Asbury Park Press: Jerry Garcia Archive launches online to celebrate life and legacy of Grateful Dead icon. “The Jerry Garcia Archive, a collaborative venture between the Jerry Garcia Foundation and online storage platform Starchive, will serve as an online resource, a digital library of Garcia information and fan submissions.”
New York Times: Stalkers, Fan Threats, Police Raids: The Hidden Price of Twitch Fame. “Streamers on Twitch and other platforms have had stalkers show up at their homes and at fan conventions, been targeted by armed and violent viewers or dealt with swatting, a sometimes deadly stunt in which someone calls the local police to report a fake crime at a streamer’s home, hoping the raid will be caught live on camera.”
WIRED: Bookstagram Is Fueling an Unnerving Trend. “Readers and reviewers have never been more able to get their voices heard. The rise of Bookstagram and more recently BookTok have enabled bibliophiles to share recommendations, point out plot holes, and discuss fan theories on an unprecedented scale. Yet writers want you to know that it’s one thing to tell the world that you don’t like a book, and another thing entirely to tell its author.”
Newswise: Study Finds Plus Size Models Rising Presence on Social Media. “Collectively, 144 plus-sized models had 51 million followers and 190,000 total posts. While the top 10 highest paid mainstream models averaged 38 million followers compared to the top 10 plus sized models with an average of approximately 3.8 million followers, there was no significant difference between the average likes per post, comments per post and total posts between the top mainstream models and top plus-sized models.”
The Verge: Google celebrates Army’s anniversary with BTS street view tour. “July 9th marks the ninth birthday of the BTS Army (specifically, the official announcement of its name). As Twitter celebrates the anniversary, Google has released a new street view experiment through its Arts & Culture platform in collaboration with the band. The BTS x Street Galleries exhibition brings viewers on a virtual tour of the group’s favorite artworks.”
NBC News: The rockstars of Minecraft are giving teens something to root for online . “Without as many traditional Internet A-listers as years past, VidCon, an annual social media conference for creators and their fans, seemed unusually quieter this year. That is, unless you were at the Dream SMP panel on Thursday. Two hours before the group, made up of Minecraft players, was expected to show up, screams had already broken out from the packed audience of about 2,000 fans. That doesn’t include the 135,000 people who livestreamed the panel from their homes.”
Pitchfork: On Discord, Music Fans Become Artists’ Besties, Collaborators, and Even Unpaid Interns. “Unlike on other apps where creators compete for attention, everyone in a fan Discord is there for the artist. ‘You’re one button away—if you drop a song, post the link, and @ everyone, it sends everyone a ping to their phones,’ says 24-year-old music streamer Niz, who runs his own community and has set up servers for major-label hyperpop acts like glaive. ‘A lot of people might not see your story on Instagram.’ Artists have used the platform to preview new songs, solicit merch feedback, host beat competitions, and simply shoot the shit.”
New-to-me, from San Francisco Chronicle: The world’s largest galaxy of ‘Star Wars’ relics is in a Petaluma museum. Here’s what’s inside.. “Since the closure, [Steve] Sansweet and a small team have busied themselves cleaning and reorganizing the collection of more than 300,000 items — only about 1% of which are on display at any given time. There is also now an online museum with photos and videos to help hungry fans connect with the collection, a pandemic-induced necessity.”
Elite Daily: Snapchat’s Harry Potter Filter Lets You Rep Your Hogwarts House By Saying Its Name. “Potterheads, get ready to raise your wands, because Snapchat has a new voice lens that’ll make you feel like you’ve been transported to Hogwarts. In celebration of the 20th anniversary of the first Harry Potter film, Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone, and the new game show Hogwarts Tournament of Houses, Snapchat has made it possible to place yourself in your augmented reality (AR) Hogwarts house.”
BuzzFeed News: Trolls Targeted BTS Fan Accounts With Phony Copyright Claims To Get Them Booted Off Twitter. “BTS fans were inundated with copyright infringement notices that got their accounts booted off Twitter — but the complaints didn’t come from the chart-topping K-pop group. Instead, a Facebook group of trolls, who are based in Bangladesh and called themselves ‘Team Copyright,’ weaponized these nuisance claims as a tactic for censorship and harassment.”
SF Gate: ‘They start calling you Hitler’: Why Disneyland has some of the most toxic fans on the internet. “There is a serious issue with toxicity in Disney social media as a whole, and it has increased so much over the past few years that the topic has become a growing area of academic study.”
GR+: Animal Crossing: New Horizons online exhibition opens at the National Videogame Museum. “Created with the intention of acting as a time capsule, documenting fans’ experiences with the game during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Animal Crossing Diaries exhibition features a tonne of fan-written letters all of which detail how impactful the game has been over the last 18 months. ”
The Hong Kong Standard: BTS fan group banned on social media after raising 2.3 million yuan to celebrate idol’s birthday. “The funding raised was said to be used for a cooperation with Jeju Air to create a customized flight with a fuselage, cabin, and tickets with Park Ji-min’s image. In addition, a full-page advertisement is to be placed in both New York Times and The Times on the day of his birthday on October 13.” 2.3 million yuan is a little over $356,000 USD.
BBC: Back to the mosh pit: What it means for super-fans. “To be a fan is often described as an obsessive thing, a bit unhealthy. Those types who think they are destiny-bound to befriend their idols. The people who hang around on doorsteps. Fans who sob on YouTube. For most, though, it’s about private passions, the thrill of the chase, the joy of collecting, connecting and a sense of belonging to a tribe. It’s about knowing everything about the thing you love and wearing that as a badge, but it’s also about creating little habits and structures that enhance the everyday.”
