[1] At its onset, Alfred L. Martin Jr.'s Fandom for Us, by Us: The Pleasures and Practices of Black Audiences asks a deceptively simple question: What makes someone a fan? What follows is an answer that is anything but simple. At its start, the book shows that the term "fan" has been historically defined in white terms and mainstream representation, such that Black audiences have had to work simply to be seen within the category of fan. Using his early Michael Jackson fandom to dramatize the recognition problem, Martin sets up his central claim that Black fandom coheres across four dimensions, or the Four C's: class, clout, canon, and comfort. He follows the charge of media scholar Rebecca Wanzo (2015), crediting not only media scholars like Wanzo herself and Kristen Warner (2017) but also Robin R. Means Coleman (2002) and Jacqueline Bobo (1995) to "engag[e] with the real, living, breathing, and embodied experiences of Black folks." He grounds this framework in seventy-five in-depth interviews with Black fans, which supply the texture and tensions that animate the Four C's.
[2] Using a hand as a metaphor, Martin suggests that while there are specificities and particularities of the ways Black fans engage with fan objects (the melanated side of the hand), there are aspects of this fan engagement that are transferable and illuminating for "unraced" fandoms and other fandoms of color as well (the palm). His study affords attention to Black fans and their fan engagement in "its joy and pain": the joy of celebrating figures and texts like Misty Copeland, the film Black Panther, the film The Wiz, and television show The Golden Girls; and the pain: the monetary, labor, and political work required simply to participate and be recognized as fans.
[3] The book is two hundred pages and has thirty-four black-and-white images, including social media screenshots, Martin's personal photographs, media stills, and fan photos. It is organized around an introductory chapter, four case-study chapters (Misty Copeland; the film Black Panther; the film The Wiz; the show The Golden Girls), and a concluding chapter, with an appendix listing the interview questions, a notes section, and an index.
[4] Chapter 1, "Class: Misty Copeland, Distinction, and Black Fandom," develops the first of Martin's Four C's: class. He argues that Black fandom is structured by classed distinctions among fan objects, illustrated through the case of Misty Copeland, the first Black woman promoted to principal ballerina at American Ballet Theatre (ABT). In this chapter, Martin uses the term "class" to not only refer to socioeconomic status. He argues that Black fans draw classed distinctions about what counts as good or bad Black cultural production, what forms of visibility and representation carry more weight ("inevitable difference"), which tastes are deemed legitimate within a larger racial project, and where the line between high and low culture is drawn.
[5] Martin positions Copeland as a cultural celebrity whose star power extends beyond ballet, amplified by what he calls "cultural intermediaries" and "Copeland paratexts." She attracts audiences who might not otherwise attend ballet but are drawn to see Copeland perform—a specific "classed distinction about who they see dancing classical ballet." Martin argues that what distinguishes the Black fandom around Copeland from that surrounding other ballet stars, or even "Black famous" dancers, is the emphasis on the visibility of a Black body on the classical stage and the affective attachments that visibility generates, rather than (solely) expertise in ballet. For many fans, technical skills and other knowledge-based metrics are secondary to what Copeland's Black body represents in this primarily white space. Her position at the American Ballet Theatre, he contends, distinguishes her as a role model who exists "in a class by herself," because for some Black fans, aesthetic visibility is inseparable from love of the fan object in Black fandom.
[6] Chapter 2, "Clout: Black Panther, Doing It for the Culture, and Black Fandom," takes up the second C in Martin's theorization of Black fandom. Clout, as Martin conceptualizes it, is concerned with the combination of visibility, consumption, and influence. That is, how audiences make themselves count by showing up, buying in, and being seen. Clout is used to explain why Black fans may feel compelled to consume media featuring Black people (for example, turning out for Black Panther) as a statement of presence (and value) of a Black audience. In ways similar to Black fans' concern with the lasting effects of Copeland's presence in an otherwise white space (as detailed in chapter 1), clout is also future oriented. Martin uses Black Panther and the audiences it drew as his case study for clout. However, in this articulation of how clout functions, it's clear that these audiences are not just concerned with Black Panther but the sustained production of films of comparable commercial scale and narrative quality, with quality effectively measured by whether representations read as affirming and uplifting. There is also a desire for Black Panther to function as a site of social production, which Martin defines as the creation of good role models and positive media representation, particularly for Black children.
[7] Martin ties this to consumer citizenship and what he calls "must-see Blackness," arguing that the priority Black fans place on their consumer spending power, which he calls clout, is to demonstrate to studios that Black audiences are valuable and worth sustained investment. Expanding on bell hooks's (1992) terminology, Martin argues that the "consumerist Black look" is deployed as a political tool: Audiences leverage their purchasing and viewing choices to signal which narratives and representations they want greenlit and sustained. He provides historical examples to demonstrate how Hollywood has treated Black-cast content with low confidence and abandonment and as an opportunistic placeholder, supporting it only until a presumed whiter crossover audience emerges. Black audiences know this history, which is why consuming media like Black Panther for the culture is a future-oriented practice aimed at laying the groundwork for films of comparable budget and substantive Black representation. The chapter shows how fans use clout and the "consumerist Black look" to pursue Black cinematic futurity, and Martin's interviewees insist that this future be intentional, not merely the consequence of belated industry attention to Black viewers.
[8] In the third chapter, "Canon: The Wiz, Interpretive Communities, and Black Fandom," Martin looks at what he terms Black intertextuality and the passing of Black media texts from one generation to the next. He focuses on a shared cultural knowledge base, namely a Black canon that Black audiences draw on and reference. In his Four C's, this is the third. Here, canon refers to a collection of media texts shaped not by critics and academics but rather by the book's other three C's: class, clout, and comfort. Martin uses The Wiz as the central example, noting that despite its presence, popularity, and continual reference among Black audiences, it was not a box office success. Nonetheless, the film clearly belongs to a Black canon, alongside additional works he cites, including School Daze and The Temptations.
[9] Canon, as a fan practice, relies on four criteria: a sometimes ambivalent stance toward a film's formal qualities, the role of Black feeling in reception, intergenerational transmission of cultural knowledge, and the reworking of texts in everyday life. Undergirding this are three key points, as Martin explains. First, canonization is rooted in a racialized media reception that recognizes distinct Black taste cultures and the fact that what resonates with Black audiences can diverge from what appeals to other groups. Second, canon formation depends on interpretive labor that is not always resistant; Black audiences can also find pleasure and legitimacy in a text on its own terms. Third, a Black canon is sustained by "intergenerational Black communal knowledge" that prioritizes futurity and the importance of such texts for children and Black people henceforth, and thus is passed down from one generation to the next with these aims.
[10] Martin takes the time to express the existence of multiple canons. He shows how "canon" has been deployed in racist, sexist, and classist ways, and how even the academic Black film canon has at times operated as a gatekeeping mechanism. In contrast, the Black canon he theorizes consists largely of popular media texts that are repeatedly "reworked, satirized, privileged, and separated" from the broader category of Black film. In conceptualizing this Black canon, Martin centers pleasure—specifically Black pleasure—placing Black enjoyment, taste cultures (and what counts as great), and fan practices not at the margins but at the center of the conversation.
[11] A key component of the Black canon is community. As Martin writes, "Black canon builds community just as much as community builds Black canon." It relies more on affect and intergenerational knowledge than on the aesthetic or formal criteria that mainstream (i.e., white) industries use to judge what counts as a good film. For Martin, this communal dimension is paramount. It explains why certain texts, because of the feelings they elicit and the roles they play in communal pedagogy, enter the Black canon while others do not. Read alongside broader preexisting fan studies conversations (and with Martin's assertion that elements of Black fandom can inform analyses of other groups), this focus on community stands out as both salient and generative.
[12] Chapter 4, "Comfort: The Golden Girls, Resonance, and Black Fandom," considers comfort, focusing on the fandom around The Golden Girls (1985–92, NBC). As in the earlier chapters, Martin centers Black joy and pleasure and treats comfort as a core tenet of Black fandom. In this chapter, he lays out how this mode of fandom shifts from a politics of visibility (being seen) to a politics of resonance (feeling seen). He explores how The Golden Girls prompts Black viewers to "feel some type of way" about the series, with those feelings coalescing as joy and, ultimately, comfort.
[13] Affective stability, or comfort, is at the center of this chapter. Martin first considers repetition, showing how many fans return to The Golden Girls instead of engaging with newer content. The familiarity (and the resulting mastery of the show's content) coupled with the assurance that the show will return to stasis regardless of plot, proves reassuring for many viewers, especially in times where the real world is troubled and decidedly not stable—for example, the COVID-19 pandemic. Martin also stresses that older does not automatically mean comfort. He contrasts The Golden Girls with other television shows that found new streaming audiences, such as Moesha (1996–2001, UPN). Such a comparison underscores his point that resonance can take priority over mere visibility: It is not simply that Black people are on screen, but that the media text elicits particular feelings in its audience.
[14] What stood out in this chapter is the discussion of the show's "openness" and the feelings of home it elicits for viewers. Read alongside work on fan practices shaped by exclusion or unwelcoming texts and communities, this insight is especially striking. Here, as Martin posits, viewers of The Golden Girls return to a familiar cadence and narrative world, and the feeling of home becomes the basis for participation. In this sense, comfort reframes fandom as maintenance and care (rewatching, quoting, sharing) rather than correction or resistance.
[15] There is much to like in this book, and several elements resonated with me as a reader and researcher. The book builds skillfully, with each chapter connecting clearly to the next, and ideas introduced early reappear and deepen as Martin's argument unfolds. Methodologically, the blend of interviews, media analysis, and Black cultural history is persuasive, and the argument holds together across chapters, returning to its core questions with increasing precision. Martin weaves in anecdotes from his own fandom journey, pairing personal observations with analysis. This approach grounds the scholarship in lived experience and deepens his connection to the communities he interviews and cites. The result is a distinctly fan-centered voice with Martin coming across as someone embedded in the communities he theorizes. I also thought the interviewees provided a particular texture and specificity to the theory he develops, showing how the concepts play out in everyday practice. By including the ages and backgrounds of interviewees, he demonstrates the breadth of his sample and delivers on his promise to "engag[e] with the real, living, breathing, and embodied experiences of Black folks." Combined with approachable prose and theory, the result is a genuinely pleasurable read.
[16] I think this book offers a great deal to media studies, fan studies, Black cultural studies, and broader fields such as African American studies. It intervenes in ongoing conversations about race and fandom, cultural legitimacy, canon formation, and the politics of visibility and value. Within the larger corpus, Fandom for Us, By Us pairs well with foundational studies of taste hierarchies (e.g., Pierre Bourdieu), audience reception and encoding/decoding (e.g., Stuart Hall), and intersectional cultural studies (e.g., Patricia Hill Collins). Further, Martin's central claims build on scholarship by Rebecca Wanzo, Kristen J. Warner, Rukmini Pande, Jacqueline Bobo, and Robin R. Means Coleman on race, audiences, and fandom, while adding a distinct lens through the four dimensions he proposes: class, clout, canon, and comfort. For instance, his emphasis on the intergenerational character of Black fandom foregrounds age as an intersection that many fan studies address only in one direction.
[17] It will be most useful for scholars and students interested in media and identity, Black popular culture and audience reception, and fandom and fan culture. In the classroom, the chapters are self-contained enough for weeklong units, and the case studies translate well into discussion and assignment design. Overall, the book succeeds in its stated goals, and in my opinion, it will be very generative in the field for years to come.