What Is Culture?
The anthropological approach to culture motivated by Brian Street, shifting a definition of culture from entity to process, helps us understand the essentialist and communal aspects of culture, and the life-giving need to belong to something bigger than ourselves. Culture is something we can have, or belong to, but alternatively from the constructivist perspective, it’s also something we do. If we take these two perspectives of belonging and doing, and apply them to lived experience, I believe we can also explore the notions that there are ritual degrees of breadth and depth to culture. That belonging can be weak or strong. That doing can be active or passive.
When I think of these approaches, I think of my own connection to modern fandom. Either through sports, through the multi-faceted and increasingly fragmented nature of modern popular cultures such as movies, video games or hobbies, or through the communal aspects of supporting a cause.
I am a lifelong Star Wars fan. And when I think of my deep connection to the culture of Star Wars, which has exponentially increased with the internet and our ability to connect to other like-minded souls, I think of the unifying means of belonging and doing as unified through ritual. Here culture is often predicated on seeking out and feeling connected to those who feel the same as me.
If we look at the elements of fandom which are ritualistic in nature, modern fan culture, which we could even characterize as fanatic culture in the extreme, is predicated on a wide variety of highly stylized, repeatable, consistent behaviors, which augment and deepen one’s experience of being a fan, but also connect one’s individual experience to a broader engaged community of those who feel the same, very similar to an experience of faith. Modern fans attend mass gatherings such as comic cons or the premieres of movies, often waiting in line for hours before being allowed entry. We wear clothes which signal allegiance and alignment with our chosen favorite stories, broadcasting to others our preferred avenue and flavor within the culture. We gesture towards each other in specific, ritualized ways as in the Vulcan greeting of Star Trek’s Mr. Spock. We fill our homes with objects and avatars from these stories, which are frequently shrine-like in nature, where we can bask in their collective (and collectible) glow as we re-watch the movies again and again. We quote lines from movies to each other, or casually drop them into conversation, casting out signals for others to join us. We travel to relevant places where we can commune together or immerse ourselves in worlds devoted to the cultures we have chosen to belong to (I am writing this from a hotel room at Walt Disney World in Orlando).
As such, fandom, as in religion, is a source of purpose in life, enabling and empowering connection to culture and community, and is life-giving. Importantly, the culture of fandom is often predicated upon anticipation. We wait for the next movie trailer to drop, or the next episode to be released, and scrutinize it with frame-by-frame granularity. We wait in line for entry into the darkened caves of the theater to watch the next installment. And we wait outside the theme parks, rides, and conventions to experience heightened communal proximity with those who think and feel the same. And of course, such behavior is also frequently inter-generational. The baton is passed between father and son, ‘like my father before me’ as Luke Skywalker would have us believe.
I believe that fandom bridges both aspects of both the essentialist (belonging) and constructivist (doing) definitions of culture, and if we apply the lens of ritual, we can conclude that the active aspects of fandom can deepen one’s sense of connection and belonging. That one motives that other and accelerates one’s connection to community and culture itself. This has very much been my lived experience over the past 45 years of being a Star Wars fan, and I very much look forward to the next 45. In this respect, my connection to culture not only defines me, but it also makes me the most me I can possibly be.
Included below are two pictures of my home office, very much a shrine to the culture of fandom, and a strong manifestation of my individual connection to the cultures of music, sports and movie fandom.
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