ABSTRACT
Purpose:
Web 2.0 technologies have enhanced relational dynamics in fan communities. Indie music fans significantly identify themselves with the genre and participate in these communities within a music industry reinvention scenario. Based on the Foucauldian perspective, by sharing knowledge about media products, fans manifest truths capable of expressing subjectivities - parrhesia, a way of mutually affecting different truths. Thus, the aim of the present study is to analyze how parrhesia is operated in interactions among indie music fans.
Originality/value:
The present research expands an important theoretical-investigative path in the consumer culture theory (CCT) field by adopting Michel Foucault’s later theoretical cycle, which addresses the construction of subjectivities.
Design/methodology/approach:
Netnography of interactions among indie music fans was carried out in one of the largest online discussion forums on the topic.
Findings:
Heated discussions observed in the investigated community often create a split that shows a dispute focused on defining what being an indie music fan means. Based on disruptive parrhesia anchored in moral backgrounds associated with erudition and collectivism versus hedonism and individuality, self-declared true fans and those who seek fun establish alter-subjectivities as hipsters and posers.
KEYWORDS:
Fans; Indie Music; Subjectivity; Parrhesia; Netnography
Source: Elaborated by the authors.