Fangirling as Feminist Auto Assemblage: Tavi Gevinson and Participatory Audienceship

This chapter investigates tensions between girls as producers of (autobiographical) cultural media and girls as cultural consumers, particularly in online contexts. This chapter explores “fangirling” as a label that invokes a mode of cultural consumption which positions girls as hysterical, undiscerning cultural consumers, and has been used to allocate a low cultural value to texts widely loved by girls. In contrast, this chapter proposes that, by describing herself as a “professional fangirl”, young feminist fashion blogger Tavi Gevinson claims and reformulates the fangirl as cultural critic. The chapter shows how fangirling can work as part of an automedial strategy of auto assemblage, engaging complex tensions between consuming cultural products, formulating an identity as a consumer/producer of media, and being a brand and consumer product.