The Lizzie Bennet Diaries: Fan-creator interactions and new online storytelling

Abstract

Bernie Su and Hank Green’s online adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice ([1813] 1995), the Lizzie Bennett Diaries (2012, LBD hereafter), offers a new authorship device and a potential way to negotiate the current tensions engendered by struggles over cultural production and reproduction on the Internet. A great part of LBD’s success, confirmed by the many awards the series received, was its complication of authorial power and textual ownership. Fans occupied the same space as characters to become characters themselves; producers became viewers who carefully followed fan responses and incorporated them into the storyline; fans’ blogs and texts developed character arcs, deepened understanding of characters themselves and moved the narrative as a whole; and producers entered fan spaces to discuss narrative developments. However, while LBD does offer some possibilities going forward, it also illuminates the tensions between existing and emergent production paradigms created by an increase in Internet participatory culture that remain to be overcome.

Cartesian dreams, engagement aesthetics, and storytelling strategies in the online space

“…Audience members took to Twitter, interacting with Lydia's textual body through social media as though she were a real woman trapped in an abusive relationship. Although Lydia was technically fictional, she existed and interacted with the audience within the online dream, and her health and well-being were considered as important as if she were a real woman (Seymour et al 2015). This supports the Cartesian dream of the online space by developing Descartes' observations about the manipulation of truth (by a deceiver) into a constructed fictional character.…”

“…The LBD was the first narrative of its kind and the first to experiment with this approach. Transmedia storytelling allows viewers an opportunity for more immediate and complete immersion by structuring the characters in the virtual space in a similar manner to real-world internet and social media users (Seymour et al 2015). These characters engage in the online environment as (assumed) extensions of a physical body.…”

“…Show organisers had to intervene before they could do so (berniesu 2013), as the narrative required Darcy to come to Lydia's rescue and not the online community. These attempts by the viewers to alter the course of Lydia's story arc demonstrated their emotional investment in Lydia's story (Seymour et al 2015). Later, after Lydia learned of Wickham's betrayal, the character was shown utilising the various social media platforms at her disposal to contact him and reconcile: @TheGWickham please just pick up your phone George.…”

“…In some cases, producers needed to reign in overlyenthusiastic fans who attempted to engage too much with the textual bodies of characters to the detriment of the story (Seymour et al 2015). As discussed previously, when Lydia's sex tape was advertised online and fans began suggesting hiring White Hats to hack the site, the producers intervened because they had a clear narrative goal in mind and could not allow the textual bodies to develop organically as an IRL internet user's would (Seymour et al 2015). The constructed nature of the textual bodies would appear to indicate they are not 'real' in the way that textual bodies created by the viewers are.…”

Fans as Homo Narrans: How User Participation in Transmedia Collective Storytelling Shapes Dream SMP Fan Identities on Twitter

“…Bottom-up TS challenges the traditional narrator-listener relationship by embracing collaborative models of authorship against imbalances in discursive power (Hunter, 2011;Seymour, Roth, and Flegel, 2015). Yet, individuals do not enjoy absolute narrational freedom as participatory members.…”