How to form an identity when everyone at school thinks you're a weirdo

I was really excited when I saw the readings for this week. In college I had a minor in media studies, which basically involved reading a lot about popular culture. I took a few classes about media fandom specifically, because I was a fan in a former life! As a result of being interested in fandom from a semi-academic standpoint, I have read a lot of Henry Jenkins. (I've followed his blog for the past few years - it's here, if you're interested.) So I was happy that he was on the reading list, taking a positive stance regarding fanfiction.

I don't have much interest in the copyright issues – are a bunch of eleven-year-olds really threatening Stephenie Meyer's profits? – but I understand other concerns about fanfiction writing. It's not the same as writing fiction from scratch, after all. The characters, setting, and sometimes even the situations are already there, as Jenkins points out. If you hope to become a real author, fanfiction won't necessarily teach you how to create interesting characters or develop a world. But it will help with plenty of other aspects of writing: it means that "young writers begin publishing and getting feedback on their work while they are still in high school," even if their school district doesn't offer creative writing classes. It means that they will learn how to plot, revise, write good dialogue – all basic stepping-stones that aren't always taught in English classes. Not to mention the fact that with writing, as with nearly everything else, you only improve by doing it.

So there are plenty of benefits when it comes to kids' (and adults'!) development as writers. In my case, though, it's a little different. I have never been much of a writer. What I always loved, and benefited tremendously from, was the community that sprung up around beloved TV shows and books. The people I met through internet fandom, starting when I was in middle school, exposed me to ideas and viewpoints I would never have encountered in the small town where I grew up. Many of the beliefs and values I still hold were introduced to me by other misfit teenagers on X-Files message boards. And because I didn't know any of these people in real life, I was able to express concerns and problems that I would not have been able to discuss with friends or family members.

David Buckingham seems skeptical about the liberating, empowering possibilities of internet communities. This reaction is understandable: as he rightly points out, the overwhelming majority of "content creators" and, by extension, fandom kids are upper-middle class. Most of them are also white and female. Though many fans benefit from those sets of privilege, it is inaccurate to suggest that participants in fandom are teenagers whose voices would be heard in any situation. In particular, many fandoms provide a safe, accepting space for GLBTQ teenagers and young adults (although there are always problems, and there are a slew of them right now, mostly having to do with the fact that "slash" fanfiction is mostly written by straight females). As Buckingham writes, "it could be argued that the internet provides significant opportunities for exploring facets of identity that might previously have been denied or stigmatized, or indeed simply for the sharing of information on such matters." Fandom tends to attract a lot of people who aren't able to fully express themselves in the "real world" – a lot of us felt like we were not accepted by our peers, teachers, or even our families. Having access to a supportive group of like-minded people, even if you never meet them, can be tremendously important for kids who feel like outcasts.

The importance of online networks in identity formation obviously varies a great deal depending on the individual. There are plenty of teenagers who participate in online networks very casually, for example, or whose online networks are just extensions of their real-life networks (i.e. Facebook and MySpace). Most of the kids I work with fall into that category – and most of those kids are friendly and socially adept in real life. They don't need to seek out strangers to connect with. But I know a couple of kids who aren't so confident, and who have found a niche in online Twilight fandom (which sort of horrifies me, because I hate that book in more ways than I can describe here, but so be it). Fandom can be a really powerful, helpful thing for teenagers who don't feel accepted in real life. Aaand there's my spiel about that.

On a sort of separate note, just because I found this quote interesting (it's Buckingham quoting Somebody Giddens): "The self becomes a kind of 'project' that individuals have to work on: they have to create biographical 'narratives' that will explain themselves to themselves, and hence sustain a coherent and consistent identity." This reminded me instantly of a comment my friend Hannah left on my blog a few years ago:

It’s interesting, too, that you question what you’re looking for there [in Los Angeles], since you’re so clearly an author of an autobiography, and have been for so obviously a very long time, that clearly you’re looking for the plot, right, and clearly for the story line to go with the narrative. Or that’s what it seems like. And arn’t the novels awfully hard on the protagonists? Life as a protagonist is hard, it really is, because novels are records of problems that are eventually solved (or are not solved; so much better to be a protagonist of a novel than a tragic hero). I’d say you’re looking for the content of your blog, which makes you exactly the kind of girl who moves to Los Angeles, because it’s the kind of person who's protagonisting in something that moves to Los Angeles, I suppose.

I started my first blog in 2000. At the moment, I blog very sporadically (and as privately as possible), but at various points in the past ten years, I have blogged regularly and openly. This activity played a huge role in shaping my identity, largely because it gave me a sense of trajectory: I knew exactly where I had started, and I could look through past entries - thousands of them - to find the decisions I made to move myself forward. As Hannah put it, I've been protagonisting. In difficult times, it makes me feel like I have some control over my own life – and that's a good feeling to have. With the internet, even teenagers who aren't "content creators" by Buckingham's definition are leaving a trail behind them. You can trace their development through Facebook notes and wall posts and photographs on MySpace. Teenagers carefully cultivate their social networking profiles to reflect the identity they want: the right bands, TV shows, and books for their crowd. There are very few teens who are online who aren't content creators, in that sense. They are all actively involved in shaping the identity they show to the world, becoming more aware of their own and other people's expectations in the process, and that can be a powerful thing.