Chapter 1: The Cultural Authority of Fan Play and the Toxic Turn Available to Purchase

This chapter argues that fandom has an emerging cultural authority as a consequence of their presence and practices on social media platforms. Fans have the potential to be agenda setting in several ways: (1) they shape the participatory practices that other users engage in and (2) through their playful, and entertaining, practices, they grab the attention of broadcast media and are able to mobilise around particular topics and get other people to join them. Fan studies have so far primarily acknowledged fan communities role in shaping the contemporary political culture, but fans’ cultural significance extends to the spread of conspiracy theories on social media. Deploying forensic play, a re-imagining and broadening of Mittell’s original concept of forensic fandom, as a primary interpretive strategy, fans play is central to the collaborative efforts to construct, develop and maintain conspiracy theories. This became clear with the emergence of the QAnon conspiracy theory on 4Chan, which originated from users engaging in live-action-role-playing and forensic play as a dominating interpretive strategy. While conspiracy theories developed through the playfulness of fan practices can be highly entertaining and humorous, they are also often the foundation for hate speech, harassment and threats of violence and extremist viewpoints.