Sunday, October 14, 2007

"I'm your # 1 fan and I make sure all the other fans know it!"

Fan culture is the perfect arena for viral marketing and the concept of memes. Within a fan culture there are many different people with many different levels of knowledge regarding the celebrity, movie, show, game at hand. There is definitely a hierarchy of knowledge. Memes as a “building block of cultural evolution” become part of that hierarchy because of the way knowledge gets passed from the people closest to the powers that be for the celeb, show, movie, game to the rest of the fandom then how that knowledge morphs during transmission. The Internet enhances this exchange due to the ability of creating the perfect copy, but then one needs to be more aware of who the source is and be mindful of their level of credibility. Supershadow was a great example of how memes are viral and can branch off or be “detrimental to their host” from other fans who may doubt the originator’s authority.

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