Fandom has different stages of intensity and depth. Abercrombie and Longhurst (1998, in Hirsjärvi 2009, 44) have defined fandom in relation to expertise, intensity, and specialization of consumption. They have five categories: the consumer, who is attached to the object of interest on a general level; the fan, who is emotionally attached to the object and consumes related products in massive amounts; the cultist, who has deeper knowledge of the object; the enthusiast, for whom the fandom is a central part of every day life; and the small scale producer, who has identified opportunities to utilize the related markets. For the German researcher,
Rainer Winter (1995, in Kovala 2003), fan communities consist of strangers, novices, tourists, enthusiasts, and freaks. Both of these categorizations apply closely to the fandom of Japanese popular culture in Finland.
Categorizing and defining fandom is also important for fans themselves.—In particular, small scale producers who might have their own blogs and write for fanzines and magazines of the field are active in discussing the matter. On the Internet, defining fandom and its different stages is an important theme of identification, self-definition, grouping, and categorizing fandom.
An illustrative example was published in the Otakunvirka-blog in March 2009, where the alias Tsubasa made the categorization of fans into four different levels: casual consumers, ‘nyypät’
or beginners, nerds, and ‘jäärät’, which could be translated as old farts (Tsubasa 2009a).
Japanese popular culture fandom grew fast in Finland since the turn of the century (Valaskivi 2009, Nikunen 2006), and now it has reached a stage where the largest group consists of casual consumers. About 30 percent of the Internet Usage Survey respondents answered that they are very or somewhat interested in Japanese popular culture. The reader survey of the Anime-magazine (the oldest Anime-magazine on Japanese popular culture in Finland) indicated approximately 44 000 readers (KTM 2007). In the major recent conventions arranged around Finland, there have been 3000 – 9000 participants. The number of participants has been growing steadily every year. These figures indicate that the phenomenon is known to basically all young people in Finland, many of whom could be defined as strangers on Winter’s scale.
Fandom of Japanese popular culture in Finland (and elsewhere in the Western world, in the US in particular) began as cult fandom (Nikunen 2005) and a sub-culture comprised of small, devoted groups. These groups were predominantly male, and many of the first official groups were established within student unions at universities. Towards the end of 1990s, the popularity of contemporary Japanese phenomena grew quickly, not least because of Pokémon. With the development of Internet and peer-to-peer (p2p) networks, the amount of available of Japanese popular culture exploded during the first years of this century. The first commercially successful translations of manga in Finnish appeared in 2003 (Dragon Ball and Ranma).
The forms of activities around Japanese popular culture have changed and increased in number in Finland over the last 10 years or so. The changes in practices of fandom can be described with the concepts of Raymond Williams when he talks about dominant, emergent, and residual forms of culture (Nikunen 2009, 189). These different forms can exist at the same time, although some are more influential than others.
Most of the association questionnaire answers note the constantly growing role of Internet communities. At the same time they acknowledge the importance of the Japan-related events and conventions, clubs, and societies. While fandom of Japanese popular culture used to focus mainly on anime, now the popularity of cosplay47 and Japanese street fashion styles is evident in the findings of association questionnaires. It is worth noting here that the Finnish commu-nity for Japanese street fashion, Enfant Terrible, is one of the largest Internet communities of Japanese pop-culture, with its 700+ registered members, of whom 99 percent are female.48 Currently, of those who in the Internet Usage Survey professed to be very interested in Japanese popular culture, the majority is male. Also, of the 3600 registered members of animewatcher.
com, two thirds are male. However, according to the associations, the fan community is going
through a change in terms of both age and gender. Most of the answers emphasised the current young age of the enthusiasts. Some have also noted that, while manga and anime was mostly a young men’s hobby in the 1990s, since the beginning of the 21st century the number of teenage female enthusiasts has increased dramatically. The developments and figures indicate that the majority of casual consumers and novices are female, while most freaks, small scale producers (and old farts) are men. There is also age difference among these groups: the novices are usu-ally teenagers, while small scale producers are frequently well over 20, some even in their 40s.
Nikunen (2006) notes that belonging to a community can be seen as a dominant feature of Finnish fandom. However, a typical feature listed in many association responses was that most of the fans of Japanese pop-culture do not focus clearly on one specific area, but are active in various fields. Thus, one can belong to several communities or hang around in different groups without strong attachment to them. Although cosplay and street fashion are attractive, visible, and growing areas of fandom, most of the fans of Japanese popular culture in Finland focus on anime and manga. Within manga and anime, however, there are great variations of interest groups. One answer noted that the number of j-rock fans who are not interested in anime or manga is on the rise.
As already noted, for the fans of Japanese popular culture, the Internet is in many ways the most important media. Although television has been very important in introducing anime and Japanese visual style in animations to the Finnish audiences, it is apparent that the current fan community mostly relies on the Internet in many ways. However, it is necessary to emphasize that fandom practices cover all media forms and the production and marketing of popular culture aims at the widest possible productization in all possible formats. The production of anime, manga, and video games in Japan aims at gendering the products clearly. Thus, there are ‘boy’s’ manga (shōnen) and ‘girl’s’ manga (shōjo)49. However, the production does not define the gender of the audience. For instance, the manga Naruto was first published in Japan within the shōnen genre, but in Finland it has been very popular among preteen girls. Naruto is also one of texts that have inspired fan-fiction and dōjinshi50-drawing, in particular from the yaoi51 -perspective. Although fandom has its own ways of functioning and does not always follow the designed logics of marketing efforts, it is nevertheless dependent on the commercial produc-tion and distribuproduc-tion systems.
In the Internet Usage Survey, respondents who expressed strong interest in Japanese popular culture are also heavy users of the Internet. On average, their daily Internet use is close to double the time (171.93 min) to those who said to have no interest in Japanese popular culture (101.53 min). All of the “interested” respondents also use Internet in their free-time. Almost all of them have computers at home (on average 4-5 percent of all respondents do not have a computer at home), the majority in their own room (80 percent, compared with the 70 percent average). This group is active in reading news on the Internet, and they utilize mobile Internet more than average.
Of those interested in Japanese popular culture, the majority is active on bulletin boards and discussions. They are not very active in writing blogs themselves, but they are active readers of blogs. They are also more active than average in using peer-to-peer (p2p) programs, taking part in Internet auctions, and buying goods in the Internet. The enthusiasts of Japanese popular culture watch movies and videos over the Internet more than other respondents. They also play Internet games daily more than others (both free and commercialized games). However, what
we don’t know is whether the Internet Usage Survey respondents were interested in Japanese popular culture then became heavy Internet users, or vice versa. The other materials, however, explain some of the usage of the Japanese popular culture fans.