| |
| author |
Sage Lidzbarski-Lahti
| | title |
White Male Apologists: How Online Fandom Treats Their Pet Narcissists
| | abstract |
The largest network of fans and fan works is found in online spaces. Online fandom
contains the biggest conversations surrounding pop culture, as well as the feelings and fantasies
of fans. Especially in recent years, there are many pieces of pop culture that forefront bad people
as the protagonists. These pieces of media are self-aware and purposeful in how they present
these characters as complex but still awful people. This paper focuses on three characters like
this; Joe Goldberg from You (2018), Coriolanus Snow from The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,
and Dennis Reynolds from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2005). All three of these
characters are played by conventionally attractive able-bodied White men, and throughout all
three of their narratives they repeatedly and knowingly choose to harm others, physically and
emotionally. Despite this, they all have fan bases that ignore, accept, excuse, or praise their
behavior. I explore what these fans say and how they feel about these characters in online spaces,
including the fantasies that fans create about these characters within fanworks. Through
examining this phenomenon, I am able to explore the cycle where reality and fantasy impact each
other; how the real world, which is structured around giving White men the most power, impacts
the fiction that is created, which impacts the fantasies that fans create for themselves and others,
which in turn impacts reality again. Certain meaningful sections of online fandom both reflect
and reinforce the patriarchy, as well as Western-centered aestheticism.
| | school |
The College of Liberal Arts, Drew University
| | degree |
B.A. (2024)
|
| advisor |
Evan Johnson
|
| full text | SLidzbarski-Lahti.pdf |
| |
