Fans of Fandom: Tumblr’s Goncharov Phenomenon and Platformed Fan Identity (BA Thesis)

A Note on the Project

I’ve always been a reader, a writer, and a fan (strictly in that order). In 2024, for my Bachelor’s capstone thesis in English Literature & Arts at Krea University (supervised by Dr. Anannya Dasgupta and Dr. Srajana Kaikini), I produced my first critical work in fan studies scholarship. I went down the rabbit hole of the Goncharov phenomenon (2022), approaching it academically through a multimodal critical discourse analysis of the Goncharov fandom on Tumblr. I did so with the same enthusiasm I had once brought to appreciating, arguably, the greatest mafia movie ever made.

I was also fortunate to present my research at Navigating Algorithmic Society, the October 2025 edition of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) Audience and Reception Studies Conference at Södertörn University in Sweden, as well as at the Tumblr Symposium held during Ester Freider’s book launch in January 2025 by the Femme Social Press in London.

I could never have imagined that what began as an undergraduate project, rooted in a deep fannish affection for a meme and Tumblr fandom itself, would gradually take on a life of its own, developing into a sustained and critical engagement with the affective economies (as Sara Ahmed calls it) of Tumblr fan culture. This project was the first time ever I realized what it meant to be an ‘acafan’, an academic who identifies as a fan and also, a fan who identifies as an academic.

Below you can find the published abstract of the conference presentation in Sweden. . A full-length article developing this work is currently in progress.

Project Abstract

In contemporary digital fandoms, the relationship between fans and media industries is in flux. Digital fandoms are shaped not only by the texts they engage with but also by the platforms they inhabit. Fans exist in a liminal space, simultaneously occupying mainstream positions yet remaining subordinate to the authorial power of media producers and the algorithmic control of social media platforms. This paper examines, Goncharov, a spontaneous collaborative storytelling phenomenon that emerged on Tumblr in 2022, as a case study for how fans create meaning and community within and in response to the affordances and culture of platformed life. As a playful parafandom centered around a nonexistent film with no established authorship, Goncharov raises a critical question: if fans in digital culture are not fans of ‘texts’ and their ‘authors’, what are they fans of?

This paper uses critical discourse analysis at the intersection of platform and fan studies to explore how the framework of ‘playfulness’ within Tumblr’s platform architecture and fandom culture can help theorize Goncharov as a fan-created, collectively authored, ever-shifting text that disrupts the traditional author-text hierarchy in fan practices. The Goncharov fandom illustrates that fan identity in digital fandoms has shifted from the shared pleasure of ‘texts’ and their ‘authors’ to shared pleasure in affective experiences of online fan activities. Ultimately, the Goncharov phenomenon prompts a reconsideration of fan identity in platformed societies by demonstrating that fans in digital culture are neither fans of the ‘author’ nor the ‘text’ but fans of digital fandom culture