As apart of my autoethnographic research I delegated some time into analysing how fans, like myself, interact with tweets about or including One Direction. With this being an autoethnographic research project, it is only fair to deeply analyse the tweets that I have directly interacted with in some sort of way. The concern of privacy surrounding whether fans on social media platforms are being ethical when regarding, publishing or mentioning a celebrity has been questioned. ‘Between Ethics, Privacy, Fandom, and Social Media’ is a journal article published in 2017, that has studied this query, this article concluded however that “some fans choose the much larger benefit of engaging with other likeminded individuals over the relatively small chance of their work being discovered”. With this point in mind I found it necessary to dig into the cyber world of the fandom, beginning with twitter.
The following 3 tweets are tweets that were featured on my twitter timeline. On my personal twitter I have chosen to ‘follow’ the subject ‘One Direction’, meaning that my timeline will include any popular tweet including this subject. Tweets like this which include all of the ‘OT5’ (One True Five; referring to Harry, Liam, Louis, Niall and Zayn) are not as common as tweets involving each singular member even though I follow the topic line of ‘One Direction’.
TWEET 1:
- Likes – 13.2k
- Retweets – 2.2k
- Quote Tweets – 40
- Comments – 39
- Personal Interaction : Retweeted and Liked
There were a lot of random comments i.e mentioning that Niall has news or that a fan’s videos were open in a group chat of the OT5. However with my experience of the fandom being quite outspoken with good intention, a lot of the fans corrected this tweet to apply all of the verbs to each member of the band as well one fan adding “6. love & accept myself the way i wish to be loved & accepted”. This particular fan reaction towards this tweet highlights the protective nature that characterises this fandom. As a person within this fandom, I would have to say that I personally have experienced this protectiveness over the boys and their wellbeing. For example, when rumours have been spread about the boys or when the recently named ‘locals’ (A person who tries to keep up with the trends by overusing and misunderstanding popular) try to act like they have been here from the start.
TWEET 2:
- Likes – 8.3k
- Retweets – 864
- Quote Tweets -194
- Comments – 79
- Personal Interaction : Liked
This particular tweet was flooded with fans reminiscing, expressing their love and wishing that the boys were back together again. As well as this there was an influx of one direction themed memes expressing how fans were feeling about seeing this performance form ten years ago. Here are some examples of the memes:
This tweet was very nostalgic to me and it seems like it was also nostalgic for the majority of the fans that also interacted with this tweet. When it came up in my timeline I must have rewatched it at least 3 times before I decided I needed to stop. Thinking about how it was 10 years ago is so so crazy and brings up a lot of emotions that I think triggered all of the fans who interacted with this tweet.
TWEET 3:
- Likes – 4.9k
- Retweets – 758
- Quote Tweets -47
- Comments – 55
- Personal Interaction : Liked
This particular tweet is the one that touched me the most in regards to how the fandom reacted. This tweet and the reactions to the tweet itself, perfectly encompasses what I perceive the One Direction fandom to be like. The comments were all tweets repeating the first 5 lines of the tweet. Truely acknowledging how great they are together and apart on their own seperate journeys, the fans still support and are still proud of them. There isn’t much more to speak about this tweet in regards to characteristics or the nature or how it made me feel because I think this truely speaks for itself and shows the twitterverse what kinds of fans we really are.
The way in which fans process communication within the fandom through interactions is the perfect presentation of Media ecology as a metaphor for evolution. Media ecology as a metaphor for evolution can be described as being ‘able to be understood as a collection of social interrelations stimulated by interpretative ideas of change in the field of technology, culture, and our own consciousness’. This particular theory can be applied to this very segment of research into the twitterverse due to the interrelations between the Fans and One Direction experiencing evolution through the years as we ourselves experience evolution.
- trin
Davisson, Amber L, and Paul Booth. Controversies in Digital Ethics. 2020. New York, Bloomsbury Academic, 2017.
Caliandro, Alessandro. “Digital Methods for Ethnography: Analytical Concepts for Ethnographers Exploring Social Media Environments.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 29 Apr. 2017, p. 089124161770296, 10.1177/0891241617702960.
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