2025 Fans of Color Prize Winner

Transformative Works and Cultures is pleased to announce Kristen Leer and Mel Monier as our 2025 Fans of Color Prize award winners for their article “‘Since the Moment Pictures Could Move, We Had Skin in the Game’: Black Horror Podcasters as Fans, Critics, and Creators”! Leer and Monier’s article was published in TWC’s special issue “Centering Blackness in Fan Studies” on December 15, 2024.  

The Fans of Color Prize had 7 submissions, covering the breadth of TWC’s publications from 2022-2025, while providing an incredible glimpse into the impactful work happening in (and outside of) fan studies. TWC also awarded an Honorable Mention for the Fans of Color Prize to "Public reception of young K-pop fans in Vietnam, 2011–19", by Becky Pham.

Kristen Leer is a PhD candidate and NSF-GRFP fellow in the Communication and Media department and Mel Monier is a PhD candidate in the Communication and Media and Digital Studies programs at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. As Leer started writing about racial/ethnic representation in horror films and television in graduate school, they noticed a lack of investigation into horror production across digital media and platforms, such as podcasting. Monier’s Master’s thesis was on Black beauty influencers, specifically focusing on the intersection of identity and labor in digital content creation–a thread they continue to explore through their PhD research. Thus, Leer and Monier each brought their individual expertise to bring this paper to fruition.

We sat down with both coauthors to discuss their research, what they’re working on next, and where they see the field heading. We’ve shared some of their remarks below. 

TWC: Could you briefly explain the key problem or question your article,“‘Since the Moment Pictures Could Move, We Had Skin in the Game’: Black Horror Podcasters as Fans, Critics, and Creators,” addresses? 

Monier: Our article aims to explore the ways that Black horror podcasters navigate their racial identities while also participating in horror fandom, content creation, and podcasting, all spaces that often assume or prioritize a white audience/user base. 

TWC: Were there any unexpected challenges you encountered during your research?

Leer: Initially, we had pushback based on the value of the study: Why interview Black horror podcasters when you can just analyze their episodes? But we emphasized how creating professional relationships with digital creators through an interview study is an important part of research that allows us to center their lived experiences, narratives, and voices, which prioritizes the research on them rather than on us as knowledge producers. 

TWC: Are you planning any follow-up research or new projects based on this article? 

Leer: The goal is to turn these interviews into a book project! We have a couple of publications around these interviews out there, including, of course, at TWC, but we would love to have the interviewees' narratives, experiences, and knowledge production live in one location. Since then, I have extended the project to historical archive research around Black horror in radio studies and just wrapped up an interview project with Black True Crime podcasters. Additionally, I’m working on a digital historical archive project to center the podcasters' episodes, labor, and narratives in a public/academic space for their work to live on past the articles we intend to write about them! But in terms of collaboration, we are currently working on a separate paper project evaluating trans identity and representation in contemporary horror films! 

TWC: Does receiving this award influence your future research plans or academic goals? And if so, in what way?

Monier: With the pushback in academic spaces against DEI, it has felt like having conversations about identity are becoming increasingly more difficult. It is wonderful to find communities that see the work we are doing as important and valuable, and the recognition has only affirmed that this work is worth doing, even more so now. This was such a fun and life-giving project to work on, from collaborating with Kristen, to getting to meet such amazing podcasters who willingly shared their time and their stories with us, and I’m really proud of what we’ve been able to create through these interviews. I’m excited that we’re able to share that work with our communities and even more excited to be recognized for it! 

Leer: Additionally, working with Mel has been a great experience with collaborative research efforts. It has helped me solidify interview practices as one of my core methodological approaches, and I have been able to have more confidence in advocating for such unique projects! It has been really rewarding to hear from the podcasters themselves how they appreciated the opportunity to have their work be taken seriously and provided a space that shows them as experts themselves!

TWC: Where do you see the field heading in the next few years, and how do you hope your work contributes to that? 

Monier: I can see the field continuing to deeply engage with intersections of identity and the digital, as well as continuing to interrogate spaces that might have “assumed” or “default” fans and audiences. I also think that there is space to explore even more niche fandoms, and the ways that the lines between fandom and labor continue to blur.  

Leer: Additionally, I think there is a growing consideration of thought respecting the historical lineage of radio to podcast studies that investigate podcasting as a digital medium. This is important as it functions in unique and intersecting ways, compared to radio, which allows niche communities to center themselves compared to other spaces that operate and prioritize power and capitalistic dynamics. Though podcasting isn’t immune to these as well, these podcasters demonstrate how they are finding creative ways to center themselves, their topics, and communities that prioritize what they have wanted to listen to and be represented as and hope others consider their podcasts as such.

When asked if they had any advice for early career researchers aiming for impactful publications, they shared: “Be persistent and patient, and to try not to get discouraged!”

Congratulations again, Kristen and Mel, from everyone at Transformative Works and Cultures!