A few weeks ago I went and saw Lilly Singh on her book tour throughout the whole day I posted videos on social media. When I got to meet her and get a picture I quickly went onto my twitter and screamed about it. The following evening I put a youtube video vlog style on what happened the video reached one thousand views.
This can be considered as cultural capital because I am sharing the cultural capital online which is an easily accessible platform that other fans can reach they can do this by searching the hashtag #bawsebooktour and the same for youtube.
“This culture is socially and institutionally legitimated, and I shall refer to it as official culture, in distinction from popular culture which receives no social legitimation or institutional support. Official culture, like money, distinguishes between those who possess it, and those who do not. ‘Investing’ in education, in acquiring certain cultural tastes and competences, will produce a social ‘return’ in terms of better job prospects, of enhanced social prestige and thus of a higher socio-economic position. Cultural capital thus works hand in hand with economic capital to produce social privilege and distinction.” Fiske (1992: 31)
This quote is saying that seeing people you have a big interest in can be alot of money so therefore it can be classed as privileged and those who cannot be classed as deprived. For example, when sharing the images online I can come across as privileged and people who couldn’t came off as deprived.
In other terms maybe I just posted the pictures so Lilly could see it and notice me or that people who are following me knew I met Lilly and I captured the moment I did. This wasn’t the first time I have done this. When I went to see adele and five seconds of summer I made a video of me seeing them live and of course I made no money from the videos and I knew I wouldn’t as I got copyrighted my aim was so I could remember the day I went and saw my favourites but I thought others would like to see it to.
Being a fan of Lilly it forms a part of my cultural identity because and I am actively choosing to be her fan and I am choosing to pay the money to go see her talk about her book. I choose to tell everyone who I am a fan of.
Fiske, J. (1992) ‘The Cultural Economy of Fandom’. In Lewis, L. A. (Ed.) The Adoring Audience. London, Routledge, pp30-49.
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