In 2010, when I created a website on Gene Kelly, it was purely for my own use. I needed a digital archive to house my growing research on the Hollywood dancer, choreographer, and director best known from the classic musical Singin’ in the Rain. I never expected that by 2016, nearly 7,000 people would be interacting regularly with my site, now called Gene Kelly Fans, and its various offshoots on social media.
Initially my goal was to gather together all of the Gene Kelly-related news, videos, commentary, photographs, GIFs, tweets, and tributes I came across, and store them in one place, easily accessible via links, tags, and categories. But that began to change after only a few months. And eventually my scholarly project evolved into a fully functioning fan site with multiple (unpaid) contributors, recurring series, lengthy essays, and accompanying social-media accounts. In the past two years, the site has reached more than 120,000 users and nearly 400,000 pageviews. To date, Gene Kelly Fans has 2,700 followers on Facebook, 2,200 on Twitter, 1,000 on Tumblr, and almost 1,000 on Instagram.
Obviously, those combined numbers aren’t anywhere near the levels for modern-day celebrities or fan sites like The Tarantino Archives. But give or take some “repeat customers,” that’s almost 7,000 people on social media who “like” and “follow” a scholar’s musings about a movie star who has been dead for 20 years.
Moreover, as most proponents of social and new media will tell you, crafting a digital identity, especially a niche one, can elicit all sorts of connections. Because of Gene Kelly Fans and a post on why the star gets me all hot and bothered, I have spoken with — virtually and in real life — Kelly’s daughter, grandson, nieces, nephews, and widow; long-time admirers like Paula Abdul and Glee’s Harry Shum; people with interesting ties to the star (this man allegedly delivered fruit to Kelly during the filming of That’s Entertainment II and this woman’s grandmother apparently went on a date with him); and fans who own Kelly’s costumes and memorabilia.
From what I can surmise, it is unusual for an academic to run a fan site — especially with her name, profession, and online identity clearly attached. But why is that the case? Why do the handful of my colleagues who maintain celebrity fan sites, or contribute in other ways to Super Fandom, all prefer to remain anonymous?
Sometimes for good reasons. In certain fandoms, nonacademic fans seem to resent academics who identify themselves as such. One scholar/fan told me there was a significant backlash against Ph.D.s (aka “elitists”) in some fandoms, and that having a doctoral degree is “grounds enough for some fans to assume we think we’re better than everyone else.” Another reason some scholars prefer to remain anonymous is that it makes “for interesting observations and reflection while writing about fan labor,” one academic said. Finally, some academics are worried that participating in a fandom might affect their tenure, so they don’t publicly associate themselves with the fan site(s).
That said, there are academics who have chosen my path. For example, Mathieu Deflem, a sociology professor at the University of South Carolina, made the news in 2010 because of his Lady Gaga fan site, Gaga Front Row. At the time, the professor/little monster had seen Gaga in concert nearly 30 times, met her five times, and owned more than 300 of her records on vinyl and CD. Deflem uses his experiences with, and knowledge of, the pop star in his course “The Sociology of Lady Gaga.”
Since we’re on the subject, we might also look at Gaga Stigmata. Edited by Ph.D. students and artists with M.F.A.s, the site is billed as a “technological journal that takes seriously the project of shock pop phenomenon Lady Gaga.” In most ways, Gaga Stigmata presents itself as an academic journal, calling for submissions and publishes scholarly analyses. But it’s also a fan site. For example, some posts feature single images of Lady Gaga, petitions to make a Gaga musical, and fanvids — all of which are things one might find on a fan’s Tumblr or an unofficial fan site for The Gilmore Girls, Kenneth Branagh, or Kanye West.
Again, I realize most academics don’t run celebrity fan sites anonymously, much less under their own names. The ones who do proceed carefully in deciding which fandoms to join. For example, I imagine nonacademic fans of Gene Kelly are less fervent than fans of Benedict Cumberbatch or The Lord of the Rings, and less likely to participate in so-called turf wars — although you might be surprised.
But for the most part, my inadvertent creation of a fan site on Gene Kelly and my deliberate creation of its four social media accounts have contributed positively to much of my writing on the song-and-dance man. They also prompted my course “Gene Kelly and the Evolution of Cine-Dance” and landed me an interview on BBC Radio alongside Dancing with the Stars’ Len Goodman, Glee’s Matthew Morrison, and Gene Kelly’s eldest daughter.
More shallowly perhaps, what’s not exciting about visiting with people who literally hold in their hands the clothes of a classical Hollywood star? Or who visited his Beverly Hills home? Curating a Gene Kelly fan site is not at all a bad way to spend one’s free time outside of the classroom.
