A topic not discussed in this course is fan participation, how fans play a part in music on screen. While doing my usual procrastination on youtube, I stumbled across music videos made by fans in the form of Sims 2 the popular PC game, where you control the lives of characters. Fans view their favourite pop stars’ music videos, and attempt to produce the same music video with Sims characters. This is a very popular thing to do, there are pages and pages of these clips even twelve year olds are doing it. Jenkins (2000) discusses how fans make texts their own. These clips are versions of how these fans would like them; they are depicting the fans’ views of the songs and what they would have done in terms of making the video. Consumption becomes production, in a literal way.
Jenkins also talks about how fans take their personal reaction to a text, and turn it into a social interaction. There is a wide community of fans producing these Sims clips, by presenting them on youtube, anyone can view them. People comment, ask questions about how they can make their own, and rate the clips. They discuss how the clips are “so addictive” or they pick on minor details such as in The Clash video of “Should I Stay or Should I go” one person commented, “Why is Strummer playing bass and Simonon on guitar?” These fans can be quite particular about their clips. I’m impressed at the detail of them, they are very well done. The clips are not just recent pop songs either, they range from The Clash to Aqua to Snoop Dogg to Highschool Musical to Justin Timberlake.
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