New Books In Communications

Suzanne Scott’s new book Fake Geek Girls: Fandom, Gender, and the Convergence Culture Industry (NYU Press, 2019) provides an overview of the convergence culture industry and the world of fandom while examining the role that gender and misogyny has played in understanding who is and is not considered an “authentic” fan. Scott delves into the realm of geek culture and explores how this has evolved as a social identity, and where the gender bifurcation became more acute within this cultural milieu. Fandom, Fan Studies, and fan communities were, for quite some time, female dominated, producing fan fiction, fan art, and female-populated spaces focused around fan engagement. Over the past decade, as fan engagement became much more interactive through social media, there has also been a shift in gender dynamics, as fanboys became more vocally engaged in fan activities, and also became more strident in policing who gets to be a fan, or who is a more authentic fan. Fake Geek Girls examines these shifting structures an