Narratives nerdfighters and new media

According to Grove Music Online, emo is a style of rock performance dominated by males and typically more reflective or "emotional" than other kinds of rock. Emo began in the mid-1980s and had a resurgence at the turn of the 21st century. Emo's large fan base has come to define the culture, and that fan base is Fathallah's subject. Fathallah (media and cultural studies, Solent Univ., UK) examines emo fandom through the lens of discourse analysis. Her aim is to "identify and analyze the creative process of consolidation by which emo has come to mean what it [now] means" (p. 6). She does this by examining critics' usage of the term "emo," looking at the influence of professionals and fandom on how the term has evolved and, finally, discussing the future evolution of emo. The use of discourse analysis is unique; it makes Fathallah's assessment more approachable to readers and provides a grounding for the recent history of emo and context within the online environment, genre, and gender. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; professionals; general readers. --Jennifer King Matthews, Rowan University

Burek Pierce (Sex, Brains, and Video Games), a professor of library and information science at the University of Iowa, confuses rather than enlightens in this look at how YA author John Green and his fans interact, and what that means for the future of reading. Burek Pierce assumes an enormous amount of knowledge that Green's fans may have, but the general public won't. The introduction is titled "Toward an Anticipatory History of Nerdfighteria," but unless readers are already part of the Nerdfighteria online community (which Green and his brother, Hank, launched in 2007), they may quickly feel out at sea. Burek discusses how the Greens built a several-million-strong following by sharing YouTube videos in which they discuss literature. Over time, their followers generated their own media in response, and thus the Nerdfighteria was born. In tedious detail, Burek Pierce explores the history of Nerdfighteria and uses its success to argue that the future of reading lies in this communal experience. Green's fans will certainly enjoy this, but the uninitiated will largely be perplexed. (Nov.)