Fandom as industrial response: Producing identity in an independent Web series

Abstract

I frame the development, production, and distribution of a Web series, The Real Girl's Guide to Everything Else, as a fan-driven response to an industrial product, Sex and the City. As intermittent participants in the Hollywood industry, the series creators, a diverse group of lesbian, bisexual, and straight women of various ethnicities, positioned their series as a market-oriented product intended to reform the industry from its margins and participate in a growing new media economy. Expanded notions of fan production and industry are needed, as are fresh frameworks for analyzing the effects of digital distribution, especially for communities of color, of women, and of sexual minorities.

Keywords

• Fan production
• Gender
• Industry
• Race
• The Real Girl's Guide to Everything Else
• Sex and the City
• Sexuality