Youth fans of global popular culture: Between prosumer and free digital labourer

Abstract

<jats:p> The subculture of urban global popular-culture youth fans is believed to be a resistance-subculture against the hegemony of dominant power. This study, however, found that the subculture given rise to by the urban, global popular-culture youth fans of ‘the Mortal Instruments’ in Indonesia is in opposition to the Neo-Gramscian thought which has become the foundation of popular-culture studies. In constructing their identity, some of the digital fandoms of global popular culture have been critical of the content of cultural texts as a form of resistance against texts produced by cultural industries. However, they have only been developing artificial forms of resistance within the system, that is, in fan sites. This study found that the urban youths joining digital fandoms are not free from the hegemony of capitalism because they have become playlabourers, engaging in free digital labour for the powers of the global culture industry. This critical attitude of urban youths, in building their digital fandom-subculture identity, is incapable of standing against the system. They even position themselves within the network of cultural-industry capitalism – identified by the Frankfurt School as the domination and superiorization of the industry power of global entertainment that is continually self-restoring. </jats:p>

Data of the patterns of youth local brand product consumption through online shopping

“…In the post-modern era, the lifestyles developed by youths are reflected in not only what they consume but also how they consume industrial-cultural products [1]. Urban youths also have the hegemony for consuming capitalist products [2]. In major cities, youths’ shopping activities are not only conducted offline but also online.…”

From Play to Political Action: Prosumerism on Fanvideo Meme Production

“…Consumer productivity has been stimulated through new information and communication technologies, mainly through the interactions on the internet (Chen, 2018;Sugihartati, 2020), boosted by the Web 2.0 (Collins, 2010;Laughey, 2010). Due to this scenario, Ritzer and Jurgenson (2010) name contemporary productive consumers as Web 2.0 prosumers -people who demonstrate a unique productive competence, being able to modify the productive process of what they consume, as well as influence it by elevating the degree of awareness of products and services.…”

“…More than performing an operational productive role in consumption, Web 2.0 prosumers become specialized consumers and act as co-producers of their own consumer experiences (Ritzer, 2014;Stuart-Menteth, Wilson, & Baker, 2006). This usually occurs jointly and engaged (Morreale, 2013;Sugihartati, 2020), through dialogic relations (Hartmann, 2015;Ritzer, 2014), when they are responsible for sharing content and materials related do the consumer products (Collins, 2010;Ritzer et al, 2012).…”

Acculturation of Brazilian NFL Fans in Virtual Interactions

“…Based on the understanding of the economic and cultural capacity of a major sports league like the NFL (Wenner, 2014), we focus on the virtual interactions of the audience that complement the transmission of the games in Brazil. Such interactions were revealed as fan practices, an interdisciplinary theme that, for consumer research, are understood as productive actions (i.e., prosumers) to the cultural object (Chen, 2018;Sugihartati, 2017). As the cultural object in question (i.e., NFL) is close to the culture of one of the countries that most makes use of its soft brand (Nye Jr., 2015), we understand this practice provides an acculturation of consumption (Segev et al, 2014).…”