Hi guys
For the past six months I have been studying the brony community (as well as Justin Bieber's Belieber fandom), which has resulted in a master thesis on online fandom and how media companies should, for a lack of a better word, "manage" them.
As, I consider myself as a fan my number 1 priority was to speak for the fans as I believe that many companies just exploit their fanbases without actually showing appreciation of them. As I am a business school scholar, my primary goal was to investigate how value is created in fandoms. Anyways, I just wanted to share my results
I found a rather complex relationship between the fandom and the fan object. Here, I argued that the brony fandom is not only about MLP, but it just as much, and even more about connecting with others. Essentially, much of the value comes from participating in the fandom and not necessarily in the act of watching MLP:FiM.
What do you think about this? Do you agree with me on this or isn't the fandom that important to you? I would love to hear your thoughts and please feel free to ask questions I have attached the full-length thesis if somebody out there is interested https://www.academia.edu/26626889/Fandom_in_the_Digital_Age
Thank you for welcoming me to the community. I have really enjoyed my time here