1. Wrestling fans and collecting
[1.1] Collecting has existed for centuries, as people are motivated to collect various meaningful objects. This activity continues to thrive in the twenty-first century (Spencer, Cuneen, and Schneider 2003). McIntosh and Schmeichel (2004) define a collector as "a person who is motivated to accumulate a series of similar objects where the instrumental function of the objects is of secondary (or no) concern and the person does not plan to immediately dispose of the objects" (86). Spencer, Cuneen, and Schneider (2003) researched how collectibles, such as sports memorabilia and other popular culture memorabilia that create emotional responses and personal memories, become valuable goods and marketable commodities.
[1.2] World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), a global professional wrestling entertainment company founded in the 1950s, has dominated the sports entertainment industry for nearly three decades. Professional wrestling is iconic in sports entertainment and has become an immersive and interactive experience for fans. The company broadcasts weekly televised shows to over eight million households for fifty-two weeks a year in twenty-eight languages and has over one billion social media followers across several platforms (World Wrestling Entertainment, n.d.). As social media grows in popularity, wrestling fans interact with content during broadcasts or document experiences at live events. WWE has transitioned from being only a wrestling promotion company to an integrated media organization whose brand is recognized globally. Professional wrestling gives its fans an active, participating voice in the performance during live wrestling events, which, apart from video, audio, or writing narrative, provides real-time, collaborative, "virtual worlds" (Ford 2007, 3–4).
[1.3] Wrestling is known for having collectible items such as replica title belts, T-shirts, limited edition action figures, props, or posters. Photos of these items are displayed for purchase or admiration on social media sites such as Instagram where the original poster uses hashtags relevant to the specific item shared. Pro-wrestling fandoms have characteristics of personal digital archives in digital environments as described by Sinn, Kim, and Syn (2017) since a fan's personal collection is displayed on their social media page and archived with a hashtag.
[1.4] McIntosh and Schmeichel (2004) describe several aspects of collecting behavior: "People decide to collect some classification of things, gather information about the objects, 'court' one or more of the objects by forming an attachment to them and devising a plan to obtain them, hunt for the object(s), followed by the acquisition of the object(s), then the reaction to the acquisition, and catalog the object(s) and move on to other objects that are classified as belonging in the collection" (86). In this article, I use this framework to further explore professional wrestling fandom, unearthing the origins of early archival methods while analyzing how fans create their online collector's catalogs.
2. Pro-wrestling fandom and collecting
[2.1] Pro-wrestling fandom connects fans from different racial, ethnic, geographic, gender, and religious backgrounds. Wrestling fans collect merchandise in ways similar to how some collectors search for rare editions of comic books. I have been a professional wrestling fan since the late 1980s. My wrestling collection journey began with purchasing a WCW magazine in 1999 and soon turned into an assemblage of items ranging from T-shirts to action figures. In high school, I took pictures of the posters on my bedroom wall with a disposable camera and shared the photos with family and friends. I recall watching a commercial for a Hulk Hogan stuffed wrestling buddy (figure 1). Imagine my reaction upon seeing the same item at the annual WrestleCon wrestling convention nearly thirty years later in near-mint condition! As a wrestling fan for over three decades, I began to collect wrestling merchandise from live events such as the "I Was There" shirt sold at WrestleMania. This activity parallels other professional sports memorabilia fandoms such as collecting basketball sneakers, baseball cards, and magazines as described by Spencer, Cuneen, and Schneider (2003).
Figure 1. WWF Wrestling Buddies Hulk Hogan, WrestleCon April 2018. Photograph by frannypack_08 on Instagram.
[2.2] Wrestling merchandise becomes more valuable after a time, as retailers no longer sell the product after a specific period. Wrestling fans search for old merchandise on the internet, including searches on Google Images and eBay. Social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram have been instrumental in redefining how consumers interact with brands and firms to share their views, thoughts, or appraisals (Hass and Laverie 2020), and WWE is making use of such platforms to connect with fans. The company possesses a strong social media presence. On December 8, 2020, WWE's @WWEUniverse Twitter posted a tweet seeking to find "lost, but not forgotten, wrestling memorabilia" (figure 2). On February 23, 2021, WWE announced the TV show on the A&E network, WWE's Most Wanted Treasures: Legends on the Hunt, to search for rare wrestling memorabilia (figure 3).
Figure 2. Tweet from World Wrestling Entertainment (@WWEUniverse) on December 8, 2020.
Figure 3. Tweet from Triple H (@TripleH) via @WWE announcing WWE's Most Wanted Treasures: Legends on the Hunt on February 23, 2021.
[2.3] Technology helps professional wrestling fans to share images with other fans around the world while they reminisce about nostalgic moments. According to Pearson (2010), fans have always been at the center of historical transformations in television, and newly emerging digital technologies have presented new opportunities. Phua (2010) states that mediated sports spectatorship fulfills many functions for sports fans as social networking sites allow fans to interact with other fans, use sports apps, and follow updates about their favorite team. I recall speaking to another fan at my first WrestleMania weekend event after admiring his collection of retro wrestling replica belts. I then followed his social media account to view numerous collectible memorabilia. Such large collections need to be organized to be searchable, and thus hashtags such as #wrestlingcollectibles, #wrestlingmerchandise, #wrestlingmemorbilia, and #wrestlingfanatic are used when posting merchandise from older wrestling events (figure 4).
Figure 4. TweetDeck screenshot illustrating hashtag usage and wrestling merchandise images.
3. Digital archiving and Instagram as a digital repository
[3.1] Since access to digital material is continuously a part of ordinary people's day-to-day activities, there is a need to manage the information (Higgins 2011). Hashtagging is a collective way to organize information as it is used as a method of indexing (Highfield and Leaver 2015). According to Jantz and Giarlo (2007), a digital repository is a "place to store, access, and preserve digital objects" (201). Digital objects can range from "a newspaper article, an electronic journal article, a digitized image of a photograph, numeric data, a digital video, or a complete book in digital form" (203). Conducting preliminary social media research on pro-wrestling merchandise indicates that photos appropriately hashtagged become archived and searchable, preserving the item as a digital object.
[3.2] Aside from eBay or Google Image searches, wrestling fans search for old merchandise on the internet. Instagram photos are shared on users' profiles and are viewable to the public unless privacy settings are adjusted to hide images from nonfollowers. Instagram functions as a digital repository for the wrestling community since attendance at an event or merchandise purchased is cataloged on the platform and appears in the search for a specific hashtag relating to that merchandise or event. For example, my posting of old Sting wrestling video cassette tapes (figure 5) on Instagram appears as a search result for one of the selected hashtags, #wrestlingfanatic. I even received a random comment from a wrestling fan years after sharing the photo. Particularly, hashtags such as #wrestlingcollectibles, #wrestlingmerchandise, #wrestlingmemorabilia, and #wrestlingfanatic are used when posting about merchandise from older wrestling events. In another personal example, I have ensured that my collector's chair (figure 6) is cataloged across the platform to share with other wrestling fans by using the hashtag #iwasntthere (used since WWE chose to produce products centered around the first WrestleMania in history without a live audience due to the Covid-19 pandemic).
Figure 5. Sting video cassettes from the 1990s, February 2015. Photograph by frannypack_08 on Instagram.
Figure 6. WrestleMania 36 event chair, April 2020. Photograph by frannypack_08 on Instagram.
4. Conclusion
[4.1] In short, this paper examined preliminary social media research on pro-wrestling fandom and the collecting of wrestling merchandise to demonstrate how Instagram is used for digital archiving. Since there is limited literature regarding wrestling fandom history, a future study will conduct a content analysis of WrestleMania-related hashtags on Twitter to determine whether this community of fans uses an alternate source of a digital repository to catalog event-specific merchandise. Wrestling event merchandise tells a story from the past as it documents classic matches from previous events that left an impact on fans. A fan can discuss an item with other fans as they interact with shared memories, connecting with wrestling memorabilia through hashtags. Social media enables fans to share their wrestling merchandise archives, which expands wrestling fandom beyond a visit to a local thrift store by creating a digital fandom history. Professional wrestling fandom should be explored further to unearth the origins of early archival methods while exploring how fans create their online collector's catalog.