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Study Program of English Literature, Faculty of Cultural Studies (FCS), Universitas Brawijaya (UB) held a biweekly discussion through the Zoom platform on Saturday (11/28/2020). The theme of this event was “Fandom, Gender, and Cyberspace.” The discussion invited Nurul Laili Nadhifah, M.Hum., a lecturer of Study Program of English Literature FCS UB as the speaker. Juliati, M.Hum., as the moderator started this event at 09.30 a.m.
Nurul Laili started the discussion by explaining the definition of fans. She explained that fans appear for the first time in the 19th century to portray the enthusiasm of soccer ball that takes from the word “fanatic”. She continued to explain the negative stereotype of fans such as obsession, madness, no life, desire, and not normal. Whereas, there are so many cultural products and sub-cultural that can be produced by fans.
Then, she explained about fandom. A fandom is a group of fans of someone or something. An example of fandom is the fans of Korean idols, the fans of soccer, manga, etc. Fans in fandom do not only active in consuming cultural products, but also active in the production of meaning. Moreover, the internet plays an important role in consuming, producing, and representative of identity that triggers social practice and new culture.
Nurul Laili also explained about gender, place, and space. She delivered that space is more abstract than the place that is related to safety and space related to freedom. Usually, space is gendered through different gender relations in various places. The role of gender still happens in cyberspace, where cyberspace has gender stereotypes. The general example that still occurs in society is the game online is regarded as a male-oriented environment. At the same time, K-POP fandom is considered to be a female-oriented environment.
The discussion ended the presentation with the conclusion. The event continued with a question-and-answer session and further discussion about the topic. [DAF/DTS/MSH/PR FCS][:]