentions and behaviors (Algesheimer et al. 2005); new product 8 adoption (Thompson and Sinha 2008); and brand loyalty (Muniz and O'Guinn 2001).

Central to this stream of research is the idea that consumer-based collectives are

"created and preserved by how and what [is] consumed" (Boorstin 1974, 89). And in studies to date, "what is consumed" has typically been a brand. For example, studies of the Apple Newton brand community (Muniz and Schau 2005), the Harley Davidson subculture (Schouten and McAlexander 1995), the cult of Macintosh (Belk and Tumbat

2005) or the Star Trek consumption tribe (Kozinets 2001) all focus on communities that exist because of consumers' interest in one specific brand. However, by focusing on single brands as a function of looking at brand-based communities, scholars have thus far under-recognized and under-theorized the fact that communities of consumption may be formed around multiple brands. In the context I examine here, i.e. the fashion modeling reality TV virtual community of consumption, I find that members deploy multiple brands for communal purposes. Brands that capture the imagination of the community include the different series that fans watch (e.g., America's Next Top Model, Make Me a

Supermodel, Modelville) and the hundreds of "human brands" (cf. Thomson 2006), (e.g., celebrity judges and contestants - see also Fairchild [2007] and Hearn [2006]), starring in these series.

An additional limitation to previous research is that it has thus far tacitly conceptualized brands as relatively homogenous resources for communities of consumption: that is, the various ways that brands can serve as resources to communities have yet to be distinguished. Further, not only have we failed to attend to how multiple and different brands may serve the same community as resources, brands and their 9 properties have also been left relatively unexamined. The overarching research question

that drives this paper is then: How are multiple brands resources for communities of

consumption? In answering this question, my research aims to illuminate: 1) the prevalent practices in the community, 2) the various way brands are resources for the

community, and 3) what properties make some brands better resources for certain

community practices.

The study documents several previously unexamined practices in virtual communities of consumption including gossiping, rumor mongering, thinking about

social issues, questioning industry norms, and venting. It also identifies and defines

several previously neglected brand properties such as: dynamism, ambiguity, being the underdog, unconventionality, and perception of disingenuousness. Moreover, it identifies variations in the brand properties that make some brands particularly good resources for certain practices (e.g., dynamism for gossiping, underdog status for thinking about social issues).

The paper is organized as follows. Some key findings from the literature on communities of consumption and media studies are first reviewed to provide a theoretical basis for the investigation. Next, the methodology is explained. This is followed by an analysis of the data that highlights the practices of the community and the nature of brands that are particularly well suited for specific practices. A discussion of the findings as well as their implications for consumer research and marketing practice concludes the paper.

10 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Building on the notion of "participatory culture" (cf. Jenkins 1992), a tradition

that endorses the view of television audiences as active meaning-making agents as

opposed to passive recipients of televisual texts (e.g., Ang 1985; Fiske 1987, Baym 1999,

Kozinets 2001, Jenkins 2006a,b), contemporary consumer researchers with an interest in

media products pay particular attention to the potentially empowering modes of

collective consumption within communities of consumption. One such active and potentially empowering mode entails the online social organization or "ecosystem" (cf.

Baym 2007) of sites, i.e. discussion forums and social networking sites, that are proving to be an important venue for fans (see studies on virtual communities of fans of: All My

Children [Baym 1999]; the X-Files and Star Trek [Kozinets 1997, 2001, 2007]; Xena:

Warrior Princess [Schau and Muniz 2004]; Survivor and American Idol [Jenkins 2006a];

Cliff Richard [Henry and Caldwell 2007]; Tom Petty [Schau and Muniz 2007]; and Harry

Potter [Brown 2007; Lanier and Schau 2007]). Jenkins (2006a) refers to this phenomenon as "convergence culture" where old media (e.g., television) and new media

(e.g., Web 2.0) collide, and in the process reconfigure both media consumption and production.

A genre of television programming that typifies media convergence is reality television. Reality TV presents supposedly "real" or unscripted situations that usually feature ordinary people instead of professional actors. In such programs, it is not rare for producers to extend product availability online via, for instance, Q&A sessions between fans and contestants, blogs written by contestants and judges, and online voting for fans 11 to select a winner. Using the tools of the Web 2.0, it is also common for fans to produce

and share new material such as consumer-generated ads and fan art based on the

television series.

While studies of reality TV to date have focused on a variety of important topics

including authenticity (Aslama and Pantti 2006; Fairchild 2007; Rose and Wood 2005),

the self-spectularization and branding of the self (Hearn 2006, 2008), the relationship

between interactivity and empowerment (Holmes 2004a, 2004b), audience characteristics

(Hill 2005), and collective intelligence and product placement (Jenkins 2006a,b), scholars

have left aside an important element of reality TV programming for consumer

researchers, i.e. the multiple brands that fans engage with while consuming these shows.

Indeed, while a few studies attest indirectly to this phenomenon (see Fairchild's [2007]

and Hearn's [2006, 2008] discussions of contestants as brands, and Jenkins's [2008]

discussion of the fandom of both a show, American Idol, and its sponsor, Coke), none

have systematically analyzed its theoretical and managerial implications. This matters

because if we ignore the fact that multiple conceptually related yet distinctive brands may

figure in the constitution and conversations of communities of consumption - of reality

TV series and of other consumption objects that involve multiple brands (e.g.,

professional sports, music, fashion) - we fail to fully capture and understand the

dynamics between brands and communities of consumption.

While consumer researchers thus far have generated much useful knowledge of

important dimensions, properties, and practices of communities of consumption (e.g., risk acculturation [Celsi et al. 1993], heterogeneity [Schouten and McAlexander 1995; 12 Martin, Schouten and McAlexander 2006; Schouten, Martin and McAlexander 2007], expertise and knowledge structures [Sirsi et al. 1996], religiosity [Belk and Tumbat 2005;

Muniz and Schau 2005], mechanisms of bonding and markers of communities [Muniz and O'Guinn 2001], community building practices [McAlexander et al. 2002], gift-giving

[Giesler 2007] and collective consumer value practices [Schau, Muniz and Arnould

2008]), none bring much insight as to how brands (plural) can be resources to such communities. And while past research testifies to the social use of commercial artifacts, such as advertising (Ritson and Elliott 1999), and while it is common knowledge that consumers use brands as resources for identity projects, both at the individual and collective level (cf. Epp and Price 2008; McCracken 2008), our literature remains silent as to the use of multiple brands within consumer collectives. This paper aims to address these shortcomings via an investigation of fans' practices within a context characterized by a multiplicity of brands: the fashion modeling reality TV virtual community of consumption. Here, multiple brands are part of the constitution and conversations of the community; these brands include the different fashion modeling reality series and the hundreds of human brands starring on these shows, i.e. celebrity judges and contestants.

The following section reviews the methodology used to examine this setting.

13 METHOD

To address the research questions identified previously, I conducted a 20 month long netnography (Kozinets 2002) in the fashion modeling reality TV virtual community, a collective of fans organized online around shared appreciation, enthusiasm, and knowledge of fashion modeling reality TV series, their celebrity judges and their contestants. My data include: preliminary offline interviews with fans and cast members, online interviews with members of the virtual community (see table 2 for description), naturalistic and participant observation in the community, netnographic data (e.g., posts, fan art, pictures, videos, and profile contents), and insights generated from watching the reality TV series. Table 2: Characteristics of Informants

Name* Age Gender Occupation/Status Race/ Data Ethnicity Collection Method Preliminary Interviews: Fans and Producers Josy 20s Female Psychology Grad Asian/ Offline Student/Fan Canadian Interview Mark 30s Male Information System Asian/ Offline Consultant/ Canadian Interview Fan Matt­ 20s Male Freelance Model/ Middle- Offline hew Fan and Aspiring Contestant Eastern/ Interview Canadian Dan 40s Male Fashion Editor/ Cast Caucasian/ Offline Member: Judge French Interview Canadian Theo 20s Male Fashion Stylist/Fan and Cast Caucasian/ Offline Member: Contestant French Interview Canadian Virgi­ 20s Female Hairdresser/Fan and Cast Caucasian/ Offline nia Member: Hair Stylist Canadian Interview

14 Christie 20s Female Manager/Fan Caucasian/ Offline Russian- Interview Canadian Interviews with Virtual Community Members Cynthia Late Female High School Student/ Fan Asian/ Online teens Canadian Interview Nina 40s Female Legal Aid Worker/Fan Hispanic/ Online American Interview Mimi 20s Female Political Science Undergrad/ Asian/ Offline and Fan Canadian Online Interview Mike 20s Male Market Researcher/ Caucasian/ Offline and Fan French Online Canadian Interview All names are pseudonyms.

A summary of my research engagement is presented in table 3.

Table 3: Research Engagement

Time Period Research Phase Research Methods April 2007- Exploratory phase Preliminary interviews with fans June 2007 Familiarization with the and cast members; phenomenon and setting. Naturalistic observation in community; Generating insights from watching reality TV series.

July 2007- Phase 1 Online interviews with fans; January 2008 Identification of practices and Participant observation in the core concepts that are community; prominent in the setting and Generating insights from relevant to the marketing watching reality TV series. literature. February 2008- Phase 2 Participant observation in the December 2008 Conceptualization of properties community; of core concepts. Generating insights from watching reality TV series.

Data Collection

15 Interviews. During the first phase of the project, I conducted preliminary interviews with fans and producers. The interviews were all audio-recorded and transcribed. They typically ranged between 45 and 90 minutes and were conducted in either English or French according to informants' preference. I usually started the interview by asking informants to talk about their interest in fashion modeling reality TV.

The exchange then proceeded in a relatively informal fashion with me asking a few specific questions (e.g., tell me about your favorite fashion modeling reality TV show; if any, what other activities than watching do you engage in?), and probing when further explanation was necessary. As the project progressed and as I became aware of the importance of the virtual community for some fans, I later conducted some interviews with online members. I approached informants via posts and private messages on forums and social networking sites and asked if they would be interested in participating in a university research project on the topic of consumption of fashion modeling reality TV.

Informants who agreed then received by email an electronic consent form to read, sign and return to my email account. Next, I sent a series of initial questions that I probed further based on informants' answers. This process continued over a period of several months with some informants becoming "friends" on Facebook. I found it useful to use

Facebook to converse with informants in order to get quick answers to subsequent questions and feedback on my analysis.

Naturalistic and Participant Observation. In the first phase of the project, I familiarized myself with the online setting by engaging in naturalistic observation (Belk, 16 Sherry, Wallendorf 1988). I spent considerable time observing the flow and topics of discussion in the community without becoming an active poster. I was, at this stage, a

"lurker" or someone who reads posts but does not write post herself. After several weeks,

1 made my entree and became a participant observer (e.g., Kozinets 2006, 2002, 2001;

Wallendorf and Arnould 1991; Sherry 1990; Belk, Wallendorf and Sherry 1989). My participant observation consisted mainly of engaging in discussions with other online fans while posting in threads, on blogs and on a few contestants' profiles on MySpace; watching fashion modeling reality TV series by myself and with other fans; and collecting memorabilia (e.g., posters, DVDs, fashion magazines, ANTM dolls). In an effort to become an insider (Kozinets 1999), I also attended and reported online my experience at the New York City auditions of America's Next Top Model and The Tyra

Banks Show.

Throughout the study, I was online every week, on different days at different periods, and spent between a few minutes to several hours reading and following posts as well as some of the posters on different sites while taking field notes to record what I was observing and experiencing as I was trying to map and understand this virtual community. Mapping the boundaries of the community was a serious challenge. As in other contemporary cases of online fandom, fans of fashion modeling reality TV distribute themselves widely throughout a variety of sites in a "quasi-coherent network

2 In order to ensure that other fans would know about my research interest, I included in all my online profiles the link to my research website (see Appendix B). I also introduced myself as a doctoral student working on a dissertation focused on fans of fashion modeling reality TV in the forums' introduction thread when the option was available. I never encountered any resistance or negativity about the fact that I was "studying" the community. 17 fashion" (Baym 2007). These sites include, notably, popular discussion boards devoted to

reality television such as Fans of Reality TV (FORT), Television Without Pity (TWoP),

The CW network (the network that broadcasts ANTM), and Reality TV Games (RTVG);

social networking sites such as Facebook, LiveJournal and MySpace that host fashion

modeling reality TV related groups, as well as fans, contestants and judges' profiles;

video sharing website Youtube where some fans create profiles to which they upload

homage videos and clips of the series; and an array of blogs (e.g.,

http://fourfour.typepad.com/fourfour/antm/) and websites (e.g.,

http://www.topmodelgossip.com/) devoted to fashion modeling reality TV. Thus, while

certainly agreeing with online community expert Nancy Baym's observation that: "It is

no longer clear that going to a [single] site is an appropriate strategy for studying

community on the Internet" (2007), since fans of fashion modeling reality TV migrate

from one site to the next, I - for pragmatic reasons - nevertheless bounded the object of

my study. After several weeks spent online, I decided to narrow my data collection to the

discussion boards mentioned above, i.e. FORT, TWoP, TheCWand later, RTVG, as I

observed overtime that I would notice several of the same fans across these sites and as I

also observed sustained and high level of activity in these venues. From these sites, I

downloaded hundreds of posts that were relevant to my research questions. In addition,

every morning my mailbox got filled with emails containing updates from specific threads and forums I subscribed to on the boards. I read these everyday and spent a

considerable amount of time organizing the data in relevant themes. The threads that I followed diligently were the most popular ones in terms of views and posts. They focused 18 on the different fashion modeling reality TV shows; spoilers of and speculations about the series; fan art inspired by ANTM; and individual threads about fashion modeling reality TV contestants, past and current.

Generating insights from the Reality TV Series. In order to follow the discussions online I watched several fashion modeling reality TV series (ANTM Cycles 1-12; The

Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency Season 1; 8' & Ocean Season 1; Canada's Next Top

Model Cycle 2; A Model Life; Models NYC; and The Agency, as well as a few episodes of: Portfolio: Derriere I 'image, Modelville, America's Most Smartest Model, Canada's

Next Top Model Cycle 1, and Make Me a Supermodel). While watching, I took detailed notes paying attention to the shows' storylines and their cast members (e.g., specific character cues and narrative arcs). I also regularly compared and contrasted the similarities and differences between the different shows and within the series themselves, and regularly referred back to the TV episodes when different events were extensively discussed by fans.

Data analysis

The analysis follows the principles of grounded theory (Strauss and Corbin 1998).

I have been engaged in an iterative process from the outset of the study. My interpretation of the data has been constructed through continuously moving between the consumer research, marketing, communication, and media studies literatures, individual postings

(including formats such as text, video and audio), chunks of postings, entire threads, 19 interview data, field notes, insights generated from the television shows, and the emergent understanding of the data set. As the data unfolded throughout the 20 month period, I also frequently moved between new data posted everyday and archived data posted prior to the beginning of the project.

In a typical grounded theory fashion, the focal concepts of the paper (brands, community practices and brand properties) emerged in the course of the investigation. I first worked on identifying the different practices and core concepts in the setting. Then, I conceptualized the properties of the core concepts until reaching theoretical saturation.

The following section discusses these findings.

20 FINDINGS

In the following paragraphs, I introduce the practices prevalent in the fashion

modeling reality TV virtual community of consumption. While some of these practices,

with nuances, have previously been documented in the marketing literature, others have

not (see table 4). Identifying and describing these practices matters not only for our understanding of the communal consumption of reality TV but also for other communal consumption of products that involve multiple brands (e.g., professional sports, music,

fashion). Then, I introduce five properties of brands and illustrate how they enable certain brands to be particularly useful resources for some practices in this community.

Table 4: Community Practices Practices Assisting in the Use of the Brands • Ensuring Accessibility of the Brands • Offering Brand Suggestions • Preserving Brand Knowledge Gift Giving Playing • Online Communing • Online Socializing Spoiling Gossiping Rumor Mongering Thinking about Social Issues Questioning Industry Norms Venting

Practices

Assisting in the use of the brands. Fans often help other fans in their consumption of the multiple brands that are part of the community's constitution. Muniz and O'Guinn 21 (2001) stress how computer-mediated communications are ideally suited for helping

fellow consumers learn about product usage and provide them with information that

might help solve a problem. In her study of online fans of the television program All My

Children, Baym (1999) observe that fans have an extraordinary collaborative knowledge

base of the television program and that they share it widely with new viewers. This kind

of assistance can be regarded as "acting out a sense of responsibility that is felt toward

other members of the community" (Muniz and O'Guinn 2001: 425).

Assistance in the fashion modeling reality TV virtual community manifests itself

in different ways, mainly via: a) Ensuring the accessibility of the brands, b) Offering

brand suggestions, and c) Preserving brand knowledge.

Ensuring the accessibility of the brands. One way to assist others in their

consumption of the brands, in particular the different television series, is through

ensuring that missed episodes or inaccessible series are available to fans who wish to

view them for the first time, or for as many times as they want without purchasing the

offical DVDs or paying for certain cable television channels. Youtube is the means par

excellence since fans from all over the world can easily upload and watch video clips. By

uploading clips, however, fans engage in a legal cat-and-mouse game with producers and

Youtube administrators since sharing copyrighted material constitutes a serious offense.

Nonetheless, despite these risks, some fans continue to ensure the accessibility of the

television series. Expressing public gratitude toward someone who uploads episodes is

22 customary, as illustrated by the following quote: "UR AWESOME FOR PUTTING

THESE ANTM VIDEOS!!!" (CAROLYN678).

Offering brand suggestions. Given that fashion modeling reality TV is fragmented in multiple and distinct series and franchises, fans often rely on each other to decide what to watch. Offering brand suggestions is thus another important form of assistance. The following exchange reflects that practice:

"ledh I am slowly catching up with ANTM. I first saw the show a year or two ago when I saw cycle 7 on television here in Belgium. I decided to watch cycle 9 via youtube as it came out and then cycle 10. In between I've seen cycles 2, 3, 6, 7 and 8.

My question is obvious: which one should I watch next? Britain's NTM, Australia's NTM; Canada's NTM? and which cycle? or are cycles 4 and 5 of ANTM really that good? I really have to choose because I've a very limited bandwidth and can only watch one or two episodes a week.

oh, the cycles I liked best so far are 7 and 3 of ANTM"

Here, ledh is asking for insights as to which franchise, and what cycle, he/she should invest time in, not unlike a consumer asking a group of experts which brand or product to buy. This situation is rather typical and what usually happens next is that fans reply and offer some suggestions based on their expertise and knowledge of the series:

"zombie boogie If you really, really like the drama and catfights aspect of NTM, watch ANTM cycle 5. If you like to be enraged by shitty judging decisions, watch ANTM cycle 4. If you like to watch an actual model win a modeling competition, watch AusNTM cycle 3 or Canada's NTM cycle 2. I've heard the rest of AusNTM is good as well. Don't know anything about Britain's NTM.

beulahery I 100% agree with this comment:) although I have seen britain's next top model and it's really nowhere near as good as Canada's and australia's 23 nerdyissexy Australia's NTM Cycle 3 for sure. It produced one of the most successful winners ever. Cycle 4 has been good too. Cycle 4 of ANTM was good, too."

Preserving brand knowledge. A last form of assistance is apparent in fans' practice of preserving brand knowledge. Like librarians and archivists, fans are greatly invested in preserving all sorts of information about the television series and the human brands who star(red) on these shows. For instance, the website all-antm.net, is a free community-maintained archive that displays the thousands of pictures of all ANTM contestants to date. These pictures are archived by one non-paid administrator who collects pre-show, show, and post-show pictures of the contestants sent to him by other fans. This archive and other sources of fan-archived information, such as Wikipedia for example, serve as important points of reference for the discussions and activities (e.g., games) that happen online. In addition, they help increase the community's independence from corporate websites that may delete precious information. This happened, for instance in 2006 when the official broadcaster of ANTM, UPN, was replaced by a new television network The CW. The new venture closed the UPN website and launched a new one that did not contain any information about the six previous cycles of ANTM.

Without fans' careful archiving on third party websites, an important resource of knowledge about the different brands would have disappeared.

Gift giving. In developing the notion of a gift system via a study of the peer-to- peer file sharing Napster community, Giesler (2006) has demonstrated that gift giving is a practice that is not restricted to the offline world. Gift giving can happen online, where 24 people are geographically dispersed (often on a global scale), and technologically

networked. In the fashion modeling reality TV virtual community of consumption, the

gifts exchanged often take the form of fan art, i.e. "artwork that is based on a character,

costume, item, or story that was created by someone other than the artist"

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan art: last access: 11-24-08), such as: consumer

generated ads, avatars, video tributes and parodies. Fan art is created based on

contestants' and judges' pictures and/or video footage. Like fan art found in other fan

communities, no remuneration is involved. Arguably fans create and post their art for

recognition from others within the community. Equally, fan art is created to express one's

creativity while pleasing others at the same time. Fans frequently answer others fans' call

to create specific artifacts: two or more members may exchange their art or one fan may

give it away to someone else without expecting anything in return.

Fan art that takes the form of consumer-created communications (Muniz and

Schau 2005) may be based on brands that have been featured on the shows or not (e.g.,

Louis Vuitton and Apple). Fans create new ads in a bricolage fashion, mixing and matching humans' and products' brands together. The following two consumer-generated ads are provided as examples and show: 1) a picture of Jaslene, a winner of ANTM,

inserted into an advertisement for Louis Vuitton, and 2) an ad inspired Apple's ipod's featuring a "new product" promoting ANTM's contestant Sarah.

25 Image 1: Consumer Generated Advertisements

LOUIS VUITTON TheNew iPpdANTM j

Consumer-created communication can also take the form of promotional banners that can adorn the discussion forums. For instance, FORT and RTVG, have both invited fans to create banners that replace the traditional logos on their respective message boards. Fans typically vote every week for their favorite banner. The winner's art is then displayed for a few days until another fan wins the chance to do the same. Examples of banners are provided next.

26 Image 2: Promotional Banners

TfciTModeli^ m'*j

THE MODELS

w. europe e. europe asia This banner features contestants from seven different franchises of ANTM. These models have seemingly in common the trait of being "fierce," a positive quality popularized by Tyra Banks.

• ;V1

This banner features the top three contestants on ANTM Cycle 11. It was featured on a discussion board the week before the season finale.

M.Ji' Hit IT n £ This banner is made from still video clips of an episode in which the remaining contestants learned that they were goine^MFPg to Holland. It showcases botfh contestants and celebrity-judges. \jmm^ 13 tmifitxie! 4 fanJ.(5Tr«-s'it.vttf.tfsr

The> KtU«ttoi af a gemia bit the £am This banner features all the contestants from ANTM Cycle 10 before the show hit the air. The banner was created using pictures released by a weekly tabloid prior to the beginning of the season. 27 While fan art is valuable because it can be used as Screensaver or desktop wallpaper, it is also tremendously popular for "badging" or "creating an identity based on brand knowledge or brand use" (Schau et al. 2009). In this context, fan art is displayed as an online avatar or as a signature at the bottom of a post (like a signature in an email), used as an expression of a fan's support for - or dislike of- particular contestants (see examples below).

Image 3: Avatars

This avatar demonstrates support and advocacy for, Katarzyna, a contestant many think was unfairly treated on ANTM Cycle 10.

This avatar features Cover Girl's, ANTM official sponsor, tagline: "Easy, Breezy, Beautiful." Instead of ending the sentence with the cosmetic company's name, however, Fatima, an ANTM contestant, takes center stage. .Sfetf •or J$L~S

This avatar arguably mocks Whitney, an ANTM winner and the first plus-size model to ever win a fashion modeling reality TV show, by invoking a resemblance with the infamous Miss Piggy.

28 In sum, fans who create fan art do it for themselves, as creative expression, but

also for others who request custom-made creations and enjoy fan art in general. They

may wish to display the creation privately, i.e. on their own computer, or publicly, i.e. as

online avatars or signatures. While creating fan art, fans typically rework human brands'

meanings and get recognition within the community, while when offering it as a gift they

strengthen their bonds with other members.

Playing. Multiple brands may become resources for fans that engage in the

practice of playing. Not unlike Holt (1995) who observed fans communing and

socializing in a baseball collective, fans in the fashion modeling reality TV virtual

community of consumption share their mutually felt experiences and use these

experiential reactions and practices to entertain each other; they do so, however, online

(see also Andrejevic 2008 and Baym 1999). Two types of play are apparent in this

context: online communing and online socializing.

Online communing. Prior research reports that consumers commune when they

share how they are experiencing a consumption object with others, so that their

interaction with the object becomes a mutual experience (see Holt 1995; Arnould and

Price 1993). For community members, sharing experiential reactions is an important

consumption element. Indeed, in sharing perspectives and stories, fans create a

"communal meta-text" of the shows (cf. Baym 1999: 211) that influences how they watch the programs in return. Indeed, according to Baym's (1999) experience and my own, how

29 fans see what they watch on a show is often influenced by some of the discussions that they have had or followed in the virtual community.

Moreover, the competitive and dramatic nature of the fashion modeling shows, and the interactive dimensions of some (e.g., online voting on Make Me a Supermodel) are seemingly designed to provoke strong emotional reactions (see also studies of other reality TV shows by Aslama and Pantty 2006 and Fairchild 2007). Fans readily participate in the virtual community to share these reactions and do so, often in real time, while the series are being broadcast on television. The shows finales are a particularly strong moment for such communing where post by post, fans' anxiety, joys, and/or frustrations are displayed online. The following exchange gives a glimpse of the communing happening during the first five minutes of one of ANTM's seasons' finale.

" 05-14-2008, 08:02 PM Dax Oh no, they are playing the "don't look like a model in camera" to Anya. That teaser gave everything away. 05-14-2008, 08:03 PM dongdongahdong I can't believe the finalei s here! ANYA FOR THE WIN!

05-14-2008, 08:03 PM duckiies Anya, Anya, Anya!

05-14-2008, 08:04 PM GabeOOl Anya better win! Tyra and her panel need to redeem themselves for last year's horrible winner.

05-14-2008, 08:04 PM Kaizen's Sigh ... heres to a good winner tonight.

30 05-14-2008, 08:05 PM Jenahcious fatima is out!

05-14-2008, 08:05 PM Yanz Anya for the win of America's Next Top Model!!! Where are Whitney's fans? Hehe

05-14-2008, 08:05 PM Kaizen I love anya .... shes so sweet.

05-14-2008, 08:06 PM bluegins

Quote: Originally Posted by Yanz "Anya for the win of America's Next Top Model!!! Where are Whitney's fans? Hehe "

RIGHT HERE awaiting for her to be the first PLUS SIZE to win!!!"

In this brief exchange, fans are expressing their support for their favorite out of the three remaining contestants (i.e. Anya, Fatima and Whitney). They are also interpreting some of the unfolding drama happening right before their eyes, like they would do at a sports game or while watching a movie with friends. "Yanz" even playfully teases Whitney's supporters who may be lurking, provoking "Bluegins" to loudly (as indicated by the caps lock) cheer. A quote from a fan I interviewed and whose interest in the series was greatly enhanced by the virtual community, reinforces the importance of online communing: "I love reading what people have to say; it's almost as interesting as watching the shows. I like to find out if others share my reactions." (Mike, fan).

Online socializing. In addition to communing, playing may take on a more performative style that facilitates socializing (Holt 1995). Fans engage in role-play while 31 discussing contestants' performances and exchanging clever observations to each other, often with wit and humor. In the post below, for example, Nina, who for a few seasons of

ANTM had a habit of regularly posting her analysis of the weekly pictures taken by the contestants, adopts the tone of a television judge while offering her detailed analysis of one contestant's performance:

"I just LOVE this pic... from the waist up. Let's go through it one thing at a time. Face: The expression is perfect for the shot; intense beauty staring you defiantly, as if nature herself is coming to claim you. The makeup is great; gives the model an east asian look that goes perfectly with the idea that she is a bamboo spirit folk. The hair is great; a classic pulp-era style that was popular in the far east gives it an almost "Indiana Jones" feel. The Body: from the long neck, visible despite the angle of the head, to the long, athletic arm, athletic shoulder and upper chest, she shows off her length and natural, lean beauty. The body makeup is subtle, yet works on an almost subconscious level to enhance her body. The background setting is exquisite, it blends with her skin tone to enhance the feeling of her being a kami, and the leaves that form her bustier make it seem as if the is just emerging from wherever it is that spirits come from. Of course, there is a downside... one that actually makes me angry because it is so darn silly: What the heck is it with the panty-hose? That looks like panty-hose, NOT like a bikini bottom or some kind of shorts. It TOTALLY destroys the illusion of her being a nature spirit, because... y'know, like... nature spirits don't wear L'eggs Pantyhose ™... The belt? It is SO out of place it's not even funny. Why is a bamboo spirit wearing a leather belt? To go out with her biker lilac friends? And that green thing around her waist... it can't be bamboo, because it is going horizontally around her waist and is entirely the wrong colour for the bamboo seen in the rest of the pic. It was a bad choice on the dresser's behalf. As far as I am concerned, just crop the pic at the waist or photoshop a bunch of bamboo into it to cover her from the waist down. Then the pic might near perfection." 32 In this post, Nina uses her typical expert (e.g., The makeup is great; gives the model an east asian look that goes perfectly with the idea that she is a bamboo spirit folk) yet humorous tone

(e.g., Why is a bamboo spirit wearing a leather belt? To go out with her biker lilac friends?) to describe in great details what works and what does not in Lisa's picture. In a Tyra Banks or "Miss J." (the flamboyant judge J. Alexander) fashion, she cleverly dissects each part of the picture, paying special attention to the model's ability (e.g., The expression is perfect for the shot; intense beauty staring you defiantly, as if nature herself is coming to claim you.) and her styling - all wrong from the waist down in her opinion. While regularly posting such richly detailed analyses, Nina seems to have encouraged other fans to post their own detailed reactions to both her interpretation and the photographs. The picture analysis threads that Nina started often became reminiscent of the discussions viewers watch during the panel's deliberation on the show.

Fans also play online games of their own creation (see also Ornebring [2007]).

They seemingly play these games to socialize, kill time and entertain each other. Indeed, fans often reveal that they are posting while at work (see also Andrejevic's [2008: 29] and Baym's [1999: 208] studies where a significant portion of the respondents answered that they spent much of their time reading and posting while at work) or while procrastinating on their homework and are seemingly in dire need of distractions. Usually poaching (cf. Jenkins 1992) from TV game shows, they work together to make up online competitions and contests. While playing these games, fans frequently adopt the role of fashion models, models' agents, or celebrity-judges and enact their version of the

33 television series. In the following post, a fan explains the rules of a game inspired by

ANTM: she/he will act as a judge while other members will adopt the role of previous

contestants/models. Then, just like on television, fans will compete in photo shoot

challenges, using archived pictures of the different models they embody.

"World's next top (game) model cycle 2!!!! Cycle one just finished. Stephanie Hart(SupergirlBrooke)was named the winner with Melrose Bickerstaff(Angell4) being runner up and Sara A\bQrt(KctrlAntm) second runner up. These three girls may not be picked for this cycle.

Rules: 1) 15 girls apply* 2) First come first served 3) Commitment is a must. In cycle one CariDee rarely showed up and was replaced [with] no problem 4) Challenge's MUST be done 5) Winner of challenge will be immune from elimination 6) You can pick a maximum of two girls

*I wouldn't suggest using cycle 9/10 girls as they don't have a wide portfolio.

Now for the lovely prizes, the winner of World's Next Top (Game) Model will be on the cover of VOUGE!!!! Have a six page spread and will do a runway show for top designers Heatherette.

Week one Photo shoot theme: Over exaggerated posing First called: Bottom Two: Eliminated: CoverGirl Of the Week: [...]"

This game replicates the structure of ANTM by proposing weekly photo shoot themes, paying attention to order elimination, and selecting a Cover Girl of the Week, a feature of the show where the viewers vote for a contestant to win this title. Games of this sort are extremely popular, especially during the summer when few fashion modeling reality TV programs are on the air. This practice signals how the shows become raw material for the community and it demonstrates how fans working together are able to produce unofficial brand extensions (e.g., World's next top (game) model) of the brands they love when producers fail or ignore to do so.

Spoiling. As summarized in appendix A, several fashion modeling reality TV series are competitions framed around weekly challenges and eliminations that ultimately reward a single winner. For fans, the television series become great resources for the practice of spoiling which consists of looking out for clues and working collectively with the help of online technologies to answer intriguing questions such as, for example,

"Who will be eliminated next?," before producers reveal what really happened (see also

Jenkins [2006a] for an example of spoiling the reality TV show Survivor).

Spoiling generally starts before a new season begins and continues until the very last episode. It differs slightly from making predictions in fantasy polls in that it involves harnessing each fan's respective knowledge and expertise to create collective intelligence

(cf. Levy 1997) and solve whatever pressing question is at stake. In the exchange below, fans are debating the possibility of ANTM sending off their contestants to Germany next season (ANTM always sends its contestants to a foreign location toward the last third of the show). This exchange happened a few days after the season finale and four months prior to the beginning of the new season.

"May 22, 2007 @ 3:07 pm goblyn If they went to Singapore they could see the sweat shops where all the clothing they model is made. Frankly I think Germany makes sense, number one, during last cycle's casting episode they played clips from GNTM maybe to prep us?, and

35 secondly, Germany is in Europe at least, and therefore, psuedorelated [sic] to the non NY fashion capitals of the world (London and Paris).

May 22, 2007 @ 3:09 pm frangg23 But since when is there a fashion capital in Germany?

May 22, 2007 @ 4:1 lpm niceness I don't even know the real capital of Germany. I don't even see Germany's relevance to the fashion industry at all besides, like, producing Heidi Klum...

May 22, 2007 @ 4:12pm frangg23 And Claudia Schiffer. <3

May 22, 2007 @ 4:13pm goblyn Ok, true, germany doesn't have a fashion capital, but I'd say that, I personally, associate Europe in general with the fashion industry far more than I'd associate Thailand, for example.

May 22, 2007 @ 4:14pm franggli Apparently, Dusseldorf is the fashion capital of Germany. Look: http://www.germany-tourism.de/ENG/destinati.. .t_allgemein.htm

Well, they did go to Barcelona and Cape Town. Guess that proves the international destination doesn't have to be like a huge fashion capital."

Here, fans' discussion is based on their knowledge of ANTM, the modeling industry, and

Germany. They work collectively to solve this puzzle by gathering insights from one another, and by harnessing additional information from external sources (e.g., Germany's tourism website). Throughout this process, fans develop ways of assessing the credibility and validity of both the different pieces of information brought forward and of the bearers of information themselves (e.g., May 22, 2007 @ 11:28 am, HeatherChandler, "This year they are going to Germany.", May 22, 2007 @ 2:42 pm, GoodThings, "Hey, HeatherChandler, we

36 haven't seen you in awhile (well, at least, I haven't). How did you find out that it's Germany?").

Fans also use their knowledge of the show's previous seasons (e.g., ANTM's international locations not always being perceived as important modeling markets), and note details or "clues" planted in the episodes. Often, clues from the offline world also come into play. For instance, Germany was ruled out as an option when in early June, pictures of the crew members and contestants on a cruise in the Bahamas were posted online by a fan vacationing on the same ship, and when at the end of July, a fan posted in her LiveJournal pictures of Banks with crew members filming on the Great Wall of

China. This new evidence in conjunction with serious discussions about China as a likely possibility for economic and modeling reasons led fans to conclude that the international destination would be Beijing - an accurate conclusion that was confirmed when the show came on the air.

In this context, and in contrast to Mandel and Nowlis's (2008) who argue that

"consumers who make predictions about uncertain events enjoy observing those events significantly less than those who do not make predictions" (9), fans come together with a common goal, i.e. spoiling the show, and seemingly find that being involved in this collective playful work adds an exciting and enjoyable dimension to their consumption experience of the original product (i.e. the shows). Nancy Baym (1999) found in the context of an online community devoted to soap operas that: "collective speculation about upcoming events takes up the bulk of time spent talking about soaps and, indeed, seems most enjoyable to participants" (81). The fact that both Baym's study and mine illustrate how fans in our respective collectives enjoy speculating and spoiling, probably 37 signals that findings such as those of Mandel and Nowlis must be carefully interpreted as explaining the consumption experience outcome of only a faction of consumers: those who watch TV on their own and do not take part in fan collectives. As fans' online activity grows in tandem with reality TV (Andrejevic 2008), consumer researchers may want to focus on consumers' experience of making predictions, speculating and engaging in spoiling in collectives rather than at the individual level only.

Gossiping. Gossiping probably constitutes the most popular practice in the fashion modeling reality TV virtual community of consumption. It can be defined as conversing about a third party who is not present (Foster 2004) and is considered one of the ways through which media representations are integrated into our everyday lives

(Turner 2004; Miller 1995). Although some may view this practice as inconsequential or without purpose, gossiping has actually been theorized to play a fundamental role in the evolution of human intelligence and social life (cf. Dunbar 2004). It is also thought of as one of the fundamental processes employed as a means of social and cultural identity formation (Turner 2004). Gossip has been conceptualized as evaluative social talk that provides network formation and group solidarity and it serves the purposes of entertaining, supplying social information, and establishing, changing, or maintaining group membership, power structure, or norms (cf. DiFonzo and Bordia 2006). Finally, it is a way of sharing social judgments and of processing social behaviors (Turner 2004).

Prior literature has noted that virtual communities of consumption are useful sites for marketers studying word-of-mouth - or oral publicity (e.g., De Valk 2005); virtual 38 communities of consumption featuring human brands are great sites for studying

gossiping.

Fans gossip about both established human brands (e.g., celebrity judges) and

nascent ones (e.g., contestants) though the latter category garners far more interest. They

create reams of posts about contestants' behaviors, performances, life stories, and

physical appearance. Gossiping generally starts before the series even begins, when fans

find bits and pieces of information about new contestants in the media or online while

analyzing social networking profiles. It is also often triggered by something seen on an

episode during, or after the show ends through syndication. Given that the main

characters of fashion modeling reality TV are "real" people whose lives (hopefully)

continue once they are off the air, and given that these contestants are attempting to

become successful in a business that is based on the production of new images, the

material for gossiping is abundant. Contestants provide fans - intentionally or not - with

a myriad of "interesting" material through the pictures they take for modeling or the

comments they give to reporters or post online themselves. The following exchange

illustrates typical gossiping in this community. To contextualize, the exchange happened

in June of 2008 and concerns Bre, a contestant on ANTM Season 5 which was first broadcast in the Fall of 2005.

"Belladyme Bre in Bleu Magazine from Livejournal. http://communitv.liveiournal.com/topmodel/...97454#t75997454

39 Rhinitis That wig is wearing her. And I'm still looking for curves of any sort, much less dangerous ones. Is there no way to cheat the angle so she looks taller? She's all pretty in the face, though. ivybaby She looks bored with it all

Dhyerwolf Those pictures were boring when I thought they were test shots, and they were boring now. She's cute, but so unappealing as a print model. The first three are decent, but the last three are replicated faces, and poses to emphasize her short stature.

Isn't that her hair and a not a wig though? The hair is her major marketable point, so I'd be surprised if it was a wig. bucwild I like the first three, the four one shows just how short she is. I still love the overachiever and I have a soft spot for her because she's from uptown."

40 As illustrated in this discussion, gossiping does not equate with fanatic adoration. It can be positive talk but also, and often, critical or negative (Foster 2004). Gossiping is thus possibly a way to challenge traditional power structures between fans and celebrities

(Gamson 1994; Turner 2004).

Rumor mongering. Although rumor and gossip are closely related, they are not always equivalent concepts (cf. Difonzo and Bordia 2006). On the one hand, most rumors are born, thrive for a while, and then disappear because they are disproved, become irrelevant, or people grow weary of them (Rosnow and Fine 1976). On the other hand, the life cycle of gossip is not as easily divisible as rumor into distinct stages. Gossip may also be thought of as more conversational in nature, whereas rumors typically possess a revelatory element. Rumors are thus instrumentally relevant information statements that are unverified while the practice of rumor mongering serves the function of making sense of ambiguity or managing real or potential threats (see Difonzo and Bordia 2006).

Rumors in the marketplace are certainly not a new phenomenon (e.g., Muniz et al. 2006;

Muniz and Schau 2005; Koenig 1985). And yet, discussion of the practice of rumor mongering in virtual communities of consumption remains largely absent from the literature.

Fans actively engage in rumor mongering. The object of such mongering may be about the shows (e.g., a show's next season is cancelled - or is it really?), the sponsors and advertisers (e.g., is a sponsor of the show really engaging in animal testing?), and especially, the human brands (e.g., a contestant's sexual orientation; celebrity-judges 41 latest feud). To illustrate rumor mongering, I will review an incident that concerned celebrity-judge, Jay Manuel, make-up artist and creative director for ANTM. On May 17,

2007 at 5:58pm, pugpix, a well-known fan community member who reportedly was part of the television crew and had developed a habit of posting insider and confidential information on the TWoP board, informed other fans that she had heard that Jay Manuel was leaving the show. The reasons for his departure were however unclear. Some fans were shocked, others ecstatic. Speculation started quickly and lasted for a few days while rumor mongering was on to other boards very quickly (e.g., "[...] I heard Jay's leaving.

Mr. Jay, that is." FORT member mayukhersll2 on May 17, at 9:42pm). Mr. Jay's leaving did seem plausible to most in the community because of prior incidents that were reported during a previous season. Rumors as to what would happen to the show started circulating (e.g., Janice Dickinson, a judge from previous seasons, might return). Over the following weeks, rumor mongering about Mr. Jay's departure waned. It did not completely die, until fans disproved the rumor in mid June, while analyzing spoiler information, they spotted Jay working with other crew members and the new contestants on a cruise boat in the Bahamas. The rumor mongering cycle was complete: fans created, spread, and disproved their own rumor.

Thinking about social issues. While fans in the virtual community gossip and play, they also think at times about social issues such as abuse (sexual, physical), living with disabilities and illnesses, animal cruelty, racial and sexual discrimination and social inequalities. Such thinking is often triggered by specific episodes or some of the 42 contestants or celebrity-judges' life stories. The exchange below reflects how fans engage with social issues brought into focus by the shows. After appearing as an extra on the previous cycle of ANTM, Isis, a transgendered woman was chosen as a contestant.

Her unusual gender identity became a catalyst for discussions on the transsexuals and more generally, on how society treats minorities. The following post expresses one fan's view about someone who made derogatory comments towards Isis:

LietchNextTopModel

Quote: Originally Posted by Chantallslove View Post Well clearly, it's unnatural if it's a disorder. I don't see what the big deal is if I'm not the leader of the Transgendered Fan Club. I also don't see how it's offensive to people who aren't even transgendered.

You feel 'natural' in your body as a male, right? Imagine how someone who was born in the wrong body would feel. Seriously. People like Isis don't just go get sex changes for fun. In a society filled with people who consider things like this taboo, someone like Isis would want to feel included like everyone else. And I definitely consider it a 'big deal', as no one should be shunned from society like some transgendered people are. I'm not a girl, yet I'm sensitive to the words they get called, such as 'slut'. I'm not black, yet I'm extremely offended when I hear the n-word or something similar. Likewise, I'm not transgendered, yet nothing is more annoying than hearing shock and disbelief concerning someone's sex change. I may not know the extent of the pain that many transgendered people go through, as I'm not transgendered, yet that doesn't bar me from taking offense to ignorance and hatred toward them.

In this post, "LietchNextTopModel" argues that even if he, himself, is not transgendered he can nevertheless empathize with those who are, like Isis, as well as be offended by the mistreatment some social groups (i.e. women, blacks, transsexuals) receive. In the following conversations, a group of fans reflects on the role of reality television, including ANTM, in lifting the veil off individuals who deal with difficult issues regarding their gender identity. 43 "Krispy24 Wait, wasn 't there a woman a few years back who was disqualified from ANTM semi-finals because she was trans gendered? She ended up on the Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency.

From our very own FAQs: 52. Are transsexuals eligible to compete on America's Next Top Model? No. Claudia Charriez, the transsexual model on The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency talked about being disqualified from ANTM because it came out that she was transsexual (Source Out.com).

Wherever there is Tyra Banks, contradiction and hipocrisy are not far behind.

JAZ853 They might have changed the rule since the first cycle. Trans people are much better known and accepted now. I don't think it's hypocrisy as much as changing with the times. I do recall reading that Claudia said Tyra fought for her to be on the show, but the producers didn't want it.

americanboi408 Aug 13, 2008 @ 3:16 pm (...) I think its wonderful that there's a transgendered contestant on ANTM. Usually when you hear about trans people in the media, Boys Don't Cry and the brutal murder of Gwen Araujo pop up. I belive she's gonna shed some positive light on the trans community and give the community the good recognition it deserves.

nicenessness And everyone yelled at me when I suggested guys could model in a female fashion show and look gorgeous.

Men are not transgendered people. Transgendered people are not men.

synopsis Men are not transgendered people. Transgendered people are not men.

Thank you for this, nicenessness. I was talking to a transgendered friend of mine earlier today and she was really excited that between Isis and Laverne on / Want To Work For Diddy, Trans people were finally getting some positive exposure in pop-culture. I have to say that I'm offended by how many people here seem to be offended by Isis's inclusion."

In this discussion, fans are at once aware of the possible commercial reasons behind having a transgendered individual on the show (e.g., for ratings, because it is "in" now and yet, they appreciate that times may really be changing or that at least, having Isis on

the show will stimulate healthy debate among viewers and perhaps in society at large.

Over the course of my netnography, I often found that the practice of thinking about

social issues came back to fans' own experiences of dealing with some difficult/delicate

conditions - their own or those of others they care about- which appears to help negotiate

the authenticity of the shows, and in particular, of the human brands. Like fan 'synopsis'

who refers to the fact that he/she has a transgendered friend, fans may experience a sense

of "self-referential hyperauthenticity," i.e. blending elements of programming with

indexical elements connected to fans lived experiences by comparing and contrasting

their own lives with the show's protagonists (Rose and Wood 2005: 284), while engaging

in this practice.

Questioning industry norms. The reputation of the fashion modeling industry has

often been tarnished by shady practices and questionable norms (see Gross 2003). And in

recent history, the industry has been the object of much outrage from concerned parents,

women's groups, and politicians. Cases of young models suffering from severe eating

disorders such as anorexia nervosa have encouraged certain nations' officials to adopt

regulations regarding industry's practices (e.g., Spain's banning of underweight models

on the catwalks

(http://www.cnn.eom/2006/WORLD/europe/09/l 3/spain.models/index.html?section=cnn

latest, last access: 08-30-2008). However, unlike those who condemn the industry for promoting what they perceive as unrealistic and/or unhealthy ideals of beauty, fans who 45 are members of the virtual community of consumption do not generally share these

negative feelings or perspectives. This community is very much pro-modeling, pro-

consumer and celebrity culture, and pro-market logic. Fans do not, however, hold a

totally homogeneous view of what constitutes a "good" model and disagreement over this

question is frequent in the community. Still, there is a sense of consensus over the idea

that fashion models must measure up to specific ideals of beauty, typically those

reinforced by the industry (e.g. tall, symmetrical) as the following post illustrates: "A girl

can be taught to pose but she can't be taught to be 5' 11" with great hair and symmetrically

beautiful features, like Ann. [...] Norelle, for all her charm, also had birdlike features and

somewhat full hips. A perfectly lovely young woman, and the most likable girl that season, but just not a model." (vallegirl, TWoP).

Yet, despite fans' enthusiasm over modeling, they can be prompted to question

some of the industry's norms, specifically the lack of diversity observed on the runways.

The issues of race and, at times, body size are recurrent topic of conversation. In the post

below, a fan raises such an issue.

"ags EURweb published the following article about Paris Fashion Week which occurred in early July. The gist of it is that a couple of designers wanted black models and apparently the Paris agencies didn't have them "in stock.": "NO BLACK MODELS LNPARIS FASHION WEEK: John Paul Gaultier rep says 'the agencies have none. As the fashion world turns its attention to Paris this week, the severe lack of black models on the runway has again become a frustration among top designers. "I asked the modeling agency for black girls for our next show but there simply aren 't any," said Mario Lefranc, half of the Lefranc-Ferrant designer duo, one of about 40 labels presenting couture collections in Paris for Fashion Week - held through Thursday. "

Honestly, it would be easy to demonize the agencies for not having black girls, but the designers are the ones who "put in the orders". Using NY FW as a 46 baseline, haven't showcards [alike a business cards, showcards are series of pictures with measures and facts about a model] been out for 2-3 weeks (or a month or so before FW), so if there was a true demand for Black models (or Latino or Asian), I would think that the larger agencies would parachute them in, even if they lost money on the deal.

I hope NY Fashion Week is not a "white out," I am not trying to bash or disparage the Eastern European models; I would just like to see more diversity. I can see why a given designer wants a uniform look shows to focus on the clothes, however, what's odd is that all of the shows have the same uniformity. I think PR's Christian's approach was brilliant, as the designs transitioned from pants to dresses, the ethnicity of the models changed too with then undiscovered Sessilee Lopez modeling his final look.

Of the ANTM girls with showcards, 4 out of five of them are minority, right? Naima, Danielle, Megg, Jaslene and Lisa. Are there other ANTM girls (regardless of ethnicity) with showcards? I would think that Eugena's agent would have shopped her around in NYC."

Here, "ags" questions the designers' excuse, i.e. blaming modeling agencies, for not being able to showcase more diversity on the runways. He/she resorts to his/her knowledge of ethnically and racially diverse ANTM's contestants who, thanks to the virtual community, fans know are working as full-time models, i.e. "girls with showcards," and who, in fans' views, or at least, in one fan's view, have the potential to work for a highly visible event such as New York City Fashion Week.

Venting. A last popular practice I observed in the fashion modeling reality TV virtual community is venting, or expressing anger with passion towards certain events

(e.g., ANTM moving its filming from New York City, a fashion capital, to Los Angeles, not a fashion capital, in 2006), behaviors (e.g., a contestant being rude to another one), human brands (e.g., celebrity judges, contestants) or outcomes (e.g., the results of the

47 public's vote on Make Me a Supermodel). Like public forums, or newspapers' columns, the virtual community provides fans with a space to vent their frustrations. The competition-based shows such as ANTM or Make Me a Supermodel tend to trigger substantial venting from fans as the elimination process and their outcomes almost guarantee that negative feelings surface (see also Fairchild 2007). A typical exchange where venting transpires is illustrated in the following conversation:

"Object: Why is Tyra so snooty this season on ANTM?

theslimone First of all her remarks towards Ebony were uncalled for. Her quote (I hate quitters) - she could have told Ebony that off camera. I guess that was supposed to make Trya look good but it didn't. I made a comment on the threads that Tyra needs to get a grip on herself; maybe you were having a bad day on the set, but if you really look at it Ebony, [she] made Tyra look bad because Ebony thanked Tyra and left gracefully without any back talk. Good for you Ebony, bad for you Tyra.

LISHADYAMONDS DAM I WISH SHE HAD STAYED. DAM. EBONY? WHY? SHE WAS SO PRETTY ©

ibot2much Tyra did not come off looking good in this episode—meanspirited and petty— totally unworthy of the woman she tries to portray. Maybe this is the real Tyra."

This exchange is typical in at least two ways: 1) in its illustration of how fans vent their frustration, using caps lock letters, short angry sentences, and a "not-so-happy- face"; and 2) in its use of celebrity-judge, host, producer and creator of the show, Tyra

Banks, as the source of all evil. Indeed, over the years, Banks has become fans' resource par excellence for venting in the virtual community. The reasons why a seemingly

48 popular public figure now occupies this position will be further examined in the section that follows.

Brand As Resources for Practices: Identifying Brand Properties.

Thus far, I have examined the different practices that are prevalent in the fashion modeling reality TV virtual community of consumption. Through this examination, I have offered illustrations of the relationship between the practices and the various brands that are used as resources for the community. In this section, I will review the properties that make certain brands particularly good resources for some practices. The reader should note that these properties are not thought of as mutually exclusive, i.e. one brand can certainly have more than one property. However, it appears that specific brand properties make brands that possess them excellent resources for some of the most popular practices in this community. Table 5 provides a summary of the interaction between the brand properties and practices.

49 Table 5: Interaction Brand Properties-Community Practices

Brand Properties Definitions of Brand Properties Useful resource for: Dynamism characterized by ongoing change Gossiping and development, and with the potential to surprise Ambiguity having more than one possible Rumor Mongering meaning or interpretation; causing uncertainty or confusion Being the Underdog that are expected to lose a fight or Thinking about Social that tend to have characteristics Issues that make them vulnerable relative to rivals Unconventionality different from what is regarded as Questioning Industry normal or standard Norms Perception of giving a false impression of Venting disingenuousness sincerity or simplicity

Brands that are dynamic are a useful resource for gossiping. Although it is quite

common for fans to gossip about pretty much any new human brand on fashion modeling

reality TV series, the ones who sustain attention and interest are those who develop

narratives characterized by ongoing change and development, and with the potential to

surprise. I label such property "dynamism." Dynamic brands possess stories that keep

unfolding in unexpected ways both on and after the show airs and they are great resources for gossiping. An example of a dynamic brand is Samantha Francis, an ANTM

contestant from season eight.

In the summer before the eighth season was broadcast on the air, fans were busy dissecting pictures of Samantha, as they usually do for any new contestant who will soon appear on the series. Early on, Samantha's physical appearance, in particular her chin and eyebrows became the object of heated and often, quite humorous discussions: Was she

50 pretty despite her imperfect "butt" chin? Were her eyebrows too thick or were they

reminiscent of iconic beauty Audrey Hepburn (e.g., orlandoallycat "I love her look, and

Samantha is my favorite name. With that screencap and those great eyebrows (Audrey Hepburn

eyebrows, I say, and that's never bad IMO), she's a rival for my "favorite" position, [...].")? At

this stage then, Samantha's physical appearance was the object of much gossiping,

something to be expected since evaluating contestants pre-season is something of a ritual

in this community.

Once the show started and fans were able to observe Sam's behavior and

performance, gossiping continued. Most fans thought she possessed high modeling

potential and discussed options for her upcoming makeover (a standard feature on the

show when the contestants' "look" is transformed to fit Tyra Banks' vision) such as

chopping off her hair or waxing her eyebrows. However, Samatha's story would take an

unexpected turn: to many fans' disbelief, she was eliminated on the third episode, before

even getting a makeover. Being eliminated so early on shortened fans influx of new

material worthy of gossiping. Fans moved on to other contestants until, a few weeks after

leaving the show, discussions about Samantha resurfaced on the boards. One fan found out through her MySpace profile that Sam was off to New York City to sign a contract with Elite Model Management - ANTM's official sponsor {Dhyerwolf. Sam's My space:

The headline says that she's going to NY next week to sign with Elite..).

This unexpected turn of event sent fans monitoring the web and fashion magazines to find and post new pictures of Samantha. Some continued to monitor her social networking profile and reported new information to the rest of the community. For 51 months, the influx of pictures of her modeling work, first in the United States and then in

Asia, and bits and pieces of information about her personal life (e.g., getting into an argument with a police officer), have provided steady gossip material (e.g.,

ThighraBanks, Those [pictures] are fine. Has she gained weight?, Nov. 17, 2008). Almost two years after her brief appearance on television, Samantha's dynamic story, i.e. being eliminated very early on and yet, ringing up successes as a model in foreign markets, has made her a great resource for gossiping.

Brands that are ambiguous are a resource for rumor mongering. As mentioned above, gossiping and rumor mongering are related practices. Yet, people engage in rumor mongering to make sense of ambiguity and manage potential threats (Difonzo and Bordia

2006). Brands that have the property of being "ambiguous," i.e. that have more than one possible meaning or interpretation causing uncertainty or confusion, become resources for rumor mongering.

Saleisha Stowers, contestant on ANTM, is a prime example of this. Before the beginning of the season, numerous fans already felt that though Saleisha was pretty, she lacked the potential to become a high fashion model. Also, early on, fans learned that

Saleisha and Tyra Banks had a prior relationship: as a teenager, Saleisha attended T-

Zone, Banks' self-esteem camp for girls and knew Tyra personally. These two elements raised questions as to the "true" reason for Saleisha's participation on the show. Fans started wondering out loud if this connection to Tyra Banks explained why Saleisha, a young woman who seemed to lack modeling potential relative to the other contestants, 52 had made it on the show. Speculations were raised that she was nothing more than an

instrument for promoting Banks' social work. One fan wrote: "Her entire participation (and

"confidence" about modeling) is such a shameless plug for self esteem camp it makes me want to

throw up" (MJF2).

Rumor mongering about the "real" story behind her participation on ANTM was

becoming the norm on the boards. About halfway through the season, fans discovered

that not only did Saleisha already know Banks from T-Zone, she also had appeared on

The Tyra Banks Show and on a prior season of ANTM. Moreover, one fan found a clip of

the popular television series Ugly Betty in which Saleisha appeared as an extra cast

member, some serious acting experience that could, in fans' opinions, potentially

disqualify her from the modeling competition. Rumor mongering kept escalating and the

fatal punch was thrown when fans found out that Saleisha had recently been part of a

national television ad for the fast-food chain Wendy's. Fans argued that Saleisha's

commercial was in a clear violation of ANTM's rule of entry number ten: "You must not

have previous experience as a model in a national campaign within the last five (5) years (including, but not

limited to, appearances on television and print advertisements)."

(www.cwtv.com/images/topmodel/antm cylce9 eligibility.pdf). Yet, ambiguity remained

as fans were unclear if acting in an ad for a fast-food chain was considered modeling.

Saleisha's prior relationships to Banks, fans' perception that she was not a very good

model, and her acting/modeling experience are all elements that created serious doubts as to Saleisha's legitimacy to be on the show and the meritocracy of the show itself. When

she was finally revealed as the ultimate winner, a majority of fans were quite angry but

53 not particularly surprised (e.g., Elmer Fug, "Sooner or later, Tyra is going to be called out for

Saleisha's prior experience, the T-zone camp and letting the best contestant in Jenah go before her and Chantal. This finale was beyond rigged [...].")• Rumor mongering soon migrated from the boards to the wider Internet where bloggers and journalists picked up on the story and informed the general public of fans' discoveries and speculations, earning Saleisha's the new nickname of "Scandaleisha" (e.g., http://www.youtube.com/Scandaleisha: last access: 11-24-08). The producers of the show reacted by issuing a statement which claimed: "Saleisha did disclose her participation in the Wendy's spot, but "after reviewing the commercial, it was determined that her appearance did not amount to 'modeling' experience, and therefore did not exclude her from participating in the show."

(http://www.eurweb.com/storv/eur39303.cfm, last access: 08-30-08)). Despite the fact that most fans disliked Saleisha, her ambiguous brand's story and persona made her a great resource for rumor mongering.

Brands that are underdogs are a useful resource for thinking about social issues.

Brands that have the property of being an "underdog," i.e. that are expected to lose a fight or that have characteristics that make them vulnerable relative to rivals, are a useful resource for fans engaged in thinking about social issues.

Heather Kuzmich, a contestant who seemingly possesses the physical qualities of a top model but also suffers from Asperger's syndrome, an Autism Spectrum Disorder

(ASD), is a case in point. From the moment her picture was posted on the boards, fans identified Heather as a strong contender in the competition. Her physique and look made

54 her a favorite early on. Yet, within a matter of days, it appeared that perhaps things were going to be a bit more complicated for Heather to do well in the competition. In an interview she gave to The CW, fans realized that she seemed to be suffering from ADHD

(Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). Some found her even more endearing, while others became annoyed by her mannerisms. Then, Mary Hart, host on the television show

Entertainment Tonight, confirmed that Heather did in fact suffer from ADHD. It was disclosed soon after that Heather was suffering from Asperger's as well. Discussions about living with this disorder arose. Some wondered if the show was trying to take advantage of a sorry situation, if the disorder was as significant as it was implied, and what life was like for someone who suffered from the disorder and yet was attempting to become a fashion model by putting herself under such scrutiny. It seemed like it would be quite difficult for Heather to perform well on the show. An excerpt from the many exchanges that captures how a human brand who is an "underdog" can be a useful resource for thinking about social issues follows:

"reichiru She's a total dork and I love her for it. =) I definitely think she's kind of the ugly duckling that will turn into a swan [...]. She's not always very striking when you watch her in person because her gawkiness is very apparent, but I think her pictures have been pretty nice thus far. [...] Ceri I LOVE Heather—I have two daughters, one is an Aspie, and one has classic autism—it's so nice to see an Aspie on this show! I do have to gently disagree with a few of the "people with Asperger's are..." or "people with Asperger's act like..."statements—It is part of a spectrum disorder...and there can be many different ways of being/acting etc. I know a brilliant high school student who is Aspie, and he also does stand-up comedy, and loves being in groups. I know some Aspie's who are VERY into their special

55 interests...(hyper focus), some who are not. I think there's as much variety in the Asperger community as in the NT community. [...]

negrilchick Heather very much reminds me of my niece of the same age, who, coincidentally, I have always suspected of having some form of autism. The same slender build, slightly hunched posture, the same dark look to her eyes - a bit haunted. Unfortunately, my niece is less socially apt than Heather, probably because she has a much lower IQ due to some severe learning disabilities. (I adore my niece, but I would be shocked if she tested over 60; she's a magnificent artist but can barely add, and is rarely able to catch on to the nuances of adult conversation.) Heather seems quite functional and able to adapt pretty well, though I have my doubts about her lasting a long time. I hope she was able to take away more from this than a lovely portfolio of pictures. I wish her the best."

In these posts, fans engage in self-referential hyperauthenticity (Rose and Wood

2005) and use Heather's story to think about and discuss what it means to live with a social disability such as Asperger's. Others beyond the community, such as

The New York Times, also used Heather as a resource to build awareness about the disorder (see Parker-Pope 2007).

Brands that are unconventional are a useful resource for questioning industry norms. Toccara Jones, an African-American plus-size contestant is a great example of a brand that has the property of being "unconventional," i.e. that is different from what is regarded as normal or standard, which becomes a useful resource when questioning industry's norms. Since appearing on the show almost five years ago during the third season of ANTM, Toccara has become a favorite of fans, voted one of the most memorable contestants ever to appear on the show (http://entertainment.aol.ca/article/top- model-memorable-contestants/97152/, last access: 09-03-08).

56 Although Toccara was doing fairly well on the show, she was eliminated mid-

season in an episode where her self-confidence was challenged. During the episode, the contestants had to experience "go-sees" (casting for fashion models) and Tocarra was put in front of the harsh reality of the fashion industry: plus-size models, i.e. models who have larger overall bust-waist-hip measurements than is standard for models, can have a hard time succeeding since most of the designers don't sample clothing in larger sizes.

Many fans opined that her elimination was due to the industry's normative shortcomings rather than her performance as a fashion model, as reflected in the following post:

"hungry hippo's I don't think Toccara's elimination had anything to do with her picture or how she performed that week. I think Tyra and the judges figured it would be better not to bring a plus size-model to Japan cuz all those fashion designers don't make plus size clothing."

However, since leaving the show Toccara has become quite successful in both the entertainment and the fashion modeling industries, and did so despite her

"unconventional" size and skin color (unconventional relative to industry norms). She participated in several TV shows, was chosen for the cover of several magazines, and became the spokesperson for clothing lines that cater to the needs of the plus-size market.

Recently, she even obtained one of the most prestigious opportunities in the modeling business: a spread for the highly coveted Vogue Italia shot by world renowned photographer: Steven Meisel. The issue was a testament to "black beauty" at a time when race has been at the center of some important debates in modeling and in popular culture in general. Of Jones, Meisel said in an interview for The New York Times: "I wanted to

57 say something about weight, and I'm never allowed to do that," [..] "I met Toccara and thought,

she's beautiful. What's the deal with her? She's great and she's sexy."

(http://www.nvtimes.com/2008/06/19/fashion/19BLACK.html? r=l&ref=world&oref=sl

ogin; last access: 09-03-08). Meisel reportedly chose the unconventional model despite

the editor's objections. Fans in the fashion modeling reality TV reacted quite positively,

as illustrated below.

"farmerow I can't fucking wait for this issue to drop in the US. Congratulations to Toccara for being part of what I hope is the beginning of change.

BitchySmurf Toccara is gorgeous. She's not the industry standard in size or in her face. But I applaud the photographer for picking her. He's trying to make a statement. As if picking all black models weren't enough, he said "I'm going to cast this plus sized reality show girl too, despite what anyone may say because she's hot." And that rocks. Congratulations, Toccara, you're the best plus sized model the show has had!

sereion ..and Janice [Dickinson, a prior judge on ANTM] said that plus-sized models can't do high fashion! Please! Those photos are stunning!

gaia bellavera It was so wonderful to see Tocarra in Italian Vogue. She looked the best I've ever seen her. She looked like Sophia Loren in one photo! Classy, & beautiful. [...] Keep riding the high wave, lady.. .and if America doesn't get it, take it to Europe.. Josephine [Baker] led the way!"

This subset of comments posted within days of the announcement of Toccara's spread in

Vogue Italia illustrates how unconventional human brands can become useful resources for questioning the modeling industry's norms. Those fans who desire more diversity in fashion modeling are using Toccara's case as a challenge to the discourse that only a limited range of looks (size and skin color wise) can bring success in the business of modeling. 58 Brands that are perceived as disingenuous are a useful resource for venting. Over

the last five years, Tyra Banks has transformed from being a successful fashion model

working for the likes of Victoria's Secret and Sports Illustrated, to becoming a successful

businesswoman at the head of a media empire. Since 2003, she has produced and sold

franchises of the hit series ANTM in numerous countries, launched and hosted her own

award-winning talk show (The Tyra Banks Show), and produced various television series

(e.g., Stylista, True Beauty) and movies (e.g, The Clique). Reportedly making more than

$34 million dollars a year (Brown 2008), Banks was named one of the world's most

influential persons by Time Magazine

rhttp://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/timel00/article/0,28804a595326 1615754 16

15878,00.html; last access: 08-30-08), and has been dubbed as the next Oprah Winfrey

(http://www.nvtimes.eom/2008/06/01 /magazine/01 tyra-t.html?src=tp; last access: 08-30-

08). Yet, despite her impressive success, Banks has developed a persona that, for fans in the fashion modeling reality TV virtual community of consumption, is generally perceived as disingenuous (i.e. that gives a false impression of sincerity or simplicity) and used for venting off one's frustrations. Though Tyra has been adamant that she tries to keep it "real," that is, to be someone who is approachable and with whom average people can relate, the virtual community's members tend to think otherwise. This attempt to be a "role model/fun friend/mentor" may have helped Banks build a strong viewer base

(e.g., her shows are consistently near the top of their category - young girls from high school to age 34- and attract more than 13 million total viewers weekly, a larger overall 59 audience than "The View" or "Late Show with David Lettermart''

(http://www.nytimes.eom/2008/06/01 /magazine/01 tyra- t.html? r=2&src=tp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin; last access: 08-30-08), but for fashion modeling reality TV fans who participate in the virtual community of consumption, Tyra, a.k.a. "Tyrant," is closer to an "evil witch" (as depicted in the fan art below).

Image 4: Venting through Fan Art

" This is what she gets for eliminating Aimee. (bigmofobubaf

•

The success of her growing human brand has led Banks to be perceived as wanting to push her own agenda above all else. Some of the decisions she made with regards to

ANTM, such as moving the show from New York to Los Angeles because of her talk show, have been aggravating fans. While her position as a celebrity-judge makes her a likely scapegoat, her actions and persona are increasingly interpreted as disingenuous and unfair to fans and contestants alike. The following post illustrates this general feeling in

60 the community: Aja, [answering: One thing I don't understand is why the hamsters3 always go

nuts when they see Tyra but then come out of the show dissing her? "] Several past contestants

have confirmed that they are required to go apesh*t whenever Tyra enters the room and that, if

their initial reaction is not enthusiastic enough, the producers will actually make them re-shoot

the scene until they are sufficiently fawning and screamy. That's actually a great example of why

I hate her." Pejorative nicknames, derisive fan art, and frequent comments such as the one

above, testify to fans' use of Banks's disingenuous human brand as the resource for

venting in this community.

3 The "hamsters" is a common nickname to refer to reality TV contestants on TWoP. 61 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

This research explores how multiple brands serve the same community as resources. In contrast to prior communities studies that focused on a single brand, several conceptually related yet distinctive brands capture the imagination of the consumers who form the fashion modeling reality TV virtual community of consumption. These brands

include the show themselves, the celebrity-judges, and the contestants, nascent human brands vying to build up some equity for themselves in the world of fashion and entertainment.

In the process of examining this community I have documented several practices, including some that have been barely examined in previous consumer research such as: gossiping, rumor mongering, thinking about social issues, questioning industry norms, and venting. By observing how multiple brands could become resources for these different practices, I have treated brands as heterogeneous rather than homogenous and identified and defined diverse properties of brands that make them useful for communal purposes (i.e. dynamism, ambiguity, being the underdog, unconventionality, and perception of disingenuousness). Below I discuss the implications of my findings, first for our theoretical understanding of brands as resources, and second for our understanding of communities of consumption.

Implications for branding

While attending to the dynamics of the community with regards to using brands as resources, I pondered why some brands seemed to be better resources for certain 62 practices than others. My theoretical explanation for this phenomenon is as follows. In the fashion modeling reality TV virtual community of consumption, some of the practices that are most prevalent in and apparently most enjoyed by the community are most readily served by brands that share the characteristic of being less controlled and perfected by traditional gatekeepers, such as marketers and public relations agents.

Human brands, and in particular, contestants' human brands are, in many instances, useful resources for gossiping, rumor mongering, thinking about social issues, and questioning industry norms. These human brands, although all distinct to some extent, share the characteristic of being in their nascent stage and offer the opportunity for consumers to co-create meaning, right from the very moment they are "born" on television, and thus formally introduced to the marketplace. Brands that offer such space for co-creation in their early stages may attract considerable consumer loyalty or attachment in human brands' case (Thomson 2006), which could explain why nascent human brands as a category are, by far, the brands that continue to sustain fans' conversations years after their prime time on television. Moreover, emerging human brands are often accessible via the tools of the Web 2.0. so that fans can foster a perhaps more privileged relationship with them, in so far as few mediators filter the communication between the two parties. Indeed here, unlike in the context of traditional celebrity fandom where fans consume celebrities via gossip communicated by the media

(Turner 2004; Gamson 1994), fans consume these human brands by being the primary writers and archivists of the brands' stories. As Baym (2007) observed in a study of

Swedish independent music fandom "fans have always been publicists, but there were 63 clear lines between those who did so professionally and fans. This is changing." (2007: online).

Implications for understanding communities of consumption

With regard to communities of consumption, it appears that in a context characterized by a multiplicity of brands, some of them in the nascent stages of formation, the traditional markers of community identified in prior literature are not always salient, and sometimes seem rather irrelevant. For instance, Muniz and O'Guinn

(2001) stress the importance of a member's legitimacy in brand community: in other words, consumers have to engage in a process that helps establish their true membership based on their knowledge of the brand. In the context at hand, I did not observe such need for discerning true members from false ones. One possible explanation is that in a community of consumption that is formed around a multiplicity of brands, and thus in a community that is not a brand community but instead a multi-brand community, members are held together through the mutual production and consumption of knowledge as occurs in a knowledge community (Jenkins 2006a,b). Knowledge communities are audiences organized into virtual communities that leverage the expertise of their members through the sharing of knowledge and opinions. Here, in a community that is formed around 1) multiple brands, and 2) a constellation of brands that keeps growing every season, fans rely on each other to expand their knowledge of the different brands' stories. In such a context, "everyone knows something but no one [can] know everything" (Levy 1997: xi). Future research should investigate how communities of 64 consumption formed around a multiplicity of brands may operate as knowledge communities.

Moreover, to this point, the literature has been using the term resource without addressing what it actually means to be a resource. For instance, in Ritson and Elliot's

(1999) study, advertising was treated as a resource that served certain social functions that could be otherwise served by other texts or artifacts. One contribution of the study was thus to theorize that a commercial artifact such as advertising could be used as a resource for social interactions. An important theoretical implication of my paper is that resources, in particular, brands, can influence the very characteristics of communities, in that some of the practices found in a community may be a function of the brands that come to be of interest to members. Brands can thus change a community in terms of its practices, as in the case of unconventional brands such as Toccara. Her brand has, over time, raised the consciousness of the community and triggered some members to question industry norms. A community's collective consumption of nascent brands, may be giving rise to new practices, and introduce new norms, practices and values into its community.

As ways of acting or practices change, taken-for-granted assumptions, tacit values, and norms of a community may change as well, such as in the fashion modeling reality TV virtual community of consumption questioning industry norms may incite fans to take a stronger stand and start advocating for more diverse criteria to evaluate an aspiring fashion model's potential.

Managerial implications 65 Implications of this study for marketers concern brand positioning, brand loyalty

and attachment, and co-branding. First, by examining the different properties of brands

that make them useful resources for communal practices I have identified several

positionings available to brands (e.g., a brand that is dynamic and unconventional). Some

positionings are seemingly more desirable than others (e.g, dynamic). Yet, some that a

priori may seem less desirable (e.g., perceived as disingenuous) may not necessarily be

completely negative for the brand. As one fan posted: "QuiteVile, I've been lurking this

thread for a longlonglong time now, and I have to say to whoever asked about whether people

really hated Tyra, I have to say I love to hate Tyra.[...]." In the case of Tyra Banks, while fans

in the community may love to hate her, they do follow seasons of the show avidly (see

also Click 2007 for a similar case). If Banks were to reform the persona she projects, it is possible that interest in her program would diminish unless the void was filled by some

other brand perceived as disingenuous that could be used for the purpose of venting.

What seems clear is that for Banks, who has a fan base much larger than that of the

fashion modeling reality TV virtual community of consumption, it is actually rewarding to have a disingenuous dimension to her human brand. Of course, spillover of her brand positioning in this community could potentially harm her human brand equity in other audiences that she caters to.

Further research on the implications of particular dimensions of brand positioning is necessary. In particular, attention should be focused on how the different practices influence contestants' human brands. Indeed, since these nascent human brands don't have multiple audiences of consumers, they are possibly vulnerable to the practices of the 66 fans in their primary audience (at least their primary audience in the early stages of their brand development).

Other implications for managed brands can also be discerned from this study. In a community that deploys multiple brands for its consumption practices, loyalty does not necessarily mean exclusivity. Or loyalty may be to a subset of brands rather than to a single brand. Factions of fans within the community are typically loyal to subsets of brands, in that they follow multiple shows and form attachment (Thomson 2006) to multiple human brands, often comparing those they are feel attached to with those with contrasting positionings. Finally, opportunities for co-branding, between human brands, and between human brands and other brands, may derive from multi-brand attachment and loyalty. Attention to how subsets of brands are formed and their implications for co- branding remain subjects for future research.

Based on the current study, however, it is clear that both scholars of consumer research and practioners of marketing can derive new and beneficial insights from studying how virtual communities of consumption make use of the multiple brands

(human and otherwise) that are available to them as resources.

67 CHAPTER 2:

CO-PRODUCING NASCENT HUMAN BRANDS

68 INTRODUCTION

From Elizabeth Hurley to Barack Obama, human brands are a vital part of both contemporary culture and the contemporary market economy (e.g., Barron 2007;

Infopresse 2008; Zeleni 2008). If a brand in general can be thought of as the set of associations that a group of people identify with the goods or services of a particular seller (Aaker 1991: 7; Keller 1993: 2-3;), then a human brand can be considered the set of associations that a group of people beyond the individual's social network identify with a particular person. Given that brands are a construct central to our field, and given the cultural and economic significance of human brands - one of several operationalizations of the broader concept of a brand (Thomson 2006: 104) - it is surprising to find so little research that touches directly on human brands4. The little research that has been conducted thus far has focused on well-established human brands, whose meanings are already entrenched in consumers' minds (Fournier and Herman 2006; Thomson 2006).

At present, however, we know little about nascent human brands - those that are in the earliest stages of developing a set of associations. And while the creation of new brands has received some attention in the marketing literature focused on product and service brand extensions (e.g., Brown et al. 2003; Meyvis and Janiszewski 2004; Oakley, et al.

2008; Volckner and Sattler 2006), this work has limited value in providing insight on how people develop their initial set of meanings beyond their social network, since new

4 The term human brand is sometimes equated with celebrity. The two concepts are different. A celebrity refers to someone who is widely known and recognizable and who commands a high degree attention from the media and the public (e.g., Gamson 1994; Turner 2004). A human brand does not need to be a celebrity to exist in that its set of associations can be formed within a relatively small and/or confined audience or a delimited organizational field. 69 human brands are not typically extensions of existing brands. Thus the focus of this paper is on developing an understanding of the socio-cultural process through which a person develops an initial set of meanings among a group of people not known to them personally.

Fortuitously, the proliferation of reality TV programs such as America's Next Top

Model and American Idol, and the online discussion boards where fans discuss reality TV shows and their stars, provide a timely context for studying nascent human brands. Such programs showcase previously unknown individuals and typically have narratives of self- branding at their core: they provide viewers and participants with explicit instructions on how to create "a detachable, saleable image or narrative, which effectively circulates cultural meanings" (Hearn 2008: 198). Fans (a term that can be applied to invested consumers of any brands [Baym 2007; Gray et al. 2007]) congregate in online communities to discuss shows and the people who are featured on them. These communities that have become so much a part of many people's every day lives (Jenkins

2007) are a key site where these narratives begin their circulation and refinement, and provide an ideal context for investigation of the phenomenon of human brand emergence.

Reader-response theorists, consumer culture, cultural studies and other interpretive scholars have drawn our attention to the critical role of interpretive communities in co-producing meanings of product brands (e.g., Aug 1985; Baym 1999;

Brown et al. 2003; Diamond et al. 2009; Fiske 1987; Hall 1981; Jenkins 1992; Kozinets

2001; Liebes and Katz 1991; McAlexander et al. 2002; Miller 1995; Muniz and Schau

2005; Schouten and McAlexander 1995; Scott 1994; Thompson and Arsel 2004). Yet 70 scholars have thus far not examined the role fan communities play in the emergence

process for new brands, human or otherwise. As a consequence, we know little about

differences in the emergence process resulting in different branding outcomes.

Scholars who have attended to reality TV programs and the people who are

featured on them, such as Hearn (2006; 2008), Ouelette (2007; 2008) and Andrejevic

(2002a; 2002b), have largely ignored fans altogether (with the exception of Andrejevic

2003). They portray participants in such programs as "entrepreneurs of the self (cf. du

Gay 1996) engaged in the self-conscious development and management of their brand.

The focus of these studies is mainly on the insidious reach of capitalism as individuals vie to transform themselves into self-enterprising commodities. Hearn (2006), for example, argues that a human brand's strategic self-trajectory is guided in this context by templates "supplied by corporate media culture" and "generated inside the structural limits set by reality television show producers and editors" (131, 137).

The moral and ethical concerns raised in this scholarly tradition certainly deserve our attention. But the view that the production and authorship of reality TV contestants' human brands are mainly the results of television producers and contestants (so long as they stay within the structural limits set by producers and editors) is unduly limiting.

Researchers who have studied other types of reality TV have shown fans can have influence through their participation in online communities (Andrejevic 2003, 2008; Gray

2005; Hill and Palmer 2002; Holmes 2004a, 2004b; Jenkins 2006a; van Zoonen 2004;

Wilson 2004). Thus it seems clear that in order to understand the process of how nascent human brands accumulate, or fail to accumulate, sets of meaningful associations, we need 71 to attend not only to television producers,' editors,' and contestants' practices but also to those of fans.

It should be noted that a central tenet of this study is that reality TV fans are not just consuming the television show(s), but also the actual TV representations of the individuals who are featured on the show(s). Without doubt, fans are engaged by shows themselves. But equally without doubt, fans are engaged by some (though not all) contestants on such programs. And as this research reveals, the show influences but does not completely shape how fans interpret and assign meaning to contestants. As fans share interpretations online, and as they gather information about contestants beyond that provided by the show's producers, they co-create brand meanings or associations, images

(sets of associations organized in meaningful ways [Aaker 1991]), types (e.g., hero, villain) (e.g., Belk and Tumbat 2005; Brown et al. 2003) and stories that go beyond, and sometimes differ from those seemingly intended by the producers of the show or by the contestants themselves.

This study uses longitudinal online data and examines the cases of eight

America's Next Top Model (ANTM) contestants' human brands. It pays attention to online fans' practices as they use and make sense of materials provided by the shows, by contestants, and by fellow fans. It does so in order to understand the process by which human brands come into being, and some of the variation in the characteristics of brands that emerge. The research aims to answer the following questions to enhance our knowledge of human brands: 1) What is the process by which fans, in conjunction with

72 show's producers and contestants themselves, co-produce new human brands? and 2)

What are the diverse branding outcomes in the emergence process

The paper is organized as follows. Some key and relevant findings from the literature on human brands, celebrity, and fans of reality television are first reviewed to provide a theoretical basis for the investigation. Next, the methodology is explicated; this is followed by an analysis of the data that highlights the co-production process and practices that lead to diverse branding outcomes. A discussion of the findings as well as their implications for human brand management concludes the paper.

73 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The literature on human brands is still in its infancy (for exceptions see Fournier

and Herman 2006; Lieb 2007; Milligan 2004; Parmentier et al. 2008; Rein et al. 2005;

Schroeder 2005; and Thomson 2006). Debates as to what terminology and definition to

use are not resolved, and the current theoretical articulation of human branding is scant.

On the other hand, the literature on celebrity is abundant. The position taken for this

study is that human brands may or may not have celebrity, but that since the two concepts

are related, a review of some central ideas from the celebrity literature is valuable.

Some see celebrity as a fairly recent phenomenon that emerged with modernity

(e.g., Alberoni 1972; Dyer 1982), while others believe that it has existed since ancient

times (Braudy 1986; Scott 1991). Most agree that celebrity is a potentially lucrative (e.g.,

Pringle 2004) yet pervasive commodity (e.g., Hearn 2006; 2008). It generates attention as

it creates human pseudo-events (cf. Boorstin 1992) and profits as the celebrity person is

"productized" (e.g., Fournier and Herman 2006). If the celebrity text was once

characterized by the storyline that those who deserve fame naturally achieve it, it has

moved since to one that increasingly recognizes that celebrity is - more often than not -

manufactured (e.g., Gamson 1994, 1992; Rindova et al. 2006; Turner 2004) and that

individuals who want to become celebrities may be managed as brands (e.g., Lieb 2007;

Milligan 2004; Rein et al. 2005;). Moreover, while celebrities were originally "idols of production" (e.g., captain of industry, politicians) who promoted both education and

inspiration (cf. Lowenthal 1961), they have been supplanted -though not eradicated- by

"idols of consumption" (e.g., people from the sports and entertainment industries) who 74 are related to the sphere of leisure time (cf. Lowenthal 1961). For contemporary consumers, celebrities, whose function seems to increasingly be promoting self, lifestyles and products (e.g., Barron 2007; Morris 2009), have become an important resource for purposes of identity construction (Kozinets et al. 2004). Rodman (1996), in his study of

Elvis Presley's posthumous manifestations in contemporary culture, reminds us that celebrity "is not a purely mercantile phenomenon imposed 'from above' by profit-hungry media conglomerates" (12) but rather is as much a socially based phenomenon generated at the level of ordinary people, like fans. In light of these insights, it is clear that contemporary celebrities are both produced and consumed.

Reality TV contestants who arguably are interested by the rewards of celebrity engage in "self-branding" (Hearn 2008: 197) to "sell" themselves to reality show producers and sustain interest while on the show and beyond (Fairchild 2007). Moreover, reality TV shows like ANTM promise to share strategies and tips to become a notable professional (i.e. in this case, a fashion model) in an institutional field (i.e. in this case, fashion modeling) while offering the means to reach a target audience and potentially, the wider public and the mass media. In other words: "Reality television programs provide the mechanism whereby participants can effectively construct personae and put them to commercial use" (Hearn 2006: 136).

Contestants are typically selected to be on television when they provide the raw material to create a captivating story (Burnett 2001; Hill and Palmer 2002; Mock-Falcon

2003). Contestants' self-branding efforts may be molded "by prior knowledge of the dictates of reality TV" (Hearn 2006: 134), i.e. the types that are recurrent in the television 75 genre5, mixed with "their own unique personalities" (Burnett 2001: 89). These two elements echo the idea of developing a "brand personality," a crucial element in positioning a product and fostering relationships with consumers (e.g., Aaker 1997;

Fournier 1998). Typecasting contestants thus seems related to the management practice of developing brand personality. Yet, while consumer culture theorists have demonstrated how brands are not the sole result of marketers' intentions but also of consumers' interpretations as well as other entities involved in the socio-cultural network (e.g.,

Diamond 2009 et al.; Sherry 2005), human brand theory has thus far ignored the role of fans in the branding process.

As fans consume reality TV television shows and their contestants, they co- produce meanings which do not always reflect producers' intentions. Both co-production and deviations by fans from the storylines and desires of producers have been noted in the broader fan literature (e.g., Baym 1999; Fiske 1992; Jenkins 1992; Kozinets 2001,

2007), and especially in marketing studies of fan fiction writing (e.g., Brown 2007;

Lanier and Schau 2007; Schau and Muniz 2004). In the context of reality TV fandom, fan fiction is actually relatively uncommon (Jenkins 2006c). However, in this context fans co-produce and deviate when they question to what degree the contestants' displayed emotions, interactions and confessions are true or merely a media construction (Aslama and Pantti 2006). In other words, fans seek out "honest" moments and do so as they question the "reality" of these programs (Montemurro 2008). They engage in authenticity

5 e.g., "the jock, the vixen, the asshole, the gay guy, the rich bitch, the grizzled vet, the buddy" Hearn 2006: 134. 76 seeking practices (Rose and Wood 2005) and part of their thrill is to hunt for the few rare

authentic moments when the participants seem to reveal their 'real selves' (Aslama and

Pantti 2006; Hill 2002). The central premise of reality TV is, after all, the opportunity to

watch real people in all their "unscripted vulnerability" (Lewis 2004: 288; see also

Collins 2008) and audiences believe that the shows can reflect (though certainly not

always and to some greater or lesser extent) cast members' personalities, skills, and

values (Hall 2003; 2006). Turner (2004) similarly argues that when consuming celebrities

(and he considers at least some reality TV participants as such), the audience must use an

underlying principle that helps unify the wealth of meanings available: that the star has a

'true identity' as a person (103). Fans search for the truth, or reality, despite knowing that

the shows are contrived fabrication and that the contestants are -not always but often- performing (Hill 2005; Jones 2003).

Despite the fact that the studies reviewed above point to the fact that fans must participate in the co-production of the meanings of nascent human brands, they stop short

of providing insight on the process through which they, in conjunction with producers

and contestants, do so, and on how it happens that outcomes for different brands vary.

Thus I turn to these questions in the study that is described next.

77 METHOD

In order to address the research questions identified above, this study relies on a specific subset of the data collected during the netnography (see Method, Chapter 1).

Thus, in this section, I forgo the usual data collection discussion and explain instead my rationale for using only a subset of the data, describe this dataset, and discuss the data analysis procedure.

Rationale

Given that the purpose of this study is to investigate the process by which nascent human brands emerge in part due to fans co-production practices, the data used is longitudinal material (e.g., posts) about contestants generated by fans. In order to narrow down the dataset since hundreds of contestants have participated on the modeling shows

(143 for ANTM alone as of Fall, 2008) I used the following criteria: 1) the site needed to have a high level of activities, i.e. posting and viewing, related to contestants; 2) the data needed to have been generated during the netnography (between Spring 2007-Fall 2008);

3) the data needed to be of quality6 and available for systematic collection. The material generated on one site (Television Without Pity), for one season of a specific show

(ANTM, Cycle 9, Fall 2007) fitted these three criteria and are used in this analysis.

Dataset

6 By quality, I mean, for instance, substantial posts that are written in full sentences not in chat language full of abbreviations. 78 Television Without Pity (TWoP) is a popular website (more than 165,000

members as of Winter, 2009) owned by the Bravo unit of NBC Universal. The site is well

known to television aficionados for its motto: "Spare the snark, spoil the networks," its

logo Tubey: a demonic television set with horns and a pointed tail, and for deliberately

fostering a critical but funny repartee (Gray 2005). On TWoP, fans can read and react to

sarcastic and derisive recaps of selected shows written by paid contributors. They can

also participate in witty discussions about their favorite programs. Moreover, TWoP has its own jargon (e.g., calling reality TV shows contestants "hamsters") and is known for coining nicknames for fictional series characters and reality TV contestants. One forum is devoted to ANTM: it contains four message boards, notably the ANTM's General

Gabbery, Past Seasons, Current Season, and The Runway Funway. The Current and Past

Seasons boards, which contain the individual and specific threads of each of the ANTM contestants, are the most popular (e.g., 300 threads and 150,000 posts in Past Seasons, as of December 2008).

After selecting the ANTM forum of the TWoP site because of its high level of activities related to contestants, the possibility to collect data in a systematic fashion (e.g., a specific thread for every contestant of a particular cycle), and because of the quality of its posts,71 narrowed down my dataset as it threatened to become unmanageable. Guided by my second criterion, i.e. the data had to be generated while conducting my netnography, I focused my analysis on the material generated during ANTM Cycle 9

7 TWoP has quite strict rules of posting that makes its posts more substantial (e.g., "DON'T post "Me Too!" messages; add something of substance to the conversation" http://forums.televisionwithoutpitv.com/index.php?showtopic=3150213) 79 (Fall 2007). Cycle 9 generated - at the time - the greatest activity in terms of posts in the

website's history. Thirteen contestants were the stars of the show, i.e. Mila, Kimberly,

Victoria, Janet, Ebony, Sarah, Ambreal, Lisa, Heather, Bianca, Jenah, Heather and

Saleisha, and of these, 8 became the focus of my analysis: the 4 who generated the most

activity (i.e. posts and file size) and the 4 who generated the least between August 26

2007 and February 29th 2008 (from the moment threads for each contestant were created

to roughly 3 months after the season finale, and as the next cycle (10) began). I selected

these separate groups because of my interest in divergent branding outcomes for these

nascent human brands. The reader will find in Appendix C a brief summary of the

narrative arcs of each case (contestant).

Data analysis

The analysis for this study follows the principles of grounded theory (Strauss and

Corbin 1998). Since I have been engaged in an iterative process from the outset of the

study, my interpretation of the dataset has been constructed through continuously moving

between different literatures, i.e. marketing, consumer research, sociology, anthropology,

media, communication and literary studies, and the data. The analysis was conducted

using the Atlas ti. software, an open coding application for qualitative data, and constantly

comparing between and within cases. While coding, I paid particular attention to specific patterns, themes, and practices enacted by fans and theorized how fans' activities transformed into branding ones as the nascent human brands emerged. I continued this

iterative process until reaching theoretical saturation. 80 FINDINGS

Co-Producing Meaning: Sources and Materials

Meanings in human brands come from various signifiers: a person's gender, occupation, ethnicity, age, family and friends, skills and competence, social class and

status, biographical facts, personality traits, and social roles (Fournier and Herman 2006;

McCracken 1989). In addition, McCracken (1989) points out that the characters previously played by a celebrity also lend meanings to any advertisements in which that person appears. Scott (1991) likewise reminds us that the "narrative, poetic or rhetorical text in which a celebrity appears has an impact on the meanings ultimately conveyed"

(360). Combining McCracken's insight that meanings are not constituted in a vacuum but rather reside in "the culturally constituted world, in the physical and social world constituted by the categories and principles of the prevailing culture" (1989: 313) with

Scott's (1991), who underlines the importance of readers' understanding of a text's conventions for meaning making, I offer in this section a typology of sources and materials used for co-producing meanings in the context of reality TV nascent human brands. By "materials" I mean inputs to the process of meaning production and by

"sources" I mean where the materials come from.

By definition - and unlike celebrities - nascent human brands are unknown to their target audiences and possess few meanings. Producers of reality TV programs are certainly instrumental in developing the contestants' respective human brand. Producers select and reveal strategic details about their stars using some of the stories and facts provided by the contestants themselves via their application form (e.g., to participate on 81 most reality TV shows one must fill an extensive questionnaire. For more details on

ANTM's questionnaire, see Appendix D). They also edit in self-serving ways the lengthy footage and numerous pictures taken while the contestants participate in and promote the

series (Sewell 2004).

Like other texts, reality TV is a genre with conventions and traditions that frame fans' interpretations. During the data collection, for example, I created a thread where fans were invited to discuss the various archetypes of ANTM. Several fans proposed

labels and used examples of past contestants to illustrate the archetypes they viewed as recurrent on the show and important to the overarching story8. After several posts,

someone pointed out that the term "edits" rather than "archetypes" should be used because "It's better reality TV lingo." (LaFuronda Jan 27 @ 5:29 pm) while someone else argued that we should be careful not to conflate generic reality TV types with ANTM's specific "edits": "Would it facilitate discussion to include edits that only ANTM uses? (Besides must-haves like the various types of bitches, dumb blondes, etc.). I would say that edits like "The

Girl Who Loses Her Spark", "Perpetual Bottom Two-ers", and "Resting on Pretty", etc are pretty

ANTM-specific edits. Like, you're not going to see Bret Michaels [from the reality show Rock of

Love] say, "Pissette, you've lost your spark. Where did your personality go? Your tour ends here."

(funkasm Jan 28 @ 4:32 pm). In addition to knowledge of these conventions, traditions and

"narrative codes" (Baym 1999: 81) fans use cultural references, categories and principles

Cycles after cycles, the storyline revolves around finding the best/most deserving individual to launch her career in the field of modeling and showering her with lucrative deals, including a spokesperson's endorsement deal with Cover Girl. 82 (McCracken 1989), to interpret the series and its characters, co-producing, in the process, meanings for the nascent human brands.

The following table summarizes the materials and sources used by fans. I

discerned four different categories of materials: 1) Appearance material, 2) Social and

Physical descriptor material, 3) Biographical data: History material and 4) Biographical data: Character cue material (these materials are defined below). My analysis suggests that there are two sources for these materials: 1) sources from the "Cultural World" (in reference to McCracken (1989)) or non-reality TV sources, and 2) sources from the

"Textual World" (in reference to Scott's suggestion) or reality TV sources.

Table 6: Typology of Sources and Materials

"Cultural World" Non- "Textual World" or Reality Reality TV source: TV source:

Social networking and Video ANTM; TheCWwebsite; Sharing sites; Mass Media; Promotional interviews and/or Personal Social Network; pictures. Discussion Boards; Directories.

Appearance Pictures and footage of the Pictures and footage of the material contestant not taken by reality contestant taken by reality TV TV producers. show producers.

Social and Physical Race, Ethnicity, Age, Social Race, Ethnicity, Age, Social descriptors class, Occupation, Gender class, Occupation, Gender identity, Education, Height, identity, Education, Height, Weight, Hometown, Marital Weight, Hometown, Marital status, Sexual Orientation, status, Sexual Orientation, and First name and last name. First name.

83 Biographical data: Stories about the pre-reality Stories about the pre-reality TV History material TV life of the contestant. life of the contestant edited by reality TV producers. Biographical data: Stories about lived experience Narrative arcs on reality TV. Character cues on and/or after reality TV.

Appearance material refers to pictures and footage of a contestant. Fans typically

find appearance material that is not supplied by the producers via online social networks

(e.g., a contestant's pictures on her Facebook's and/or MySpace' s profile) or video

sharing websites (e.g., a contestant's featured in a clip on Youtube). Mass media such as

local newspapers and lifestyle magazines can also provide fans with this type of material:

pictures of a contestant taken by these outlets before the contestant was selected to

participate on the show sometimes resurface as ANTM becomes current news. Producers

also provide images of the contestants. These include: candid and professional pictures of

- and video interviews with - each contestant, posted on individual profiles on TheCW

website, television and print advertisements and, of course, footage from the series itself.

Appearance material is important to fans' appreciation and interpretation of the

contestants as potential fashion models. Moreover, it is a crucial element that helps shape

contestants' nascent human brand meanings. Indeed, fans carefully dissect appearance material and pay particular attention to details that may help or hinder a contestant's chances of becoming a successful fashion model. They typically categorize the contestants into the different kind of modeling work (e.g., high fashion vs. commercial), ascribing attributes at the same time. This was the case with Janet who was deemed unlikely to make it as a high fashion model because of her muscular body, but potentially 84 appropriate for fitness modeling (Ashe F Oct 21, 2007 @ 9:58 pm: I don't know if she has a shot at high fashion, but I think she could do some men's magazines. SpacePope Oct 21, 2007 @

10:49 pm: Does she even have the right kind of body for mens' magazines? I thought she looked more fitness model). Knowledge of the industry's standards, the series' lingo, as well as fans' personal preferences help shape the responses to the physical image of the contestants. Importantly, adjectives such as pretty or ugly for example, can divert from their original meaning in this context (e.g., a contestant labeled as pretty can actually signify that she is uninteresting, commercial, or boring while being labeled as ugly may refer as being an ugly duckling whose high fashion potential may be revealed through the makeover ritual and/or in front of the camera).

Appearance material includes the highly anticipated makeover episode. It is during that segment that contestants, and viewers, will learn which look or type producers think each contestant should adopt in order to transform herself into an actual fashion model (see also Ouellette 2008; Hearn 2008). The participants are filmed as they undergo their physical change consisting mainly of new -often drastic and dramatic- hairdos and make-up designed to help them embody a specific look or representation of beauty. These new looks, orchestrated by Tyra Banks, often trigger additional meanings for the nascent human brand. For example, the looks chosen by producers may echo trademarks of cultural icons or supermodels such as Naomi Campbell's long black weave (e.g., see below Ebony) or Louise Brooks'9 bob (e.g., see below Saleisha).

9 "Louise Brooks (November 14, 1906 - August 8, 1985) was an American dancer, model, showgirl, and silent film actress, famous for her fashionable bobbed haircut." (Wikipedia, March 5 2009) 85 Image 5: Makeovers "Before & After"

Yet, these looks are not always well received by fans, as was the case with contestant

Saleisha whose new hairdo became material for derisive nicknames and unflattering comparisons (e.g., The Gangsta One Oct 11, 2007 @ 6:56 pm: I've seen Buster Brown thrown around a couple of times as well. So we have, Tootie, Diana Ross, Jackee Harry, Toni Tenille,

Dorothy Hamill, Prince Valiant and heck if we go with bad '70s hair, I can swear Kate Jackson had that hair and Joyce DeWitt. I also go with Dumb Donald from the Fat Albert cartoon...the one who wore the pink stocking cap. Aw....don't forget Ike Turner! And the 1UP Mushroom from

Super Mario Bros.). While Tyra Banks argued that this look was an improvement for

Saleisha's image, making her look "so much more like a model" (ANTM Cycle 9, "The

Girl Who Goes Bald"), most fans thought otherwise and clearly did not agree that this transformation as an improvement. The nickname "Tootie10" and its associations (e.g., unflattering, mushroom top, kitsch, 70s hairdo) became an intrinsic part of Saleisha's nascent human brand for fans within and beyond TWoP.

Referring to actress Kim Field's character on the television series "Facts of Life", Tootie Ramsey. See image 6. 86 Image 6: "Tootie Ramsey"

Social and physical descriptor materials include a contestant's race, age, social class, occupation, education, height, weight, hometown, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, and first and last name. Both real life sources and reality TV's are scrutinized for relevant material. In the weeks prior to the beginning of a new cycle, The

CWtypically posts online each contestant's first name, age, hometown and occupation.

Additional information is then sought after by fans who engage in a form of detective work, i.e. searching for information about the contestants that is not readily or publicly available. Fans may report findings from conversations with people from a contestant's personal social network such as friends, relatives, or acquaintances (e.g., StarbucksLover

Sep 18,2007 @ 3:16 pm: How tall is Bianca? My sister is around 57, and she said when she and

Bianca would walk to class, she would have to look up to Bianca. So I'm guessing somewhere around 5'10...). Friends, relatives and/or acquaintances may also join the discussion online and disclose the information themselves (e.g., Entchen Sep 10, 2007 @ 11:14 am: I went to high school with her [Victoria]. She's not native American.). The series is of course another important source. At times, fans use a combination of details provided on the show and their own lived experience to challenge some of the stereotypes that might surface. For

87 instance, a fan questioned stereotypes pertaining to neighborhood and social class when

contestant Bianca, from Queen's NY, talked about her "horrible" hometown during episode 7:

Does anyone know where in Queens Bianca lives? Being a Queensite myself, I know that there are many nice, non-ghetto areas in Queens and even some very affluent areas. That's not to say that there are no lower-income areas, but I would be interested to know just how ghetto her upbringing was. On that note, I had a rare moment of Tyra love when Bianca was crying about how horrible things are where she's from and Tyra was like "Is Queens that horrible?" (lsk Nov 1, 2007 @ 12:14 pm).

Appearance, social and physical descriptors materials are fundamental in ascribing meanings and types to individuals (Klapp 1962). Television and the mass media are often accused of reducing individuals to one-dimensional stereotypes (e.g., Ewen & Ewen

2006, Dyer 2006). In the context at hand, however, as fans look for additional descriptors and question reductive assessments, layers are added to some contestants' TV representations, creating in the process richer human brands.

Producers, via pre-show interviews with contestants, offer biographical data in the form of history material, i.e. stories about the pre-reality TV life of a contestant. A stream of biographical material is further woven throughout the series as many episodes feature contestants engaging in self-revealing dialogue with one another or in confessional style segments where they confide and share their thoughts and "true" feelings. Non-reality TV sources also provide material about contestants' pre-reality TV lives. It is common for fans to share with one another history material they have found on social networking and video sharing websites, interviews from the mass media, or conversations with someone

88 from a contestant's personal social network. For example, the following conversation about Heather's family structure reveals potentially new and surprising information:

The Grand Suite Jan 5, 2008 @ 10:24 pm: I was recently informed by a friend of Heather's that Heather has two lesbian mothers. If this was previously reported, than I was unaware.

(...)

ZiegMan Jan 6, 2008 @ 3:03 am: I don't think it's true that Heather has 2 lesbian mothers, she mentioned somewhere (I think her Deviantart profile) that her father died when she was young so unless her mom had a lesbian relationship after that then I'm not sure that it's even true.

Anyway I don't want to speculate on her personal family life; what I can say is that whoever raised her did a good job. She's such a beautiful woman and a role model to the girls who watched this cycle. Still sad to see the way she was eliminated, she handled it so well. :)

Interestingly, the conversation ends in a typical manner with fan ZiegMan reinforcing how Heather is beautiful and a role model for young women who have watched the cycle

- despite or because of having been raised by two women.

Biographical data also provide "character cues." The arc of the reality TV narrative for each contestant is important in shaping the meanings of their nascent human brand (see Appendix C for a summary of the narratives). Yet, character cues are not limited to the reality TV world. Stories about a contestant's lived experience on and/or after the show also provide critical meanings. Contestants may tell these stories directly to fans when joining the discussions online, or they may share them in interviews with the mass media. Victoria famously challenged her reality TV "edits" in an interview with a professional writer for the website Fans of Reality TV (FORT). The following is a post

89 from a TWoP fan who shares his/her reaction to Victoria's version of what "really"

happened during her elimination:

"nowrite2000 Oct 13, 2007 @ 3:30 am Wow. Usually I'm all "blah blah blah, of course you were edited" after reading these interviews, but I'm actually on Team Victoria now. I could totally see the whole thing from her perspective. I also loved this tidbit: Tyra is calling me with Saleisha in the bottom two, and she is telling me that I'm very abrasive in person, to the judges, and that I need to learn to be more polite. So, I asked—I actually called a vote with the other girls and asked them to raise their hand if I was being abrasive, or impolite, or rude, and none of them raised their hands. They could have really called me out on it because it is a competition, and people sell other people out to get ahead, but nobody raised their hands. Then, I asked them if I was one of the nicest girls here, and they all raised their hand. Obviously, they didn 't show it because it made Tyra look really bad, and she really didn 't know what to say. I mean, holy crap! Vicks totally flipped the script "Dead Poets Society" O Captain My Captain-style! An impromptu roll call is damn near a coup d'etat in Tyra's world. No wonder they wanted to eliminate her—she just refused to stay in her box and questioned the reality tv machinations."

In this post, "nowrite2000" expresses how he now supports Victoria after reading her account of what "really" happened at panel. Rather than being typed as "prickly and abrasive" (as suggested by Tyra and Twiggy), Victoria became for this fan and, indeed, for a whole faction of fans, someone daring and strong headed, a heroine fighting the powers-that-be of the editing room.

Using the sources and materials discussed above, fans engage in the co- production of meanings of the contestants' nascent human brands. The next section explores this process and fans' typical practices in details.

The Process of Co-Producing Nascent Human Brand Meanings

As the following Figure shows, in Stage 1, fans use the meanings that begin as inputs from the cultural and textual worlds to flesh out the series' characters. Importantly, 90 inputs from the cultural and textual worlds will continue to be used at all stages of the process. In Stage 2, fans annotate the stories told by producers and in the process, may simplify, refine, and/or contest nascent human brand meanings, settling on them at times and leaving them unresolved at others. Stage 2 produces "graduating" outcomes, or meanings that a contestant's nascent human brand has accumulated from her passage on the show. It seems reasonable to speculate that graduated outcomes may become inputs for producers and contestants. For producers, the graduated outcomes may be a resource as they look for specific types when casting for subsequent cycles. For aspiring contestants, the graduated types may be a resource influencing how they enact certain edits when they attempt to be cast for the show (see also Andrejevic 2008 for fan sites providing instant feedback to television writers and scriptwriters). In Stage 3, once the contestants are off the air either because they have been dropped from the competition or because their cycle has ended, fans follow up and either reinforce or revise prior interpretations. It is critical to note that there is no end to this process, i.e. Stage 3 is recursive, as settled outcomes become unsettled and revisions occur.

91 Figure 1: Nascent Human Brands and the Co-Production of Meanings Process

Inputs: Materials from the Cultural and Textual Worlds

it Stage 1: Fleshing out the Characters

-Working as detective -Casting 2.0

it Stage 2: Annotating the Producers' Edits

-Simplifying -Refining -Contesting

it 'Graduation*" Outcomes: Nascent Human Brand Types and Meanings

-Settled or Unresolved; Nuanced, Simple, or Contested

it Stage 3: Following Up

-Reinforcing -Revising Recursive Meaning it Making "Updated" Outcomes: Human Brand Types and Meanings

-Settled and reinforced, Revised or Unresolved; Nuanced, Simple, or Contested.

* "Graduation" refers to contestants "graduating" from the show, either as they are eliminated or crowned as the winner. 92 Stage 1: Fleshing out the Characters

The co-production process begins while fans engage in two practices related to

their effort in fleshing out the characters of the contestants beyond their TV

representation. The first practice I refer to as "Working as detectives", or devoting time

gathering materials about contestants from other sources than the show itself (see also

Andrejevic 2008); the second I have labeled "Casting 2.0," or using cultural and textual

worlds materials to speculate about and predict contestants' narrative arcs on the program

and after.

"Working as detectives" has been foreshadowed in the findings of research on

celebrity audiences Gamson (1994) identified and described a seeming precursor of

today's practice (see Turner 2004) when he discussed the behavior of the "artifice

detective." Artifice detectives are members of celebrity watching audiences who engage

in an interpretive strategy that uses "celebrities not as models or fantasies but as

opportunities: to play freely with the issues they embody (the construction of the self in

public, for example)" (1994: 148). Audience members who use this strategy view the

celebrity text as something semi-fictional and manufactured where natural merit and

artificial creation co-exist (Gamson 1994).

In the current context, it is common for reality TV fans to engage in practices that

I characterize as detective work (Hill 2002; Turner 2004). The advances of computer technology, notably, the Web 2.0, and the plethora of information available online have

enhanced fans' ability to perform detective work. The following is a typical exchange that reflects this practice: 93 "Rocket Sep 14, 2007 @ 3:31 pm I did some Google research and discovered that an Ambreal Williams attended DeSoto High School in Dallas County, TX during the 2004-2005 school year. Seems likely to be ANTM's Ambreal because, I mean, how many can there be? (...) http://www.desotoisd.org/disd/image pdfs/newsletters/pta/PTACouncilApril200 5Newsletter.pdf She's definitely too nice for this show.

p.s. Hey, [The]CW - Ambreal Williams, Ambreal Williams, Ambreal Williams!"

"COmputerGeek Sep 16,2007 @ 7:56 pm (...) I think you may have hit the nail on the head, Rocket, as her initials are ARW (Source: http://www.cwtv.com/video?=ambreal)."

In this exchange, fan "Rocket" has found through a search engine what seems to be contestant Ambreal's high school as well as her last name. Last names are descriptors not typically released by producers, hence his/her nagging to TheCW. In the second post, fan

COmputerGeek corroborates fan Rocket's findings using material - clues perhaps - mentioned by Ambreal in her promotional video.

Working as detective is also enacted through the practice of "spoiling" (see

Chapter 1), yet in the context of fleshing out characters, fans' findings become additional grist for the mill in the co-production of meanings process. And while this practice first appears in Stage 1, it sometimes resurfaces again later in the process, especially when additional information seems necessary in order to interpret ambiguous materials.

"Casting 2.0" refers to fans' use of the cultural and textual worlds' materials to speculate, predict and make sense of contestants' narrative arcs. As observed in other studies of television fandom (e.g., Baym 1999), speculations about series characters constitute a central interpretive activity for fans. "What kind of contestant is this? And, what will her story be?" are probably two of the questions most frequently pondered by fans early in the process. Indeed, from the moment producers introduce their stars to viewers, contestants become the object of speculations and predictions. Fans try to predict the trajectory of each contestant in the competition, and speculate as to what each contestant's respective narrative arc will be. To do so, fans use the different cultural and textual world materials they find in addition to their knowledge of the prior ANTM cycles. Indeed, in speculating and predicting fans often draw on previous ANTM contestants and compare them in terms of appearance, history, social descriptors and character cues. The following posts depict how contestant Victoria, typecast as the "smart girl," compares and contrasts with ANTM previous "smart girls" (e.g., Yaya (Cycle3),

Sarah (Cycle 8), and Elyse (Cycle 1)).

Sumi Sep 12, 2007 @ 10:13 pm [two weeks prior to the show's debut] (Caycee) "I love Victoria. I hated her at first, but I love her now. " Reply: Me too. Her preshow pictures have grown on me except for that deer-in- the-headlights look she always seems to have, and her interview was great. I'm hoping for Elyse-like shenanigans, but I doubt she'll make it nearly as far. More than likely she'll get tired of modeling and finally be eliminated for losing her spark/not wanting it enough.

goblyn Sep 21, 2007 @ 11:40 am (...) I think she's going to get more of an Elyse style edit ("She looks down her nose on everything they do, and yet is the best at it"). (...)

My Way Sep 25, 2007 @ 6:38 am (NewTyrastic) "Hey Vicki, its ok to be smart and want to model too... look at Elyse." Reply: And even fucking Yaya. The smart girls seem to do well post show because they know what to do and how to sell themselves. Of course, I don't know how Sara's doing, but she was pretty broke down by the end of the show. We'll see. I do agree with you guys about the conflict. She's probably always seen herself as this nerd or smart girl and now she's a little confused.

IsabelPup Sep 25, 2007 @ 8:06 am [one day before the cycle starts] Victoria looks like a stretched out elf. In a good way. And I dig her dorky nervous laugh. ETA: I think, more than being conflicted about what she wants (if she didn't want to do ANTM or model, she could have bailed at any time during 95 the auditions), she's conflicted about what she could possibly have in common with other models. A history major fantasy-reading bookworm from Yale who seems quite content to be a dork and has the admitted fashion sense of a 12 year old boy has gotta be totally out of her comfort zone when plopped down with a bunch of wannabe fashion whores like this group. I can't imagine she's going to connect too well with many of these girls (or Tyra, or the Jays for that matter). Chances are she can take direction like a pro because she has more than 3 fighting brain cells, and she has a truly unique look, but the judges will turn on her because she's smarter than they are, just like they did with Elyse, Yaya, and Sarah (and to an extent, Nnenna). They don't like it when the hamsters are smarter than they are."

In these posts, fans use a combination of historic material from prior cycles, social descriptors and a self-branding statement of the contestant (e.g., a medieval history major with the admitted fashion sense of a 12 yrs old who is attending an Ivy league) in addition to their knowledge of the narrative arcs of previous "smart girls" to speculate about and predict Victoria's trajectory in the competition and in life after the show.

While fans illustrate their thoughts with and generate meanings using colorful language and arresting metaphors (e.g., "looks like a stretched out elf," "deer-in-the- headlights look"), they also frequently compare contestants with other pop figures. These include actresses, singers, models, other reality TV shows' contestants, and even cartoon characters. This practice seemingly helps reinforce a sense of shared understanding and interpretation in the community while producing at the same time additional meanings and crystallizing a contestant's type. The following is an example of comparisons between contestant Mila and a variety of Hollywood actresses and a doll. Shared physical characteristics such as long, straight, bleached blond hair, round faces, and white skin seem to bond all of these otherwise unrelated pop figures with the aspiring model.

"Clemency Aug 28, 2007 @ 3:59 pm 96 Seeing Mila in action in the trivia game, she reminds me a bit of http://imdb.com/gaUery/granitz/3097/Events/3097/ThoraBirch Grani 5083075 400.ipg?path=pgallery&path key=Birch,%20Thora. INIDb ^'"' ^-' ^ \ • ••••••• i HiAiiifti ;,I/:H, 'l:,-u-..--, i-.MMi'.v VI 'ii!A':lirt 1

CC-TCi2 «1 :1

All Photos of Thora Birch Ada Photos f.illi IMD& Resume g Thora B rch > All Photos 1-48 of 1C9 photos 1 2 3 Next ° 1 • ra pmm

Jn S *?' JL

I'm another one who likes her (Mila) even though it seems so wrong!"

"Cha Cha Camel Aug 30, 2007 @ 2:45 pm Mila, http://a.abc.com/primetime/desperate/images/gallery/l07Z22.jpg.

dSfJE

Or your mother. Whichever. [Nicolette Sheridan (Desperate Housewives)]'

"Valenti Aug 30, 2007 @ 5:40 pm I see more of an http://www.emilyprocter.com/images/full/gallery_pic27.jpg

97 |.«p> 1>

in her. [Emily Proctor (CSI Miami)]"

"milkyaqua Aug 30, 2007 @ 5:47 pm In her interview video all I kept thinking was that she reminded me of some small rodent...maybe a ferret. I can see the Emily Procter and Nicollette Sheridan (the bad plastic surgery years version) as well. Am I the only one who sees a little Paris Hilton in her...(...)?"

"InsensibleBob Sep 18, 2007 @ 12:01 pm After studying this girl's pictures for quite a while, I realized she reminded me of a doll I had back in the 1970's. I really liked this [Blythe] doll, but translated into human form, I'm not so sure. Check this out: http://www.flicla'.com/photos/^toninivl 970/913235957/in/pool-mtod-dolls/"

In "casting 2.0", fans find memorable and humorous ways to codify meanings (see also

Baym 1999; 2006). Series of comparisons, like the one above, help organize sets of impressions and contribute to the formation of a human brand's gestalt (meanings,

98 association, types and stories). Through comparing and contrasting with prior contestants

and other shared cultural references, fans distill the contestant and her "essence" while

co-producing in the process specific human brand meanings.

Stage 2: Annotating the Producers' Edits

The first episode of the show marks the beginning of Stage 2. Using input from

the previous stage, fans engage in a set of practices that can be summarized as

"annotating the producers' edits". By annotating, I refer to fans' interpretation of

contestants' TV representations and producers editing work. Through simplifying,

refining, and contesting, fans add important footnotes to the contestants' edits and help

shape their nascent human brand meanings.

"Simplifying" signifies that as the series progresses, fans' interpretations of a

contestant's edits create a general consensus of her type - not just on the show but also in real life - and of her dominant brand meanings. By general consensus, I mean that there is a relatively strong sense of agreement between posters. It also means that a contestant's meanings and associations are settled early on and tend to remain simple. Two circumstances are particularly prone to foster the practice of simplifying: 1) when additional materials that are found confirm previous perceptions, and 2) when there is a lack of materials available from both the textual and cultural worlds. The following discussion reflects how additional materials found once contestant Kimberly left the show contributed to settling and simplifying her type of human brand as "lampooned villain". 99 "AnnaBanana83 Oct 7, 2007 @ 11:39 pm [Four days after Kimberly's elimination] Kimberly Interview: http://www.realitytvworld.com/news/ousted-top-model-9- finalist-kimberly-leemans-i-was-robbed-5878.php

Callie Jo Oct 8, 2007 @ 12:57 am [From the interview] Leemans said her mom works with handicapped kids at a public school, so she's been around people with special needs her whole life.

This makes her attitude all the more disgusting.

[Talking about Heather Kuzmich] She's a good girl, but in the real world I don't think that she'd be able to make it... She's not independent in that sense. But in this show — to give kids motivation --1 think it's a definite wonderful step

Condescending much?

/ hope this opens every door for modeling, acting, even activism because I'm really big in the Humane Society. I would love to have them give me a bigger voice to spread the word about the Humane Society

Why not start by being nicer to people with disabilities., just a suggestion.

COmputerGeek Oct 8, 2007 @ 1:37 am More Kimberly interviews: http://www.buddytv.com/articles/americas-next-top- model/exclusive-interview-kimberly-1-1203 3 .aspx | http://www.ocala.com/article/20071006/NEWS/210060353/1025/NEWSI http://entertainmentl.sympatico.msn.ca/How+to+win+ANTM+bootee+Kimberly +Leemans+talks/TV_Guide/RealityTV/Articles/070928_antm_kimberly_intervie w_MH.htm?isfa=l

What do you make of all the drama involving Bianco, Lisa, Saleisha. How did you deal with that in the house? We went so long without having any kind of confrontation and we were all like, "Oh my God, this is so cool. We're not going to be one of those drama seasons." And then, you know, you start getting tired, you have long days, somebody says something and you don't hear right, and then it starts going out of control. Basically, it was just Bianca saying her opinions in a loud voice, and then getting offended, and then throwing insults out. It wasn't a malicious intent like they're showing it like she always wants to pick fights and stuff. It was just, she was just saying her opinions and then it just went out of control. It started off as a good intention, but it always turned out really bad.

Why I am not surprised that the bitches bonded?

A lot of fans of yours and fans of the show didn't feel you had the weakest picture this week. What did you think about the rock climbing photo shoot? I thought I did a lot better than they showed. I definitely think that they picked the weaker picture of the show to panel to get me out, I guess. I definitely feel robbed. I didn 'tfeel like it was my time to go at all, and I was really shocked and bothered by that for a long time. Even now, when I watch the show, I'm like, "Why? " It doesn't make sense to me.

What a massive sense of entitlement. I hope that, during the reunion show, Tyra lets her know that she was cast only as filler and was not robbed as they never intended her to win.

"[Producers] actually turned me into one of the bitches, and I was really hurt by that," she said. "People started coming up to me and saying 'Oh my God, you are such a bad person.' But me and Heather were actually really good friends, and my mom works with handicapped kids, so I know all the different personalities^...) We were all talking - all the girls - and they just cut and pasted my thing to make me sound like I was talking bad about Heather," Leemans continued. "She was sitting right next to me; they didn't show it. We're fine, so if everybody wants to believe what they want to believe, that's too bad."

This is such a lie. I refuse to believe Heather was sitting right next to her.

When Leemans said she didn't want to befriend Heather because she was afraid the Asperger's sufferer would get clingy, she earned the wrath of viewers. "I've been getting hell for that, but I felt it was the truth. My mom works with handicapped kids, so I've [seen them cling to people myself]. Heather and I were really good friends - she's stunning -but in the real world I don't think she 'd make it because we were always waking her up, telling her to take a shower and take her pills. She's not independent, but to give people motivation, it's a wonderful step for Top Model.

Is Kimberly kidding me? Somehow, I think Heather is capable of completing her hygiene ritual without Kimberly's help. Man, Kimberly is such a massive bitch. Clearly, Kimberly learned nothing from her mother. goblyn Oct 8, 2007 @ 2:35 pm Oh poo. I really really wanted to like Booberly [Kimberly's given nickname by TWoP online fans], but now I'm just going to have to file her under "unlikeable" and call it a day.

23 Skiddoo Oct 8, 2007 @ 5:11 pm Wow, she's more of a twerp than I thought. Usually, I like the girls more after reading their post-show interviews, but Kimberly seems to be a bitter, entitled bitch who is just full of excuses. The fact that she's "been around special needs people her entire life" makes her attitude toward Heather seem even more nasty than when I chalked it up to mere ignorance. I've never heard of someone so catty and willing to name names as this ho.

Dale Oct 8, 2007 @ 8:54 pm Wretched girl. Wretched, wretched, wretched.

mitzy247 Oct 8, 2007 @ 11:01 pm I love how she said that her mom has been around special needs children, as if that makes a difference. She never actually states that she (Kimberly) has personal experience working with people with special needs or disabilities. BTW, I was sure that the conversation where she said she didn't want Heather clinging to her took place at an angle where you could see Heather outside the room, close enough to hear them but definitely not part of the conversation. I need to see that episode again. (...) I think this chick turned out to be a major whiner and an ungrateful bitch. Even past bitches like Melrose [C7] showed a little charm in their post-ANTM interviews.

spencerriley Oct 9, 2007 @ 11:05 am She is completely vile, the more I read about her the more disgusted I am. She makes Jade [C6] and Melrose [C7] look like complete angels by comparison. Goodbye, so long, and farewell bitch may your fifteen minutes be completely over."

Interviews that Kimberly engaged in with various media outlets reaffirmed fans' belief that her role on the show was that of a villain, a social type (see Klapp 1962), according to posters actually consistent with her "real" self. The incident that showed her on camera saying derogatory comments about contestant Heather, and her explanation afterwards of the incident were interpreted in a way that helped settle Kimberly's meanings as selfish, unintelligent and as an uninteresting "bitch" (as opposed to an "interesting" one like

Bianca (Cycle 9), Jade (Cycle 6) and Melrose (Cycle 7)). Moreover, the continuous use by fans of the borderline offensive yet "humorous" nickname "Booberly" (with regards to her large breasts) and the recounting of her meanness toward Heather contributed to the simplification and settlement of her type as a lampooned villain with short range of brand meanings.

To illustrate the second case of simplifying, i.e. when there is a lack of materials available from both the textual and cultural worlds, the following posts about contestant

102 Ambreal, who received little airtime on the show and generated the least activity on the board despite the fact that she stayed in the competition for more than half of the cycle, are presented next. They start with a comment that anticipates fans' later impressions:

"marc987 Sep 13, 2007 @ 9:31 pm (...) I always seem to forget about her. Hopefully when the season starts she wont get on my nerves as bad and maybe I'll remember that she is part of the competition. Trave Oct 3, 2007 @ 8:32 pm [Episode 3] Is the twist of this season that Ambreal is really mute? I seriously don't even remember what her voice sounds like, she gets 3 seconds on each episode.

Dale Oct 10, 2007 @ 8:50 pm I totally loved her makeover. I thought she looked gorgeous afterward. I really liked her rose photo tonight, too. But I'm still disappointed with the lack of airtime she gets. (...)

Haute Oct 11, 2007 @ 12:56 am She always looks bored in her pictures, her eyes look like they are halfway opened(or unless they are like that naturally? She hardly gets any screen time so I can't tell)

nicenessness Oct 16, 2007 @ 11:36 pm Is this girl even on the show? Ambreal who?

goblyn Oct 17, 2007 @ 11:31 am Yeah, you know, she's that girl...the one with the face? And the uh...stuff? Seriously, she and Sarah should sue for lack of screen time or something. (...)

nicenessness Oct 18, 2007 @ 9:29 am So she does exist... (...)

Lucius Hip Oct 19, 2007 @ 7:24 am She's so nonexistent. If that's a word...I think she looks really good, but she keeps slipping from my mind. I don't understand how I can keep on ignoring and forgetting someone who's so gorgeous and has such an odd name... She has a curse, that's the only possible reason.

goblyn Oct 19, 2007 @ 2:14 pm If she didn't come first alphabetically in the list of hamsters, I would easily forget her.

Dhyerwolf Oct 30, 2007 @ 11:38 pm

103 In my mind, I switch between "Embryo" because it is funny, and "Ambien" because she is a sleeping pill in human form."

This ongoing discussion illustrates how an emerging human brand can get "stuck" with simple and settled meanings like: "forgettable," "boring," "nonexistent". Her type is interpreted as that of a "filler" or "plant", reality TV lingo for an extra in a television program, someone who is part of the cast but really has no essential role to play. Despite a "twist" in Ambreal's narrative arc, i.e. when she was given the chance to stay longer on the show as her fellow bottom-two contestant Ebony decided to quit the competition,

Ambreal continued to be perceived by fans as someone they did not know much about and who was seemingly not particularly worth investigating and/or getting invested in.

As the week passed, discussion on the boards remained relatively quiet and or repetitive with fans expressing either their frustration with Ambreal's lack of airtime or her inability to be someone of interest to get to know better. Ambreal's nascent human brand image emerged with relatively few associations other than being unusual looking but yet boring (e.g., "Ambien') both as a contestant, a model and as a person in real life.

In comparison, the second practice that pertains to "annotating the producers' edits", "refining," is about fans' generating rich layers of nuanced meanings. Refining takes place in a climate of general consensus, agreement and/or mild disagreement (more like brainstorming than war). I observed "refining" instances in comments that were typically framed as non-challenging to other posters' views but yet contained nuances, fine distinctions and extended reasoning. Contestant Bianca's case illustrates well fans' use of this practice. Indeed, while attitudes toward Bianca varied greatly, from liking to profound dislike, the vast majority of fans cast her as the cycle's main villain. The nature of her "villainy" (in reality TV lingo, "bitchiness") and the extent to which it was manufactured, as opposed to a reflection of her true self was, on the other hand, discussed at length. Consider the examples of fans' refining efforts below:

"Lucius Hip Sep 28, 2007 @ 11:37 am (...) I love Bianca. A bitch who says "I know how to bring people down mentally" can't be but excellent. I love the way she plays the game - there's a difference in being an obnoxious brat and being an obnoxious brat with a reason. (...) Ridgeway Girl Oct 4, 2007 @ 12:44 pm (...) There's a big difference between Bianca's equal opportunity bitchiness and Kimberley's [C9] targeting of the weak. (...)

Kanine Oct 4, 2007 @ 2:49 pm (...) After waves of wishy washy bitches (Renee [C8]), mildly unpleasant and matronly ones (Melrose [C7]) and downright insane ones (Monique [C7]), Bianca's levelheaded, icily strategic evil is fabulous. She's hella entertaining. I hope she tears Saleisha [C9] to shreds in the next episode.

Staple Webs Oct 6, 2007 @ 10:21 am Bitchanca is about 1 catfight away from making this show Flavor of Love Season 2.5. She's starting to remind me of Monique and her desperate attempts to be the house bitch.

nicenessness Oct 6, 2007 @ 10:27 am Bianca = Bootz/Larissa [a contestant from Flavor of Love Season 2]

amanndaj Oct 6, 2007 @ 1:22 pm But I loved Bootz' bitchiness. She was more of a "talk about people behind their back, then when confronted, destroy them in an argument" type of girl, whereas Bianca is more of a "Provoke possible competition, and then break their spirits in a argument" type of bitch. (...)

goblyn Oct 9, 2007 @ 3:55 pm (...) Bianca might be really bitchy, but she owns the bitchiness, which can't really be said for most of the other bitches this show has had (Renee's [C8] constant backpeddaling, Melrose's [C7] forced edit, Honique's [Monique C7] simpering sweetness at judging, Jade's insistence that her confidence was misinterpreted...do I need to go on?).

charmena Oct 10, 2007 @ 7:52 am 105 I agree, goblyn. Someone who declares themselves a bitch at auditions is indeed owning it. And she admitted exactly why she apologized to Lisa [C9]. Bianca is a type of bitch we haven't seen before, ha. She *is* a fun bitch if you ask me; she revels in it. And all her bitchiness isn't directed at the girl's personally like "I hate you, you stupid bitch!"; it's more of "You think you can win this competition being a stripper? With big thighs?" Team Bianca!!!

Nell Huxleigh Oct 10, 2007 @ 10:22 am (...) She seems like she has friends at time, too, with some genuine moments of warmth. And she is creative with her insults and will say it straight to someone's face. And she doesn't cry about every last thing being "her life" in confessionals, Hellrose [Melrose C7], I'm thinking of you."

In these posts, fans discuss the type and nature of Bianca's villainy and refine, in the process, her human brand meanings to fuller and more nuanced ones. Unlike Kimberly who was seen as an unsophisticated and unidimensional villain, Bianca is perceived as a type of villain with greater depth, distinctiveness and some charismatic qualities. And as charisma invites attention, Bianca draws attention to herself, generating in the process a high activity level on the boards.

The last practice frequently enacted by fans as they annotate producers' edits is

"contesting." In contesting, fans express strong disagreement between each other, usually creating factions, divided as to how a contestant's personality and "true" self should be interpreted. Polarized "camps" of fans fractiously assert different interpretations of contestants. This practice should not be seen as unusual, given that viewers of reality TV do not watch programs for entertainment purposes only, but also to engage in the critical viewing of what other people do and how they think, and of the ideas, norms and practices that producers promote (Hill 2005).

106 "Contesting" was apparent in contestant Victoria's ("Tory") case. The following sample of posts distills a lengthy discussion about Tory's elimination and her difficult relationship with judge Twiggy.

"rukh214 Oct 10, 2007 @ 8:31 pm hello everyone - my dish gave way right when victoria got to panel (and i just saw the shot), what did twiggy say to tory? i.e. how did she insult her? i'm dying to know, i will always prefer victoria to the one-trick pony that is twiggers [Twiggy].

Dale Oct 10, 2007 @ 8:32 pm She thought Victoria got the cactus as her theme because of her prickly disposition. [The photoshoot that week was to embody a flower and Victoria's was a cactus]

nicenessness Oct 10, 2007 @ 8:35 pm And she put it just like that. Blunt and cold.

charmena Oct 10, 2007 @ 8:36 pm Actually, she didn't even finish her sentence before Victoria started mouthing off.

nicenessness Oct 10, 2007 @ 8:38 pm We all know how that sentence was going to end...

Kanine Oct 10, 2007 @ 8:40 pm Yeah, what was she going to say? "It's funny you got to be the cactus, Victoria, since you're so tall, green, and grow in the desert."

Caycee Oct 10, 2007 @ 8:41 pm Wow. Thank you for the laugh. This thread was starting to get TENSE.

charmena Oct 10, 2007 @ 8:43 pm Well she has been quite prickly to Twiggy the last two times. I would've been surprised if the judges hadn't said anything at all. (...)

nicenessness Oct 10, 2007 @ 8:47 pm But that was in the past. There was no reason to bring it up out of the blue at panel when Victoria had done nothing.

Nell Huxleigh Oct 10, 2007 @ 8:51 pm She totally proved how prickly she is when she couldn't even let Twiggy spit it out before correcting her. Twiggy couldn't ask for better proof of her comment. Honestly, I never saw any students engaging teachers or even teaching assistants that way in my Ivy League school. Victoria is just a self-absorbed condescending

107 brat who all the judges for once had pegged correctly. Her exit speech solidified it. It was LUDICROUS. How many times did she use that word this episode? Her complete lack of original thought, charm, or vocabulary amazes me since she is from Yale's highly selective History Department. I thought they would have weeded out the Victorias.

nicenessness Oct 10, 2007 @ 8:54 pm (Nell Huxleigh) She totally proved how prickly she is when she couldn't even let Twiggy spit it out before correcting her. Twiggy couldn't ask for better proof of her comment. Reply: That's kinda like calling someone a bitch, and then when the person responds negatively, I say, "SEE! I was right. You ARE a bitch!"

iTwo Oct 10, 2007 @ 8:55 pm Besides which, we've seen nothing to indicate that Tory was any sort of a troublemaker in the house, or uppity or uncooperative during the activities or photoshoots. If there had been material to use, fo' sho' [sic] the editors would have played up the "Tory is a snotty bitch" angle by now. So few people perceive any of those notes to Tory in the four episodes, that I suspect anyone who reads Tory that way is projecting their own attitudes based on bad experiences they've had with self-consciously intellectual people (who are NOT Victoria Marshman) in their own lives. Twiggy had absolutely no standing to call out Tory as being "prickly" in that format. And Tyra had no standing to compare the panel experiences with how Tory would behave in her professional life. (...)

charmena Oct 10, 2007 @ 8:57 pm (Nell Huxleigh) How many times did she use that word this episode? Her complete lack of original thought, charm, or vocabulary amazes me since she is from Yale's highly selective History Department. I thought they would have weeded out the Victorias. Reply: Oh no, they come a dime a dozen in places like that.

(Nell Huxleigh) I never saw any students engaging teachers or even teaching assistants that way in my Ivy League school. Reply: Right. We actually listened to our teachers and tried to learn something from what they were telling us. The first time she jumped on Twiggy, the panel told her to be more charming. Did she even try that? Nope!

Kanine Oct 10, 2007 @ 9:00 pm Actually she did. Last week, when Tyra talked about the high fashion pretzel, Victoria repeated the pretzel gesture and caught her face in between her hands in a really goofy manner. I don't know if that's what she considers charming or what she thought the panel would consider charming, but that was definitely an effort on her part to appear more charming. As we see in these posts, fans are divided in their interpretation of Victoria's behavior towards an expert ("a pro"). The fact that she was clearly typecast as a smart girl (given her repeated mentions in her confessional segments that she was a nerdy girl from Yale), and perhaps her perceived propensity to chafe against an authority figure may explain why she annoyed certain fans who concluded she was not that "smart" after all. In contrast, another faction thought that asking for clarification from a "questionable" authority figure was a reasonable and intelligent thing to do given that this is a reality show set in the field of fashion modeling, not "rocket science," and that the judge she questioned is more or less a "has been." What is of interest here is not who is wrong or right but rather that throughout her short-lived reality TV career, Victoria's type and brand meanings in the community were contested and became unsettled to the point of being unresolved: was she "prickly" or a keen learner; was she a smart girl or a smart ass? Despite lasting only four episodes out of thirteen, Victoria managed to grab fans' attention through her apparent refusal to stay within the confines of her reality TV role

(which may partially, but not completely, be the result of the editing process).

Graduation " Outcomes: Nascent Human Brand Types and Meanings

"Graduation" outcomes refer to human brand types and meanings that emerged through fans' practices in Stage 2 as the contestants "graduate" from the show, either by being eliminated or crowned as the winner. These meanings and brand types may have been settled within the community (e.g., Kimberly), or may have been unresolved (e.g.,

109 Victoria). They may also differ in depth, from being simple and plain to more nuanced

and rich. Graduation outcomes for the cases examined are presented in table 7.

Table 7: Graduating Outcomes: Nascent Human Brand Types & Meanings

Contestants Brand Types Ranking File size: Brand on the 08/26/07- Meanings show 02/30/08 Ambreal Extra 7th 160 KB Settled and Simple Janet Mom 10m 164 KB Settled and Simple Mila Cheerleader 13m 172 KB Settled and Simple Kimberly Lampooned Villain 12m 188 KB Settled and Simple Bianca Charismatic Villain 4tn 460 KB Settled and Nuanced Victoria Smart (Ass?) Girl ntn 684 KB Unresolved and Contested

Heather Underdog 5m 896 KB Settled and Simple Saleisha Unworthy Winner 1.1MB Settled and Simple

Of particular interest is the observation that the amount of textual material is not a particularly good predictor of fans' activity level on the boards. However, distinctive traits (e.g., personality, physical appearance) and noteworthy accomplishments seem conducive to greater activity levels. For instance, Victoria exited the show relatively early

(3rd) and, as a result, did not produce a large amount of textual material compared with other contestants who lasted longer on the show. Yet, she exhibited boldness, something less typical for "smart girls" featured on ANTM so far (e.g., talking back to authority figure Twiggy; taking her shoes off before being lectured by Tyra). Thus, her deviation

110 from prior conceptions of her type or edits quite possibly contributed to an acute interest

in her. Before and after "graduation", her "true" self in comparison with her "edits"

became the subject of contestation (smart or not smart?) and her human brand meanings

remained unresolved, as factions of fans within the community argued as to which camp

got it right. There was much less of a consensus about Victoria, especially in comparison

with other contestants such as Mila, Kimberly and Janet, who also left early, or Ambreal,

Heather and Saleisha, who stayed much longer on the show. Thus, despite being

eliminated early, Victoria became a central character of interest for online fans.

In Saleisha's case, on the other hand, general consensus around her brand type

and meanings happened quite early in the process. As fans learned more and more about

Saleisha's prior connections to Tyra Banks, most angrily anticipated that her official edit

would be as the "winner." Yet, for the vast majority, she became instead the "unworthy"

both because of her commercial look, and more importantly, because fans agreed from the outset that she had an unfair advantage. While the producers did not conceal the fact that Saleisha had attended Banks' T-Zone camp for young girls as a teen, they did not

reveal all the connections between Tyra and Saleisha nor did they mention much about her prior modeling experience. As the cycle unfolded and as fans engaged in detective work and found additional material, her legitimacy to participate in the competition was increasingly compromised. Thus, despite enjoying plenty of material (an entire cycle of

111 exposure and plenty of cultural material11) and despite the fact that she generated one of

the highest levels of activity in TWoP's history, Saleisha's type and meanings settled

firmly early on and remain relatively unchanged and unchallenged at graduation (and

beyond).

Stage 3: Following up

The last stage of the process is "Following up" or pursuing interpretation of both prior and additional material once the contestant has left the show and/or once the cycle

is over. This is the longest stage and one that seems virtually never ending as fans diligently continue to pay attention to some past contestants years after their ANTM prime time is over (e.g., cycle one aired in 2003 and fans in 2009 are, for instance, still interested in Elyse Sewell, a contestant from that cycle, who has been blogging on her

Live Journal since 2004). Two main practices characterize fans co-production of human brand meanings at this stage: 1) "Reinforcing" or strengthening prior interpretation, and

2) "Revising" or looking back at a contestant with new eyes.

The first practice, "reinforcing", typically happens as a result of nostalgia and/or the introduction of new cultural material. Two circumstances typically characterize this practice: fans are feeling nostalgic after watching old episodes and find new cultural

(e.g., COmputerGeek Sep 16, 2007 @ 3:16 pm: Saleisha has worked for Tyra Banks on her talk show (...) Source: http://lounge.cwtv.com/showthread.php?t= 139990. You can see her starting at 3:34 in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nlMS5k455Q video; littlshortdudel Nov 24, 2007 @ 11:17 am: Saleisha on Ugly Betty (down the page): http://www.fansofrealitvtv.com/forums/amer...s-only-399.html: Video Jill Dec 7, 2007 @ 3:12 pm: Saleisha's RECENT Wendy's commercial: Upcoming R&B artist, Avriel, is acquainted with ms. Saleisha: http://www.myspace.com/avriel On her Myspace is a link with a pic of Saleisha and herself: http://www.i45.photobucket.com/albums/f99/...utubebanner.jpg) 112 material that reinforces their prior assessment. Consider the following example about contestant Heather, a favorite of fans and the underdog with an exquisite look for modeling:

"observing Jan 6, 2008 @ 12:07 am [3 weeks after the season finale and 5 weeks after Heather's elimination] I'm watching the rerun of Season 9 and Heather just got eliminated— I cried again!! I totally love this girl and think she has the best face in all of the cycles of ANTM. Go Heather! I hope to see you in print or whatever media. You are the best! The most beautiful. Mega love!

davidcalgary29 Feb 6, 2008 @ 9:19 pm [a month later right after a television special entitled: "Top Model Exposed"] Not impressed with Heather's look in tonight's retrospective. What the hell happened?

Oholibamah Feb 6, 2008 @ 9:22 pm The hairstyle kinda accentuated a likely weight gain, the lipstick choice was horrible and I don't think the lighting was doing her skintone any favors. Yet, she still exuded gorgeousness, even if she was looking pretty busted.

COmputerGeek Feb 19, 2008 @ 12:53 am Heather for Spectrum Magazine:

I think the second picture is a bad scan. I am not sure what the point of the third picture is, but I did laugh. I like the cover photo.

observing Feb 19, 2008 @ 8:52 pm I barely recognize her, and I love Heather. Why is she wearing brown contacts when her eyes are so incredibly striking? What's with the 3/4 poses when she is

113 so strong in profile and facing the camera? I do love her, though. Glad to see her working.

23 Skiddoo Feb 19, 2008 @ 9:03 pm That is some really bad photography. I'm not sure whether she's wearing brown contacts or whether the photos were just really poorly processed. Heather is so pretty, but these photos don't do her a whole lot of justice.

COmputerGeek Feb 24, 2008 @ 3:25 am Heather on the Tyra Banks Show:

I love, love, love the second picture. Biana Bitchface ruins the last screencap for me. ZiegMan Feb 24, 2008 @ 2:52 pm Heather looks divine as usual, her skin is perfect. I don't like the Spectrum pics though, the photography is bad and the makeup makes her look older and more rugged.:/

As we see in these posts, reinforcing does not mean abandoning any sort of critical stance towards a contestant (e.g., Not impressed with Heather's look in tonight's retrospective. What the hell happened?) but it does refer to fans continued reinforcement of certain meanings

(e.g., Yet, she still exudedgorgeousness; looks divine). Heather may take bad pictures, she may have a bad hair day or she may not get the modeling jobs that fans think she deserves but new cultural material does not really change fans' perceptions. This is not to say that Heather's human brand meanings will never change, since, as mentioned previously, this is a recursive process. Yet, in this case and in the period following

Heather's graduation from the show, her graduated outcomes remain more or less the same and are reinforced as fans look back at old footage and find new cultural material.

"Revising" entails looking back at a contestant with new eyes using, again, old or new material. Graduating outcomes are reviewed and altered to a greater or lesser extent.

Consider contestant Janet, to whom fans quickly assigned on the edit of "mom" (i.e. in the sense of being a caretaker rather than a matriarch) (e.g., WhineandCheez Sep 14, 2007

@ 2:34 pm: She totally looks like she could be Raymond's wife in "Everyone Loves Raymond".

I'll bet those jeans are Mom Jeans—the birdhouse vest is still in her suitcase) and who was not perceived as someone with a lot of high fashion potential. Her case provides an example that illustrates how fans engage in the practice of revising in Stage 3:

"The Gangsta One Nov 6, 2007 @ 7:04 pm [3 weeks after Janet's elimination]

115 Honestly, I think that Janet had a better Gargoyles shot in her filmtha n that [the shot that was chosen by Tyra Banks and led to Janet's elimination]. Looking back at the recap episode, I clearly liked it when she was standing and posing and angled her legs in a fashion forward way. I know she had a better picture than that, it's just that when Tyra wants you gone, she picks the shiftiest of the bunch. (...)

Video Jill Nov 16, 2007 @ 5:52 pm Anyone seen Janet's new photos on her Myspace?

She looks amazing! http://i2.tinypic.com/81tci0w.ipg Her Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/ianetmillsantm

RealChicl999 Nov 16, 2007 @ 6:00 pm Janet looks great in the Tiny Pic shot. It sucks that we didn't get to see more of her personality until after she was booted."

Fans here are expressing subtle revisions to prior assessments of Janet's modeling potential. Perhaps she is a better high fashion model than they first thought and maybe

there are other sides to Janet than merely being a chores-oriented nurturer with a

"suburban" mom haircut. Over time, if she produces more material that differs (in fans eyes) from her image on the show, her human brand meanings and type may be altered, modified and enriched. This practice is not extremely common but it is not unprecedented either. As fans take a second look at a contestant and compile new cultural material, they

116 may change their minds and, at the collective level of the community, the human brand meanings and type may be reconfigured, thus enriching her overall brand image.

"Updated" Outcomes: Human Brand Types and Meanings

Finally, building on the last stage, "Updated" outcomes refer to the recursive nature of the co-production process. As additional input is found and shared among fans, meanings that were settled may become less so, those that were unresolved may settle, and through the practices previously discussed, the meanings may be nuanced, simplified or contested all over again.

117 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

This research illuminates the process by which online fans help co-produce reality

TV contestants' nascent human brands. It has examined fans' practices and observed that these can lead to contrasting branding outcomes for different human brands. I have found that fans use inputs from the textual and the cultural worlds and engage in a series of practices such as: "fleshing out the characters," "annotating the producers' edits," and

"following up." Overtime, fans co-produce "graduated" and "updated" human brand outcomes that may or may not reflect producers' and contestants' original typecasting, editing, and performance efforts.

The paper also helps us further our understanding of the dynamics at play between fans and human brands in the early stages of celebrity building. It informs, notably, our knowledge of the celebrity endorsement process (McCracken 1989). Indeed, it attends, first, to the meaning making activities of fans, a group previously neglected in the endorsement process. And it also considers how human brands - in particular those that emerge through reality TV, a prominent mechanism for celebrity building in the contemporary context - may come to embody certain meanings and types beyond those that producers imagined for them.

Implications for Brand and Celebrity Theory

Other studies have noted how television viewing and online fandom may be understood as a powerful "game" (cf. Baym 1999: 93) of making meanings from clues and of collaborative interpretation with implications to subvert and challenge producers' 118 creations (e.g., challenging series' characters' writing [Baym 1999]; spoiling [Jenkins

2006a]; cultural jamming [Wilson 2004]). This study further argues that fans' interpretive practices in online communities may be also understood as brand-building activities. Fans receive brand information about contestants from television producers and reality TV contestants themselves when they watch the show. As they go online to discuss and share interpretation and material with one another, they also co-produce brand meanings, types, associations, stories, and images.

This research also has implications for our understanding of the relationship between consumers, brands and the conditions of late modernity. The significance of the relationships that fans develop with other fans over the Internet has been explored in previous work (e.g., Baym 1999). The relationship between consumers and brands in brand community has also been thoroughly investigated (e.g., McAlexander et al. 2002).

Moreover, consumers' brand relationships have been extensively examined in Fournier's work (1998). And commercial friendship has been proposed as the appropriate concept to describe consumers' relationship to their favorite service providers (Price and Arnould

1999). Yet, none of these findings taken together fully explain the phenomenon examined here. Online fans of reality TV do develop relationships with some of their fellow fans.

They also clearly develop attachment and loyalty to some of the brands, both human and others (e.g., contestants and series). Thus, some of the consumers' relationships identified in Fournier's typology (1998) may apply here as well. And perhaps commercial friendships are formed as some online fans come to actually work with certain nascent' human brands from the series (e.g., one TWoP fan is also a photographer who at times 119 works with ex-ANTM contestants). Yet, it seems the best metaphor to describe the

relationship of most online fans to reality TV nascent human brands is that of

"acquaintance." Morgan (2009) has analyzed acquaintance as a form of knowledge of

other people that lies somewhere between intimates and strangers. Acquaintances are

typically people we know but who we do not know per se, or not intrinsically, and with

whom we are free from strings and obligations, unlike friends or family (Simmel 1950).

Prior scholars of celebrity, notably Schickel (1985), have described fans

relationship to celebrities as "intimate strangers" referring to the close, intense

relationship that non-famous fans feel toward famous heroes with whom they have no

direct contact. The context of reality television has at least two important features that

facilitate acquaintance-type relationships between fans and nascent brands. First,

technology enables online fans to find, gather, and share material about reality TV's

nascent human brands. Second, these human brands who have not (yet?) achieved the

stardom of the celebrities explored in Schickel work's are increasingly engaging with

fans through social networking media. As a result, both parties may come to "know" one

another as acquaintances. Fans first get acquainted with contestants through television

(see Schickel 1985) and later through online discussion boards. Then, fans and human brands can become further acquainted with one another through linking themselves to networking profiles such as Facebook, MySpace and LiveJournal. Both parties may gain something from the relationship: fans gain a closer access to the entertainment and professional worlds of the human brands, and they also share a common topic of conversation to discuss with fellow fans in the community. As for human brands striving to build their profiles, they may find in allowing fans to be in their "network" that these

acquaintances can potentially be useful. They may, in some instances, yield information

or even employment opportunities (an important implication of the "strength of weak

ties" [Granovetter 1973]) via, for example grassroots fan activism (such a case is

described in the next section). Additionally, they may access other professional services

they may need through the people they "know" (e.g., photographer example given

previously). More generally, encouraging acquaintances may help the nascent human

brand demonstrate to others that she has a fan base that constitutes an exploitable form of

capital for a human brand.

A final theoretical implication of this work for human branding links to prior

scholars' work that has reflected upon the evolving relationships of power between

reality TV producers, consumers, and the surveillance component of some shows such as

Big Brother (e.g., Andrejevic 2003, 2002a, 2002b; Palmer 2002). They have argued that

as ordinary citizens become the object of intense scrutiny, celebrity becomes a more

democratic phenomenon not only reserved to the Hollywood, sports or political elites.

My research further highlights that as technology enables consumers to gather, share and become "acquainted" with those who work at building celebrity, consumers may by-pass traditional gatekeepers (e.g., agents, publicists, protective family members, managers) and gain access to potential figures of power which seems, a priori, to add an additional layer to the democratization of celebrity.

Implications for Human Brand Management 121 If reality TV producers launch contestants' media exposure, the development of

contestants' nascent human brands does not happen without fans. The challenge for

human brands, in particular in the emergence stage, is to engage consumers' attention and

sustain it. Based on the findings from this research, this may happen when contestants'

edits echo archetypes that fans recognize, share as a common point of reference (e.g.,

underdog, villain or bitch), and find engaging or annoying. Attention is also triggered

when new input from the cultural and textual worlds surfaces on the board. Material that

helps flesh out a human brand's distinctiveness from the others in the immediate crowd

(e.g., Cycle 9 contestants), and others in a wider category (e.g., prior ANTM contestants)

also generates and contributes to longer lasting interest. Importantly, attention may be

sustained when contestants produce additional material of their own (e.g., Victoria gave

interviews where she told "her side" of the story of what "really" happened during her

elimination at panel; Heather held an Internet journal; contestants may join the discussion boards, and/or work as models or entertainers and produce print and video material).

And while the attention generated in the nascent stage is important as it can potentially trigger the media's interest and promote human brands to larger audiences, establishing direct and sustained interactions between contestants and their fans via social media can bring potential rewards, for instance, mobilizing directly fans' benevolence and support. For example, despite TWoP fans' unflattering opinions of contestant

Kimberly, she recently managed to build a fan base, through, notably, Facebook and

MySpace (e.g., "Please send an email to [email protected] with my name. I'm in the semifinals for an elite contract!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!" Kimberly's Facebook status March 122 2, 2009), that helped her win a modeling contract with Elite Chicago via their online modeling competition that was determined by Internet users as opposed to industry professionals. Other ANTM alumni have similarly built and benefited from their online fan bases. Examining successful strategies and potential pitfalls of online fan management, especially as social media grows in popularity and both nascent human brands and established ones are jumping on the bandwagon (e.g., Cohen 2009), is a promising avenue for future research. An advantage of Internet research and netnography in this context is, notably, the longitudinal data that stores itself as these nascent human brands' lives unfold. Learning how to manage the large amount of data from multiple sources that fans and human brands generate is obviously a challenge but one that is necessary to overcome.

I conclude this paper by acknowledging that the single context in which it is grounded presents limitations in terms of the extent to which it provides insight on how consumers help develop human brands in other types of contexts. The field of reality TV launches human brands often labeled as "D-list" or "dispensable" celebrities (Collins

2008: 104) as opposed to "real" celebrities (Turner 2004) that emerge through traditional channels such as an institutional field (e.g., music, sports, cinema), the aristocracy (e.g., the Queen of England, Princess Diana), or extraordinary circumstances (e.g., Nadya

Suleman a.k.a. "Octomom", US Airways Hudson River savior Captain Sullenberger).

Reality TV contestants are often labeled as "flashes in the pan", wannabes soon to be forgotten, at least to those who are not actively posting and lurking online on the many discussion boards and social networking groups devoted to reality TV and their stars. Moreover, within the field of reality TV itself, a plethora of genres and shows co-exist

and America's Next Top Model is only one springboard for someone to launch their human brand12. Yet, my findings may apply more broadly than to this specific context.

Indeed, what fundamentally underlines this research is the phenomenon of human brands that emerge in sets and in competitive contexts such as sports or politics. Some may balk at comparing ANTM with, for instance, American politics. Yet the contributions of social media to the success of Barack Obama's campaign, and the process by which the public engaged with both Obama's and Sarah Palin's nascent human brands - through detective work, contesting, refining, and/or simplifying the meanings of these political figures depending, notably on one's political affiliations- seems likely to share similarities with the process and practices identified in this study. Disentangling the roles online consumers, human brand managers and the media play when such nascent human brands emerge will be clearly challenging but nevertheless crucial to our understanding of the co-production of human brands' meanings and types beyond reality TV.

12 And unlike shows set only in the entertainment sphere (such as Big Brother or Survivor) it is springboard in a professional field as well. 124 REFERENCES

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141 APPENDIX A: FASHION MODELING REALITY TV (NORTH AMERICA) Stating Title Network # Seasons Description Year Produced* 2003- America's UPN (2003- 12 A group of women compete for: a Next Top 06); chance to start their career in the Model TheCW modeling industry, several prizes, and (2006-) the title of America's Next Top Model. Created and hosted by former supermodel, Tyra Banks, who also serves as the head judge and executive producer of the show. A panel of experts selects the winner. 2004 Manhunt: Bravo 1 Hosted by glamour model Carmen The Search Electra the show follows a formula for similar to ANTM, but with three America's differences: 1) all the contestants are Most male, and 2) there is a spy among them, Gorgeous 3) multiple contenders are voted off Male Model each time. A panel of experts selects the winner. 2006 S'* & Ocean MTV 1 The show follows the professional and private lives often male and female fashion models from Irene Marie Models living together in Miami's South Beach area. 2006 The Agency Vhl 1 The series explores the complex, up- and-down relationships between New York Wilhelmina Models' agents and their models. 2006- The Janice Oxygen 4 The series follows supermodel and Dickinson ANTM former judge Janice Dickinson Modeling as she launches her own modeling Agency agency in Hollywood. The show delves into Janice's and her models' lives and difficult ascension to the top. 2006- Canada's CityTV 3 The aspiring models are taught the ins Next Top (2006-07); and outs of the modeling world as they Model CTV (2009- compete for several prizes including ) being Canada's Next Top Model. The host is Canadian Jay Manuel also known as ANTM's creative director. A panel of experts selects the winner. 2007 Portfolio: TQS 1 Broadcast twice a week, the series Derriere follows aspiring male and female I 'Image models who vie for modeling 142 contracts with Folio Montreal. Corinne Poracchia, founder of the agency, acts as a mentor to the young hopefuls while local celebrity Mahee Paiement hosts the series. Every week, expert judges eliminate one candidate until four contestants remain for the public to cast their votes. 2007 Models NYC MSNBC 1 Takes an insider's look at the modeling industry as it revolves around New York Q Management, a boutique agency that is striving to build a strong modeling board. It follows the professional and private lives of a dozen models and their agents. 2007 A Model Bravo 1 Hosted by top model and Tsunami Life survivor Petra Nemcova. The series follows six young female models from around the world as they move to New York City and try to earn a modeling contract with NEXT Modeling. 2007 America's Vhl 1 The show attempts to find brains behind Most beauty in a series of challenges, and Smartest grants the winner (male or female) Model $100,000, a feature in an upcoming V05 ad, and the title "America's Most Smartest Model". 2008- Make Me a Bravo 2 Hosted by supermodels Tyson Supermodel Beckford, Niki Taylor (Season 1) and Nicole Trunfio (Season 2). The show follows a similar formula as ANTM, except that bottom three contestants are selected at the end of each episode and viewers of the show determine which of the three contestants will not continue in the competition. Two contestants are also chosen by Internet voters on the website. 2008- Modelville WarnerBros 1 A spin-off show from ANTM that airs during the Tyra Banks Show. It features five former contestants who compete for a $50,000 contract with beauty company Carol's Daughter. *As of July, 2009.

143 APPENDIX B: RESEARCH WEBSITE The .Next Top Models Research Website

ZA'XT2.ZL- ON MODELING THE SHOWS FOR THE CNTM FAN'S PARTICIPATE! GREAT LINKS

ABOUT ME tobmxi4 AMERICA'S NtXT 1 i1

Pictures above:

Tie Hcxt Tco Madck Hzaemct^ Wcbsisri* Top: ANTM Cycle 10 Banner

Left: Mattel Barbie and Bonjour! My name is Marie -Agnes Parmentier and I am a PhD Friends Top Model dells candidate at York University in Toronto, Canada where I study fans and consumer cukure. Riga: ANTM Casting For more than 3 years now, I have been studying the modeling Call, NYC, slufftst 200J: industry. I have gathered quite a lot information about the industry Tizo really nice %pys <&ko and the reality TV shows. I thought it could be useful to put some of had been waiting for boars it online for others to enjoy. I am also hoping that you will find my in the heat so that their research engaging and that you will want to participate in my research siffuficaM others could try via email exchanges. You can email me at: ni^t'iFJiQ^zlz^^v-'^.y^d^^, out for the show.

So please, stay a little longer, visit the website and feel free to contact me to discuss your interest in modeling and fashion modeling reality TV programs. APPENDIX C: CASES DESCRIPTION

Contestants Hometown Occupation Age Elimination *File size: Order on 08/26/07- the Show 02/30/08

Generated the least activity Ambreal Dallas, TX College 19 yrs 7th 160 KB Williams Student old

Janet Mills Bainbridge, GA Aesthetician 22 yrs 4m 164 KB old Lyudmila Boston, MA College 20 yrs 1st 172 KB "Mila" Graduate old Bouzinova Kimberly Ocala, Florida College 20 yrs 2nd 188 KB Leemans Student old

Generated the most activity Bianca Queens, NY College 18 yrs 10tn 460 KB Golden Student old Victoria New Haven, CT College 20 yrs 3rd 684 KB Marshman Student old

Heather Valparaiso, IN College 19 yrs 9m 896 KB Kuzmich Student old

Saleisha Los Angeles, Receptionist 21 yrs Winner 1.1MB Stowers CA old

* File size is an approximate measure as posters sometimes insert the prior post(s) they are replying to into their own post. It may also be that particularly active posters engage in an argument and that the lengthiness of their argument contributes to a file's size. These two phenomena should be randomly distributed though.

The reader will find in the subsequent pages a summary of the narrative arcs of each contestant profiled as well as their respective promotional picture posted on The

CWs website prior to the beginning of the cycle.

145 Ambreal enters the competition with a positive spirit and is getting along with the other contestants. She manages to perform well enough to stay in the race until week 6 when she struggles with her photo shoot. She lands, for the second week in a row, in the bottom two. In an unexpected turn of events, Ebony decides to quit the competition and Ambreal is spared from elimination. By week 8, Ambreal's journey on Top Model ends as the judges feel that she does not have "the gift of modeling" after all.

Janet makes a memorable first impression when she performs a mock bikini wax on Tyra Banks during casting (she is, after all, an aesthetician). She stays in the competition for a few weeks, providing average performances in photo shoots and avoiding bottom two at panel. Throughout the series, she is seen doing domestic chores and taking care of the contestant as she says she feels like the "Mama" in the house. Finally, Janet is eliminated during week 5 because of her incapacity to perform well in front of the camera without constant coaching. Mila tells the judges during casting that she is a positive person who feels like "crying is a waste of time." During her first photo shoot as a finalist (week 2), she must portray one of the negative sides of smoking (Cycle 9 is a smoke free cycle). Her side effect is the loss of hair from chemotherapy. She proves unable to focus because of her bizarre/funny reflection in the mirror which she must look at to take the picture. Mila is eliminated for her inability to take the shoot seriously.

Kimberly feels she has a great sense of humor and that it should set her apart from the other contestants. During week 2, she is filmed criticizing fellow contestant Heather. The following week, she finds herself struggling during her photo shoot and is dismissed from the competition because of her lack of fashion sense in person and her inability to translate high fashion in her pictures. Bianca introduces herself as a "fun bitch" during the first episode. She regularly argues with, and is purposely mean to other contestants, notably: Lisa who she says will never win because of her past as an exotic dancer, Saleisha who she labels as "borderline plus- size," and Jenah who she sends in the wrong direction during a challenge in Shanghai. Except for the makeover episode in which she feels depressed after her hair gets shaved, Bianca typically provides regular entertainment and drama as she mocks and tricks other contestants. Her performance in front of the camera is uneven, doing really well at times and poorly at other. She is finally eliminated in the second to last episode when she is judged to be the weakest model out of the four remaining contestants. Victoria, a self-described "nerd" from Yale, comes into the competition as a modeling neophyte with the self- professed "fashion sense of a twelve years old boy." Despite her lack of knowledge or experience, however, Victoria delivers good performances on film. Being true to her student identity, she asks judge Twiggy for clarification after being told that she is "unusual" at panel during episode 3. The following week, Victoria is sent home after cutting off Twiggy who is telling her that she has a prickly disposition (Twiggy was commenting on Victoria's performance in a picture where she needed to embody a cactus).

148 Heather suffers from ADHD and Asperger's syndrome. She views the competition as a personal challenge and shares her insecurities and frustrations in her confessional segments. Her social awkwardness comes into play in the house as she often keeps to herself. Other contestants frequently talk and scheme behind her back. In pictures, however, Heather proves to be stunning and "high fashion." She regularly wins challenges and is rarely in the bottom two. Heather makes the trip overseas to China with the remaining contestants but she encounters serious difficulties while attempting to say her lines in a mock advertisement for Cover Girl and on go-sees where she must meet with potential clients. Heather is finally eliminated because of her difficulties communicating with others. Saleisha attended Tyra Banks' T-Zone camp for unprivileged girls when she was 14. She enters the competition with confidence and shares with the others that her prior modeling experience makes her a strong contender in the race. She intends on winning and sometimes gets involved in schemes and arguments. Throughout the competition she first delivers average performances but becomes stronger in the second half of the cycle where she makes a good impression with representatives of the official sponsors of the show, i.e. Seventeen magazine and Elite Model Management. In the end, Saleisha takes home the ANTM title after delivering an average performance in her Cover Girl advertisement and the best runway walk.

149 APPENDIX D: AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL - PARTICIPANT

APPLICATION

52795.3 - Cycle 11 Participant Application - 11/27/0713

Please read the preceding Eligibility Requirements before completing this application. The Eligibility Requirements contain important instructions regarding the videotape, photographs and other items, which must accompany any submitted participant application, as well as submission guidelines for your application package. And remember, above all else, you must BE HONEST! Any answer may be verified for accuracy. Don't answer a question hoping to give us the answer we "want" to hear.

Section I: The Basics 1. First Name Middle Name Last Name

2. Have you ever formally or otherwise changed your name or used an alias or another name? If so, what other names and/or aliases have you used?

3. Age (as of today) PLEASE NOTE: Applicants must be between the ages of 18 and 27 at the time of this application. Date of Birth (Month/Day/Year)

4. Height and Weight (PLEASE NOTE: You must be at least five feet and seven inches [5'7"] in height to be eligible. However, the Producers are looking for a variety of models, including plus size models.)

5. Social Security Number Driver's License Number

6. Are you a United States citizen? Yes/No Do you have a current United States passport (PLEASE NOTE: Participants on the show may be required to travel internationally)? Yes/No If yes, expiration date:

7. Home Street Address, City, State, Zip code

Permanent Address, City, State, Zip code

At the time of the netnography, the application process for Cycle 9 was over. I am thus including instead the application form for Cycle 11, the cycle that was in the casting process during the Fall of 2007 and aired during Fall 2008. 150 8. Phone (Daytime) Phone (Evening) Cellular (If any) Pager (If any)

9. E-mail Address (If you don't have one, tell us why you don't.)

10. Name, Phone Number, and Address of CI

11. Name, Phone Number, and Address of Nearest Relative

12. Name and Phone Number of an Emergency Contact and relationship to you

13. Do you have a homepage on the Internet? If so, what is the address?

14. Marital Status (Circle one of (a) through (g) and answer each of the accompanying questions as applicable) (a) SINGLE (b) BOYRIEND/GIRLFRIEND How long? (c) MARRIED How long? How many times? (d) NOT MARRIED, BUT LIVE W/SIGNIFICANT OTHER How long? (e) SEPARATED How long? (f) DIVORCED How long? How many times? (g) WIDOWED How long?

14a. If you are married or in a relationship, how would you rate your relationship on a scale of 1- 10? Please explain.

14b. If you are married or in a relationship, how will your partner feel about the potential two- month separation?

15. What is the highest level of education you've completed? (Circle one) (a) NO SCHOOLING (b) HIGH SCHOOL (c) ASSOCIATE COLLEGE DEGREE (d) BACHELOR'S COLLEGE DEGREE (e) MASTER'S COLLEGE DEGREE (f) PROFESSIONAL OR DOCTORAL DEGREE

16. What school(s) did you attend? (Include the city and state)

151 17a. Are you a professional performer within the entertainment industry? If so, what do you do?

17b. Do you have any acting, singing or performing aspirations? If so, tell us your wishes and goals.

17c. Have you ever appeared on television? If so, in what capacity did you appear and when? Did you appear on national television?

17d. Have you ever appeared in any magazines? If so, which magazine and in which issue?

17e. Do you have any experience as a model OF ANY KIND? If so, please explain, including when and for what. PLEASE NOTE: You may not be eligible if you have modeled in a national campaign within the last five (5) years.

17f. Have you ever had a modeling contract? If so, please list the name and address of the entity with which you had such modeling contract.

17g. Do you currently have a modeling contract? If so, please list the name and address of the entity with which you currently have such modeling contract.

17h. Have you ever been represented by a manager or agent? If so, please specify what the representation covered (e.g., modeling or acting).

17i. Are you currently represented by an agent or manager? If so, please specify what the representation covers (e.g., modeling or acting). PLEASE NOTE: If you are currently represented by an agent or manager and are selected to be interviewed, you must furnish sufficient evidence to the Producers that you are able to terminate such representation in the event that you are selected to participate in the show. If selected to participate in the show, you must terminate, prior to your participation, any representation which conflicts with the terms of your participation.

18. Have you ever been arrested? If so, tell us about it (include dates, city & state).

19. Have you ever been charged with a crime? If so, tell us about it (include dates, city & state).

20. Have you ever been convicted of a crime? If so, tell us about it (include dates, city & state).

21. Have you ever had a restraining order issued against you? If so, tell us about it (include dates, city & state).

21a. Have you ever had a restraining order issued against someone else? If so, tell us about it (include dates, city & state).

22. Are you involved in any pending litigation? If so, tell us about it (include dates).

Section II: Family & Lifestyle 23. Do you have any children? If so, please list their name(s) and age(s). 152 24. Regardless of your marital status, describe your ideal romantic partner.

25. Describe your relationship with your mother.

26. Describe your relationship with your father.

27. What is your current occupation?

28. Are you a student? If so, tell us about your major or course of study.

29. What is your favorite food?

30. Do you smoke? If so, what do you smoke and how often?

31. Do you drink alcohol? If so, how often do you drink and how much?

31 a. How often do you get drunk? How do you act when you get drunk?

32. What are your thoughts on religion?

33. Are politics important to you? How often do you vote?

34. Have you had any particularly interesting occupations in your past?

35. Do you have any pets? If so, please list their name(s) and type(s).

36. Are you a vegetarian? Do you have any food limitations (e.g. allergies, religious, etc.)?

37. Have you ever lived with roommates?

38. What's your favorite TV show?

39. What's your favorite movie?

40. What kind of music do you like best?

41. What magazines do you read?

42. Do you belong to any affiliations or organizations?

43. Do you have any body art (piercings, tattoos, etc.)? If so, please describe them.

44. What's your favorite sport to play? ...to watch?

Section III: Medical & Psychological 45. Have you been treated for any serious physical or mental illnesses within the last five (5) years? (Circle one) (a) YES (b) NO

46. If you answered "yes" in Question 45, please describe in detail, indicating dates, diagnoses and any ongoing treatments or difficulties.

47. Please list any allergies you have (medications, food, hay fever, dust, etc.) and your current treatment for them (if any).

48. Have you ever been diagnosed with, or treated for, alcoholism or any other drug-related addiction? If so, please provide more details, including how long you've been in recovery, if that's the case.

49. Do you have a temper? How often do you lose your temper? What provokes you?

50. How do you deal with anger?

51. How do you deal with someone who intimidates you?

52. When was the last time you hit, punched, kicked, or threw something in anger? Please provide details.

Section IV: Your Chance to be Creative

53. List three adjectives that best describe you.

54. If you could hold any political office, what would it be and why?

55. What is the accomplishment you are most proud of?

55a. What are you most ashamed of, either now or in your past?

56. Describe your perfect day.

57. Who is your hero and why?

58. List three (3) items you would take with you into the house if allowed and why?

59. Have you ever been to a nude beach? If so, what was it like?

60. Finish this sentence: "My life's motto is..." 61. If you could throw a surprise party to honor someone in your life that is deserving, who would it be and why does this person deserve to be honored?

62. What would you do if this show made you famous?

154 63. What types of people would you choose to have living with you in the house?

64. What types of people would you NOT choose to live with you in the house?

65. What would irritate you about living in a house with nine to eleven other people?

66. What do you think would be the most difficult part of living in the house? Explain.

67. Who is your favorite supermodel? ...your least favorite? Explain.

68. Do you have a strategy for winning the contest?

69. Aside from the modeling contract, what do you hope to gain from being selected as the winner of the show?

70. Is there anything else you'd like to tell us about yourself and why you think you'd make a great participant for this show and housemate? Try to differentiate yourself and be creative!

71. Have you ever applied for and/or appeared on any other reality TV shows, dating shows or game shows?

72. How did you hear about the show?

155