Hello and welcome! This is where I share the research I've done on the Nerdfighter community.
I’ve known about this community since 2008, and I’ve followed its trajectory and seen it grow and succeed for years. Inspired by its unique dynamics, I went to graduate school to study communication through new media. When it came time for me to do my master thesis, I decided to explore some of the aspects that makes this community so special.
Something that has always baffled me was the eagerness of Nerdfighters to participate in all types of activities for no reason other than being a part of the community. Ever since the beginning, whether it was happy dances, putting stuff on our heads, or raising and loaning thousands of dollars for excellent causes – if it was a Nerdfighter project, Nerdfighters would step up. What I wanted to know was why we are so compelled to participate. Is it a super strong sense of community alone, or is it that we have found a special way of communicating that turned out to be tremendously motivating?
My assumption was that it’s a mix of both. Yes, Nerdfighters have a super strong sense of community, but we also have a pretty cool way to communicate online – using narratives. My theory was that the Nerdfighter community has developed the ability to share relevant narratives with each other to the extent that members are continuously encouraging each other to participate in Nerdfighter activities.
Through a case study, in which I outlined the community’s history and then probed community members through an online survey, I collected data about members’ awareness of the community and its narratives, their sense of community and their participation in two specific activities.
In this blog, you'll be able to read more theory on online communities and narratives, the method I followed and the model I tested.
You can also learn more about the Nerdfighters through this series of posts, where I expand on key narratives for this community's culture, and in this other series, where I expand on the open responses I obtained from Nerdfighters through my online survey.
Narratives and Culture
What I found was that indeed, Nerdfighters have built a culture using narratives, and that in doing so, we have become very active community members. It turns out that those who identify specific narratives and tend to share them the most are more likely to participate in important activities than those who don’t. People who have a high sense of community and don’t share narratives are still likely to participate, sure, but those who take it upon themselves to keep narratives alive are the most active members.
When I talk about narratives or stories, I’m referring to a concept psychologist Jerome Bruner defines as “spoken or written accounts of connected events.” Very straightforward. What makes them special, though, is the way our brains use them. According to him, narratives tell a version of reality that is easier to accept, so we use them as instruments to construct reality in our minds. We accumulate them and use them to create mental models of how events relate to each other over time.
The fun part starts when we do this collectively – when we identify specific stories, share them within a group and interpret them together, we start creating a history, a tradition, and ultimately a culture.
So for my research, I asked Nerdfighters to name any stories that they thought had helped shape Nerdfighteria’s culture. I also asked for them to identify which of them they thought were the most important ones for this culture. In doing this, I wanted to see if people would collectively identify the same stories as “culture-shapers”, and I also wanted to see which type of stories would be better for this.
Three main narratives
Stories about the origins of the community
At least 20% of the respondents focused solely on stories about the origins of Nerdfighteria. For them, understanding how the community came to be was either the most important thing to know, or the only important thing to know.
“I think you need to understand how Nerdfighteria started. You need to be able to understand that we do what we do because we enjoy it, not because we want recognition or money or anything else.”
“The story of the origins of Brotherhood 2.0, I feel is essential because it gives you an idea of the spirit in which Nerdfighteria was founded. All others are icing on a delicious cake.”
Stories about individual Nerdfighters
Responses about this were great to read. People enjoyed stories about regular individuals who they could relate to achieving great things and inspiring so many people just by doing something they believed in.
Stories about John and Hank abounded, of course, and they were focused not only on them as the Vlogbrohters, but also on what each of them does individually. Still, regardless of what specific story about them was mentioned, there was always an element of how an individual Nerdfighter would relate to the larger community.
“I like that Brotherhood 2.0 started as a way for John and Hank to get to know each other better, but wound up changing their lives and the lives of so many others. I think that's a key part of the Nerdfighter culture: it's founded upon a desire to get to know other people, or as John would say, imagine them complexly.”
In that same line of thought, another answer that was commonly mentioned was about Esther Earl. People would talk about her by explaining what had happened but also by reflecting on how her story had affected the community.
“The one that immediately comes to mind is about Esther Earl and her friendship with John Green. The community really came together to rally around her and promote an environment of love. When she sadly died, the community continued to work in support of that ideal.”
Reading reflections like that made me realize that one of the reasons why this community is so solid and so unique is that we take the time to focus on each other as real people. We do not let our online community to remain online in the sense that we do see past each other’s usernames and avatars – we do our best to see people complexly.
Stories about Nerdfighters achieving great goals together
The third category of narratives that were identified the most and considered to be important for this community’s culture were those about Nerdfighters coming together for goals greater than us. Whether it was the Project for Awesome, the Kiva Lending Team, the Help Haiti Heal campaign, the This Star Won’t Go Out foundation, raising money for Water.org, or the Uncultured Project, people mentioned stories about these large fundraising and awareness projects over 60% of the times they talked about important narratives.
“The community really came into being through the original Brotherhood 2.0 videos, when the Vlogbrothers defined the terms: Nerdfighteria, Nerdfighters etc., when they made up the gang sign, and when they said what we stood for: people who instead of being made from cells are made of awesome. Also when they first started donating to charities, by small amounts at first and it eventually became the Project for Awesome. Philanthropy is a big part of Nerdfighters being awesome.”
The reason why stories about these projects were so important is that narratives tend to be more successful when they are about some kind of breach away from the norm. As one of the respondents has said, not many online communities could do the things Nerdfighters do, and that is why these stories stand out to us and we tend to keep them alive.
In this way, Nerdfighters have proven that the key to a cohesive, functional and unique community is, indeed, to not forget to be awesome
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In this blog, you'll be able to read more theory on online communities and narratives, the method I followed and the model I tested.
You can also learn more about the Nerdfighters through this series of posts, where I expand on key narratives for this community's culture, and in this other series, where I expand on the open responses I obtained from Nerdfighters through my online survey.
