Celebrity conferences as confessional spaces: the aca-fan memory traces of David Bowie’s stardom

Abstract

The exchange of ideas between fans about stars and celebrities frequently takes place in informal circumstances, sometime face-to-face or in online forums and increasingly via social media such as Facebook. An increasingly important aspect of stardom and celebrity in contemporary societies finds now that there are important ‘new’ and professional spaces for commentary, discussion and thinking about star performers and the various affects of fandom itself. Such is the aca-fan conference. This article develops notions of aca-fandom toward a new perception of aca-fan conferences built in and around star and celebrity figures, via specific focus on the aca-fandom of David Bowie. Auto-ethnographic methods allowing fellow fans to ‘story’ their own responses to David Bowie were specifically drawn upon in an attempt to delve into the types of emotional responses or tendencies to respond that are stirred by fandom. Primary material gathered in ‘aca-fan focus groups’ at international conferences on David Bowie highlights that this emerging strand of academia around stardom and fan studies offers a way to re-evaluate existent and deeply evocative star and aca-fan relations. This article critically considers the ways that David Bowie has become an emotive subject within the media-rich world around us.

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