Smart Fan to Backyard Wrestler crystallizes the concept of hierarchy within fandom. Unlike the fandom utopia that scholars believed to exist, fandom is just a concentrated version of society within its own hierarchy, except this hierarchy is often based on how much you know about the fan object and what you do to show that knowledge and love. I’ve been on the giving and receiving end of these classist fandom sentiments, especially when it comes to music. When a band or artist rises to the “mainstream” culture, fans who have known the artist/band before their mainstream days will often ridicule new fans for being shallow knowledge of the artist or will place themselves above them because they were there “since the beginning.” And in order to prove your love for the fan object, you must create and share things publicly to gain both recognition and respect from other fans. This process can be seen within the wrestling fandom. The hierarchy of the “smarts” and the “marks” seems to be based off fandom knowledge, intelligence and also content creation. However, even content creation is judged and ranked based on taste. However, the judgements are often based off the taste of the upper classes as they have the supposed upper hand as the more knowledge and intelligent class. The upper classes will shun the lower class’ content for being “distasteful” or “artless,” but the concept of art is extremely subjective. Each class has their own criteria and understanding of what good content is, what good art is. Within the fandoms, we begin to judge ourselves and our content based on the feedback we get from others, a phenomenon that translates outside of fandom as well, according to No Shame in a Selfie. When we post selfies or picture of ourselves in general, we base our judgements of ourselves on the feedback we get for those pictures. But there is a stigma for posting pictures of yourself because it can be seen as narcissistic. I’ve never been a big fan of selfies or in general having my picture taken. However, it’s mostly a result of my lack of confidence in my looks - a confidence that has been based on comparisons to other girls - and a fear of being judged negatively by others. It seems kind of far fetched to think that selfies can help you find who you are, but I can understand it being a way to express oneself, document one’s life, or to gain some recognition from our peers.
- Lilian