Summary Of The Culture Economy Of Fandom

Scholar John Fiske in his essay The Culture Economy of Fandom engages in the idea that popular culture is more than just something to entertain us with. Fiske says, “All popular audiences engage in varying degrees of semiotic productivity, producing meanings and pleasures that pertain to their social situation out of the products of the culture industries (Fiske).” Perhaps this quote can directly relate and pertain to the show “Friends”. Someone could watch the show and conceivably directly relate to any of the characters. For example someone could relate to Rachel Green because primarily, in the first two seasons Rachel is shown seemingly growing up as she moves in with Monica and cuts up all her credit cards her father still pays for. She
Rachel’s story is the classic ‘my daddy cuts me off and I have to make it on my own’ story. Perchance, kids coming out of college feasibly experience the exact situation Rachel did; the schooling is over and its time to find yourself and exercise your independence heading in the direction of the dream job or position. Imaginably, people grasped on to this story and related it to their own social situation emotionally connected to the challenges Rachel went through. Furthermore, Fiske describes the action of selecting certain texts because they relate to one’s social situation (Fiske). He says, “This ‘popular’ discrimination involves the selection of texts or stars that offer fans the opportunity to make meanings of their social identities and social experiences that are self-interested and functional (Fiske).” People may have chosen to watch friends because of the positions the characters were often put in relating them to their own lives and endeavors forming a connection to individual characters and the series as a whole. This aspect could be reason for the creation of particular fan