Happy Valentine's Day: We ♥ Michael Fassbender!

If you're like me and in between boyfriends, for today only, we get a pass in legally declaring Michael Fassbender our pretend boyfriend today - but just today people! LOL! It's Valentine's Day and as fans of one of the greatest actors alive, let's take a moment to think about him in a sweet and loving way, and eat chocolate and smell roses while thinking of Michael Fassbender!

There is a really cool Valentine's inspired 'I ♥ Michael Fassbender' mug for sale at the Fassinating Store. Why not treat yourself to a year round reminder of your devotion to all things Fassy? In addition to that, today is a great way to recognize your appreciation for Michael by considering donating to the Fassinating Fassbender fundraiser. Imagine for the remainder of February, the number of cups of Starbucks coffee you will be buying, or some unhealthy snacks, or another bottle of nail varnish - think if you donated those monies to The Bike Experience, how you will be helping others, and showing how much you care about Michael by making a donation in his name to this worthy charity.

Last night in my Communication Theory class, the Professor presented a video featuring Dr. Nancy Baym on Changing Relationships, Changing Industries. Although Dr. Baym is a communication Ph.D researcher and speaker, she is a straightup, unapologetic bonafide fangurl of the Swedish music scene (she says so herself in the presentation - she's very cute and funny), and she has performed an ethnographic study of the fanbase of Swedish music. Why Swedish music? Well, apparently the music scene in Sweden is entrenched into society where of the 8 million population has well over half of them following the music scene. And Swedish musicians have strong followers all over the world. But what is amazing about this particular fanbase community is the demonstrated love that is expressed in the fandom. Fans pay over and beyond a fair price to download music, travel to the shows of the Swedish musicians, develop fundraisers to help support a band to tour, and some fans even house musicians when they are touring their area - and this is mostly due to costs involved in touring overseas because many of these bands only play to audiences of 300, at most, and barely make enough ends to meet. The moral of this presentation is: The Power of the Fanbase. If we love a band, an actor, or an author, for instance, we share that love with other fans, and help promote the creative production of said entertainer.



Lipstick stains from all of us on this Valentine's Day (Hupsakeek)

After you view this video, if you are so inclined, it may help you better understand your role in our fandom, and we all have a role. We are in the Michael Fassbender fandom for a reason, because we admire his talent as an actor, and we communicate with each other to help validate our reason for being in this fandom, and to share in that admiration for Michael. Don't you feel 'good' when you visit Fassinating Fassbender (blog or chat room), or the FF Pinterest community when you participate in discussions with other Fassinators? That's because dopamine is being released in your brain, and it's a pleasure chemical. You are with like minded people when you come to the FF community, that's why you keep coming back. And when you do something good like donating to a worthy cause in honor of your favorite actor, you get rewarded for that, deep inside, you are fulfilling your pleasure principle in doing something good for someone else, in honor of another.

So here is the link to Dr. Nancy Baym's presentation - http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/events/luncheon/2010/06/baym

Please let me know what you think about it because there is some fassinating information in there which describes FANDOMs in general. Although it is about the music scene fandom, it is also about us.

Happy Valentine's Day! We ♥ Fassy!