Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2014 Some of My Best Dolls Are Black: Colorblind Rhetoric in Online Collecting Communities Rebecca Joan West Loyola University Chicago Recommended Citation West, Rebecca Joan, "Some of My Best Dolls Are Black: Colorblind Rhetoric in Online Collecting Communities" (2014). Dissertations. Paper 1313. http://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/1313 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 2014 Rebecca Joan West LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO SOME OF MY BEST DOLLS ARE BLACK: COLORBLIND RHETORIC IN ONLINE COLLECTING COMMUNITIES A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM IN SOCIOLOGY BY REBECCA J. WEST CHICAGO, IL DECEMBER 2014 Copyright by Rebecca J. West, 2014 All rights reserved. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS As drawn-out as my academic journey has been, it has had the advantage of being guided by three fantastic scholars and mentors. Thank you, Dr. J. Talmadge Wright, for believing in the value of online research and of my own approach to it. Dr. David Embrick, you were the first to take this project seriously and your constant reassurance about its worth was a driving force. Dr. Laura Miller, you stuck with me far longer than the call of duty would ever have demanded. Thank you all for your mentorship and guidance, personally and professionally; thank you for being honest about the struggles that working class scholars face but always demonstrating that the struggle avails much. Dr. Greta Pennell, Dr. Paul Ketchum, Dr. Charlotte Dunham, and Dr. Julie Harms- Cannon—your responsiveness to last minute calls for help in all mediums has been a godsend; thank you for showing me the transformative power of sociology. Thank you to the Loyola Graduate School for providing funding for my early coursework, and for creating the Dissertation Boot Camp—an exhausting, inspirational experience. Particular thanks to Dr. Jessica Horowitz for her guidance and support. I would be remiss if I did not also mention the late Dr. Peter Whalley—I hope that some of his humor runs through this work. Thank you to the wonderful women who freely opened their lives to me for this research, who believed in it and welcomed the opportunity to share their views with a iii wider world. I was privileged to know you and proud to call so many of you friends. I hope I have done you justice. Thank you to my wonderful graduate school colleagues, especially Kelly Pinter, Merritt Rehn-DeBraal, Crystal Jackson, and Kristina Grob; almost all of this got written on the Fridays I spent with you. Amelia Serafine, you have been a model and a mentor. Bhoomi Thakore, thank you for showing me the way and opening up new opportunities—collaborating with you has been amazing. Elina Hartikainen, Andrew Graan, and Aava Graan—the three of you kept me smiling through the entire last gasp of this whole process. Erin Heath, you have been so many things to and for me over the years—you are an exemplar of grace, now and always. Although listed last, the support of my family was the most important factor in my success. Thank you Mom and Dad, for introducing me early to libraries, allowing me to run wild on the college campus, and always emphasizing that education is a way of life—not a means to an end. Thank you to all my siblings for showing me all the different ways there are to be. Especially thank you to my sisters Patti and Elizabeth for all your support in so many ways—there is no way to express how important you have and will always be. Finally, thank you to my wife, Jessica, for making me stick to this and, more importantly, for sticking with me. You were right. iv To the memory of Michael Brown, Jr. May 20, 1996–August 9, 2014 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................. iii LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................. ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................1 How This Dissertation is Organized .................................................................................6 CHAPTER 2: SITUATING IN THE LITERATURE .........................................................8 Material Culture and the Social Life of Branding ............................................................8 Dolls ................................................................................................................................11 American Girl ..............................................................................................................14 Race, Gender, and Sincere Fictions ................................................................................19 Collections and Collectors ..............................................................................................27 Really Virtual: Online Communities ..............................................................................31 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................33 CHAPTER 3: METHODS AND CONTEXTS .................................................................36 Research Design and Location ........................................................................................36 Online Ethnography .....................................................................................................38 Location 1: Pleasant Pastimes ......................................................................................42 Location 2: After-Hours Clubhouse.............................................................................45 The Location That Wasn’t: A Third Site .....................................................................47 Why Two?—Community Types ..................................................................................49 Two-Tiered Survey ......................................................................................................50 Interviews .....................................................................................................................52 The Dolls’ House: A Community of Practice ................................................................53 After-Hours Clubhouse: A Goal-oriented Community ..................................................56 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................58 CHAPTER 4: MEMBER ACTIVITIES AND SOCIAL ROLES .....................................60 What Do You DO There?: Types of Online Activities...................................................60 Informational Usage: Q&A and FYI ...........................................................................61 Material Activity: An Online Swap Meet ....................................................................62 Discussion/Debate: The Discussion on the Discussion Board ....................................64 Who Do You Do There?: General Types of Internet Users ............................................66 Lurkers .........................................................................................................................68 Establishing Identity ....................................................................................................71 Responsive Posters.......................................................................................................73 Community Facilitators ...............................................................................................76 Big Name Fans and Trolls Under the Bridge...............................................................78 The Notorious Few ......................................................................................................83 Trolls ............................................................................................................................84 Moderators ...................................................................................................................87 vi Conclusion ......................................................................................................................92 CHAPTER 5: THE HISTORICAL CHARACTER LINE ................................................94 “They Have a Bit of Everybody”: American Girl’s Vision of Diversity ........................99 “Inappropriate for Children”: Historical Narrative and Consumer Choice ..................103 Colorblind Consumption: The Frames of Consumer Choice .......................................110 “It Becomes Fake”: Abstract Liberalism ...................................................................111 “It’s Just Not My Thing”: Naturalization ..................................................................116 “They’re Not Into Them”: Cultural Racism ..............................................................117 The Missing Frame: Minimization ............................................................................120 One of My Best (Dolls) is Black: Rhetorical Strategies ..............................................121