1. Introduction
[1.1] Toni Morrison (1975) asserts that one of the main goals of racism is to keep those at the margins busy trying to prove that they deserve a seat at the center table. Instead, she suggests, we could just do our work and treat it as if it is the center, because it is; it is our center. This issue situates Black fans and their practices at the center of the table. Inspired by a need not only to study Black fans but also to center their experiences, this special issue brings together scholars working across an array of disciplines to center Black fandom. Fan studies research has shown how Black fan practices are similar to other racialized fandom practices. But studying Black fandom, as Rebecca Wanzo (2015) demonstrated, also "troubles some of the claims—and desires—at the heart of fan studies scholars and their scholarship" (¶ 1.4). Work like Sarah Florini's (2019) documents how Black fans create hashtags to discuss TV series on social media with other Black fans using "AAVE-inflected versions of shows' titles" (¶ 3.4). Hashtags like #DemThrones (for Game of Thrones), #DeyWalking (The Walking Dead), and #DatArrow (for Arrow) draw Black fans and are notably "separate from the broader stream of tweets using the official hashtag" (¶ 3.4). This articulates Black audiences' stealth reception practices and points to two Black fandom trends: The first is the "enclaving nature" of many Black fandoms, in which Black fans build their own communities around favored texts as an insulation from the racism that often structures fan communities. These communities often exist outside officially designated fandom spaces and may subvert the meanings encoded into the texts.
[1.2] The second trend is that, perhaps unsurprisingly, Black fan groups are often ignored by producers of the texts they support—the same producers who nevertheless publicly posit the importance of diversity in media and fandom. This problem is not contained to the media industries, as producers, critics, and academics too often position Black fans and Black fandom as aberrant, existing in relationship to "normal" (white) fans and fandom. One difficulty with studying Blackness—or any racialized identity (which includes whiteness)—within fandom is that fan studies and academia writ large privilege whiteness. Too many studies of fandom ignore race entirely in contexts when it is constitutive of people's lived experiences, thereby implying that studies of white fans represent all fans rather than represent white fans. While a growing number of studies examine race and fandom—such as Rukmini Pande's (2018) work, a previous Transformative Works special issue edited by Abigail De Kosnik and andré carrington (2019), and other research discussed below—this work is often "'ghettoized' into its own 'specialty' section while leaving white fandoms exnominated and normative, thus positioning race and fandom as fundamentally different from 'regular' fandom" (Martin 2019, 738).
[1.3] This special issue responds to this lack of privilege shown to Black fans. The goal of this work is not only to study Black fandom but also to center it. The articles in this issue examine Black fandoms on their own terms to examine how these audiences engage with popular culture, regardless of what the mainstream or official fandoms would say. These authors use Black fandom not as an object of comparison or a niche group but study Black fandom to understand it on its own terms. These articles seek to understand Blackness and Black fan practices as simultaneously universal and particular.
2. Articles
[2.1] In the first essay in this collection, "'Since the Moment Pictures Could Move, We Had Skin in the Game': Black Horror Podcasters as Fans, Critics, and Creators," Mel Monier and Kristen Leer share insights from interviews with Black horror fans. Their stories offer examples of how Blackness shapes identity as a fan, critic, or creator; all interviewees shared a strong urge to connect with other Black horror fans and bond over their experiences, centering both individual and communal aspects of Black fandom.
[2.2] Next, in "The (Anti)Fan Is Black: Consumption, Resistance, and Black K-Pop Fan Vigil Labor," Osarugue Otebele examines how Black K-pop fans perform their fan identity. Otebele demonstrates how Black K-pop fans are industrially constructed as outsiders and therefore must define themselves as within and outside of their favored texts and the K-pop fandoms writ large.
[2.3] Third, in "Black Fan Evangelism and Transactional Fan Participation Space in the Hillman Bookstore," Allyson F. Smith analyzes a social media page that sells merchandise for Black-cast shows that are otherwise ignored by mainstream merchandise vendors. The Hillman Bookstore site makes Black fans and fan spaces visible and creates and curates a Black canon of Black-cast content through fan labor.
[2.4] Fourth, in "A True Sista: Exploring Intraracial Fantagonisms among Black Women Fans of Scandal," Kadian Pow offers an examination of the tensions among Black women fans of Scandal. Using her own experience on Tumblr as generative, Pow highlights how interfan conflicts relate to broader conversations about class, education, race, and taste and demonstrate different ways Black women perform their fandom.
[2.5] Finally, there is a roundtable discussion of Rebecca Wanzo's landmark essay on Black audiences. Sascha Buchanan, andré carrington, Aymar Jean Christian, Faithe J. Day, and Alfred L. Martin Jr. offer their perspectives on the impact of Wanzo's seminal essay and how it continues to resonate and shape Black fan studies today.
3. Symposium
[3.1] Three symposium pieces help us to rethink Blackness and fan studies. In the first, Francesca Coppa imagines how fan studies theory could be less centered on whiteness and more attentive to the lived experiences of Black female fans. Such a trajectory could be possible if fan studies was rooted in Black feminist theory, especially with regard to vidding practices and bell hooks's concept of the oppositional gaze.
[3.2] Second, centering the labor of both Black and other raced fans, Cara Marta Messina argues that on television, Black characters are too often used only as part of white characters' stories. Through an examination of Missandei—one of the few Black characters on Game of Thrones—Messina demonstrates how both Black and non-Black fans make up for these textual gaps through fan practices.
[3.3] Lastly, continuing a focus on Black fan labor, Onyinyechukwu M. Chidi-Ogbolu discusses the labor specific to being a Black female fan. This intersectional approach illuminates how fans engage with a text beyond its readily available content and create new works that better speak to their experiences.
4. Book review
[4.1] Brandon Blackburn reviews The Privilege of Play by Aaron Trammell, published by New York University Press in 2023. Blackburn finds the book a helpful resource for understanding the whiteness and heteronormativity of American geek culture and suggests that the book will become a springboard for work in game studies. They also suggest additional perspectives for future research.
5. Acknowledgments
[5.1] The following people worked on TWC No. 44 in an editorial capacity: Poe Johnson and Mel Stanfill (editors); Taylore Nicole Woodhouse and Tanya Zuk (assistant editors); Jennifer Duggan, Hanna Hacker, Bridget Kies, Khaliah Reed, and Adrienne Raw (Symposium); and Melanie E. S. Kohnen (Review).
[5.2] The following people worked on TWC No. 44 in a production capacity: Jillian Kovach (production editor); Jennifer Duggan, Robin F., Beth Friedman, Amanda Hartley, M. Lisa, LizL, Christine Mains, and A. Smith (copyeditors); Claire P. Baker, M. Lisa, Christine Mains, Rebecca Sentance, and Latina Vidolova (layout); and Emily Cohen, Karalyn, Jillian Kovach, Courtney Lazore, Christine Mains, Ember Phoenix, Aileen Sheedy, and Latina Vidolova (proofreaders).
[5.3] TWC thanks the board of the Organization for Transformative Works. OTW provides financial support to TWC but is not involved in any way in the content of the journal, which is editorially independent.
[5.4] TWC thanks all its board members, whose names appear on TWC's masthead, as well as the additional peer reviewers who provided service for TWC No. 44: Avery Bradley, Sarah E. Breyfogle, Meredith Clark, Sarah Florini, Olivia Johnston Riley, Casey Patterson, Kadian Pow, Khaliah Reed, and Keven Rudrow.