In order to see if participants would, in fact, collectively identify the same stories as the most prominent ones, I asked participants to name any stories they thought had helped shape the community’s culture.
Fundraising projects
The most frequent type of stories mentioned were about fundraising projects. Participants emphasized that the stories of how Nerdfighters had developed these projects together were essential foundations of the community’s culture.
“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.”
“I think for sure the Project for Awesome is a big example. It's all about raising money for charities that we pick and it requires so much community involvement and every year we come together and do this really awesome thing to make the world a better place. Not many communities do that, or COULD do that, but we can and we do, and I think it helps reinforce what Nerdfighteria is allabout: helping people, making the world a little more awesome, and having fun while doing it.”
Esther Earl and This Star Won't Go Out
When discussing the ways in which fundraising projects shaped the community, respondents also brought up the This Start Won’t Go Out Foundation (TSWGO), the foundation that the family of Esther Earl (see below) started in support for children with cancer and that Nerdfighters continuously support.
“All of the projects that Nerdfighters and Hank and John do such as Project for Awesome, helping with This Star Won't Go Out […] the Nerdfighter Kiva group continuously giving more and more money in loans to people in developing countries.”
“Too many. Project for Awesome is a fantastic celebration that symbolizes what most Nerdfighters long to be like: caring, giving individuals making a difference in their world. Esther Day 2012 was celebrated here in Quincy, MA last August 3rd—hundreds of Nerdfighters, most who didn't know each other, showed up to celebrate this holiday of loving family and those close to us.”
The story of Esther was the third to be mentioned most. The recurrence and forcefulness of the comments that mentioned Esther Earl are evidence of the importance of this narrative in the Nerdfighter culture. Esther Earl was a Nerdfighter whose story is very significant for Nerdfighters because she was only sixteen years old when she passed away, but she shared a lot with the community through videos in the last year of her life. Esther spoke about the importance of love and family, and expressed that this was the lesson she wanted to pass on to others. After her death, every year on her birthday, Nerdfighters commemorate her memory by making a point of telling their loved ones they love them, and this is a holiday called “Esther Day”. Nerdfighters also show continuous support to the foundation her family founded, TSWGO.
The story of this young woman’s courage and wisdom is a perfect example of a breach of canonicity in narrative, as the way in which she decided to live the last year of her life break away from conventional children with terminal illnesses.
Respondents mentioned that part of the reasons why this story was so significant was because it brought attention to the fact the community goes beyond its online borders.
“John got to meet her and asked what she would like them to do. She responded with loving people who are close to you and ACTUALLY SAYING IT! Thus, Esther Day was born as a less cheesy Valentine's Day, but for family and friends and people you might not always say “I love you” to. This event and her life changed the Nerdfighter community for the better and it continues to do so. It has created an event specific to Nerdfighters, but can also be shared with everyone.”
“The life of Esther Earl and her impact on the Vlogbrothers helped to make the online community feel human. Because we are an online community, we do not often think about a member of the community dying, because it is online and the Internet is essentially undying.”
Inside Jokes
“The punishment set-up of Brotherhood 2.0 began to connect John and Hank more firmly with their viewers, turning them into an interrelated community.”
Another repeated topic among these answers was that of inside jokes. Two things are worth noting about the inside jokes. First, how widespread among the community they are, regardless of how old or obscure they may be. And second, the fact that they reflect the element of referentiality, which refers to the way in which we make sense of narratives by referencing components within a larger context. Inside jokes only make sense within the context of a culture, so the fact that they are so widespread is evidence to the fact that the culture of this community is prevalent in spite of its size.
Some of the respondents, when asked to identify important stories for the community’s culture, not only named the most prominent inside jokes but also reflected on their importance:
“This isn't necessarily a story, but understanding all of the silly little inside jokes is a huge part of who we are as a community. Not only are they a source of entertainment, but they also serve as a way to document our history.”
“There’s a lot of little stories that I think help embellish what Nerdfighteria is. You can simply give someone a definition of the community, but I don’t think they can understand how awesome it is without knowing about the inside jokes, French the Llama! Reading Johns amazing books, wondering about the Yeti, adding “your pants” after things, giraffe love, Hank humping things, the happy dance…”
Origin
The other stories that were mentioned frequently are the ones explored in this series of posts (labeled "narratives"), which were explored as part of the pre-study for this survey. These are stories that were labeled as “Origin stories”, as they refer to the community’s origin year.
This series of posts explores the answers to the open-ended questions from the online survey of this research. Through content analysis, I extracted the most recurrent, frequent and extensive themes and topics participants discussed in their responses. The results are summarized in these posts.
See analysis by theme:
No comments:
Post a Comment