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Jacob Honchell
Rachel Cantrell
English 1302
April 27, 2014
Ethnography of the Archer Fandom
For as long as I can remember, I have been a fan of spoof style movies and television
shows because of their witty, tongue in cheek brand of humor. My love of this comedic style has
carried over into my social life through the unimpeded use of puns and other forms of wordplay,
similar to what can be heard in spoofs. It was these characteristics that initially drew me to the
television show, Archer. Ever since the first episode I have been absolutely hooked and have
probably seen the show, in its entirety, ten times over and I know the characters better than I
know most of my acquaintances.
I decided to study the Archer fandom mainly because of my involvement with the show
and its fan community. Based on the shows content and general comedic style, I assumed that
most of the members of the fandom would be people like me who enjoyed offbeat, possibly
offensive humor. When observed, it is easy to tell from the fan art and fanfiction the community
produces that my assumptions were mostly correct, specifically in the fanfiction. The Archer
fanfiction that I read throughout the production of this ethnography was filled with crude, offbeat
humor and much of it also contained sexually explicit content. To study these literacy practices
to a much more in-depth extent, we must first give literacy a meaning in relation to todays ever
changing technology.
Literacy, defined in the simplest possible terms, is the ability to share and interpret the
thoughts and ideas of others through the practice of reading and writing. Unfortunately, this
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simplified explanation does not even begin to answer the many questions that blur the lines of
literacy to the point of being illegible. Our textbook inquires, What are reading and writing
for? (Szwed 4) which is the primary question inhibiting us from giving literacy a textbook
definition. Keeping this in mind, the inability to define literacy does not prevent us from
studying and explaining literacy and its practices. In fact, we can easily study the impact of
technology on todays literacy, how literacy can change drastically depending on your
environment, and we can even study specific literacy practices such as fan fiction.
Technology has had an undeniably massive impact on literacy. With the invention of the
Internet, information has become increasingly easy to access. In the early days of the Internet,
technology had only come far enough to display text, which put an almost infinite amount of
information at the fingertips of anyone with access to a computer and the ability to read. Since
then, the availability of information in the form of a more easily accessible media type, such as
video or eBooks, has made literacy practices involving print seem obsolete and tedious in
comparison. This is proved by the fact that, Unit sales of print books fell just over 9% in 2012
at outlets tracked by Nielsen BookScan, roughly the same percentage decline posted between
2010 and 2011. (Milliot) I believe whether technology has a positive or negative impact
depends entirely on the intellectual qualities of the person. Some people will use technology to
avoid applying themselves intellectually by saturating their online experience with videos, gifs,
and easily understood comedic photos while others will use it to broaden their literacy practices
through activities such as the writing of fan fiction and participating in discussion forums.
Technology not only impacts literacy, but it impacts literacy practices and events as well. The
Internet has created a slew of new ways to practice literacy and express your thoughts and
feelings. As mentioned before, composing fan fiction and posting in discussion threads on forum
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websites, such as reddit, are two examples of entirely new literacy practices created because of
the emergence of advanced technology.
Contained within online communities are sub-categories of literacy that vary from
Website to Website. Each site has its own set of practices and quirks regarding literacy that
change depending on the sites main audience. For example, a website set up for The Lord of the
Rings series will communicate using terms that have no English meaning outside of the fandom.
A literacy event can be defined as any occasion in which a piece of writing is the focus of
the event and this definition does not change when applied to interactions on the Internet. When
you are online and you stumble upon something that relates heavily to a piece of writing, no
matter the media type, and people are discussing it, it is a literacy event. These events are easy
to find throughout the web because a majority of Internet websites are heavily reliant, if not
entirely based, upon text. This makes the Internet a place where literacy is easily found. In fact,
a simple Google search can provide you with millions of individual literacy events that, without
the Internet, would otherwise be nonexistent. A perfect example of the ease of creating literacy
events in this medium is the staggering amount of fan written stories, known as fan fiction, based
on professionally created media.
Fan fiction practices make a massive impact on the creators, distributors and consumers.
In 2006, about 58% of American teens had produced media. Today, the number is about 68% of
American teens. About a third of that number has been shared with a community larger than
their family (Jenkins 4:09). That number is rising because the Internet makes it so incredibly
simple to distribute content. Fan fiction has become far more common than it was when print
was the only medium in which text could be displayed because of this. Millions of people have
been encouraged, many who were just readers at first, to try their hand at publishing work on the
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Internet and, in turn, many read their work. The process of publishing fan fiction today is very
different than when it was published in fanzines. Today, a touch of the submit button is all you
need to have your work displayed on a website. With fanzines, you had to submit your work by
mail to have a chance at having your work published. Due to the ease of finding reading
material considered fan fiction, writers are influenced by masses of other writers and those
writers influenced by others. These communities of readers and writers promote an environment
in which everyone gets an equal chance to share their work without being prosecuted, both
legally and by their peers. These sites become literacy events more often than not because, most
of the time, a discussion board is opened up every time a new piece of work is posted. When this
happens many people discuss the writing, effectively making it a literacy event.
It is difficult to believe that literacy, being such a large part of our existence, is only
definable within specific situations. For example, literacy in the context of a schoolhouse would
be, simply, the ability to read and write with the competence required by your grade level. To
acquire the ability to properly pass on the practice of literacy to future generations, we need to
find some way to fully understand literacy outside of specific contexts and what must be taught
for an individual to become a functional, literate member of society. If we fail to define literacy
and technology continues to make reading, or even free thought, less necessary, society has a
definite possibility to decline to the point of wide spread illiteracy.
Now that the term literacy has been further defined, we must look at how the world of
fandoms is undergoing massive evolution due to the introduction of advanced technology to the
general public. Because of the Internet, the impact of fandoms on how people identify, socialize,
network and many more behavioral characteristics has expanded. Fandoms are, in fact,
extremely important to todays social media practices and social networking as a whole. When
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websites like Facebook are analyzed, a substantial portion of all communication on that website
has to do with consumption of appealing media. Courtney Plante, author of One of Us, asserts
that, besides providing affiliation and belongingness needs, fandoms also provide individuals
with a specific identity and something much larger than themselves to belong to. This network
that fandoms provide also provides fans with fast friendships based on common interests that can
motivate common people to band together and accomplish amazing things, such as the fundraiser
put on by the firefly fandom that raised thousands of dollars for charity. Fandoms also provide
people with a sense of global citizenship rather than citizenship to where they are geographically
located. This allows fans to be more interconnected with global events and causes them to be
more aware of what is going on in the world since they have friends (made within the fandom
due to common interest) all over the planet.
Not only has the Internet changed the way fandoms function socially, it has also changed
how they enjoy new episodes and other things that are aired live on television. Due to the
Internets incredible speed and ability to connect people from all over the world in a matter of
milliseconds, fans are able to discuss the happenings of their favorite shows as they happen, even
if they are alone in their house. This all happens through messaging websites such as Twitter,
where fans are able to give commentary on everything that unfolds and share their opinions on
whatever show they are watching through the hashtag system. Normally, only people who
follow you on Twitter are able to see your tweets, but with specific hashtags for live television
events, such and the MTV music awards or the season premier of Pretty Little Liars, people are
able to view everyones Twitter responses to what is going on television, and respond directly to
individuals that have posted their thoughts. Twitter has effectively further globalized fandoms
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like never before. Now that we have discussed some of the Internet specific fandom practices, it
is time to analyze the foremost websites Archer fans gather on.
I see the Archer fandom as a community where a small portion of the television shows
viewers gather to discuss recent developments in the show, share fan art or fanfiction, and
basically just talk about all the things they like or dislike about the direction the show is going in.
To an outsider, I would describe the fandom exactly as I see it but a description of the show
would be included, and I would discuss how good the show is; as Im sure any fan of the show
would. Insofar, In terms of literacy practices, I have seen the Archer fandom gather on a few
websites mainly to discuss new episodes of the show or to share fanfiction. Literacy events in
this fandom, due to its small size, are fairly limited. The only event large enough to be worth
mentioning is comic-con, which is not an Archer specific literacy event, but a place where fans
of many different shows, movies, or books gather to share aspects of their fandoms. What has
surprised me the most is how small the fan community for Archer is compared to other fandoms
such as Harry Potter or Doctor Who. Despite the excellent quality of the show, it doesnt really
have the fan base that many popular works do. This, honestly, can probably be attributed to the
shows explicit and sometimes raunchy qualities. Much like the television show Southpark, the
crude content probably drives away many potential fans. I think the only (and most) disturbing
thing I found in this fandom was the sheer amount of lit erotica fanfiction compared to the
amount of normal fanfiction. About thirty to fifty percent of the fanfiction I found was lit
erotica.
From what I have seen of this fandom, I think the most popular website to gather and
discuss the show would have to be reddit, with 73,413 subscribers. When you first enter the
subreddit dedicated to Archer, you see the top rated posts from the past one to three days. At the
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top of the page, there is the option to filter all posts based on criteria like: hot, top, new, etc. By
selecting these you may see the top rated posts of all time, the newest posts, and the best posts of
the past few days. This content is usually a post that starts a discussion about something big that
happened on a recent episode, discussion about what the fans want to see happen, or pictures/gifs
from the communities favorite scenes. The site functions on a system they refer to as the karma
system. This means every user has the power to upvote or downvote any post they see in any
subreddit of reddit. The posts that receive the highest positive score (more upvotes than
downvotes) are displayed on something called the front page. The front page is where all of that
days best content can be found. In order for posts to make it to the front page, they must be
viewed in the new section by users who are willing to sift through a large amount of mediocre
content to find the metaphorical Internet diamonds. This website fits into my observations by
doing the usual thing a fandom website would do: share content related to archer using the
Internet as a medium.
The second most popular Archer fandom website would probably have to be the part of
fanfiction.net that is dedicated exclusively to archer fanfiction. Although the number of users on
this website is not listed, it is almost definitely dwarfed by the Archer community of reddit. The
website actually resembles reddit quite a bit, a normal white background cluttered with links to
Archer fans fanfiction masterworks. This website also works on a basis of post merit. Each
time a fanfiction story is posted, other users are given the opportunity to review it. The best-
reviewed stories are the ones that come up first when you sort by highest rating. On top of the
ability to sort by rating, the website also offers the option to sort by date posted, much like
reddit. In terms of the media shared on this website, it is fairly limited. Fanfiction and fan art
dominate this websites front page. Fanfiction is obviously the most important component of the
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website, but many users choose to create fan are that goes along with their fanfiction to give
other users a brief idea about what their fanfiction is all about. The actions of this community fit
into what I have already observed based on the fact that this is an Internet site dedicated to
fanfiction and one of our assignments was to analyze a fandoms fanfiction websites. This
activity definitely falls under the category of a literacy practice.
Although this fan community is small compared to most mainstream media, the
community is surprisingly active in discussion. In fact, compared to Harry Potter subreddit, the
Archer subreddit actually has more discussion over past and present episodes despite the
community being almost one-third the size. What the Archer community lacks in fanfiction and
fan created scenes and art it makes up for in intelligent, witty discussion. Now that the fandoms
most popular websites have been analyzed, we must discuss how the fandom operates as a
discourse community.
James Porter defines discourse communities as, a local and temporary constraining
system, defined by a body of texts (or more generally, practices) that are unified by a common
focus. A discourse community is a textual system with stated and unstated conventions, a vital
history, mechanisms for wielding power, institutional hierarchies, vested interests, and so on
(Porter 106). With that definition in mind, most, if not all, fandoms are easily defined as
discourse communities.
The most obvious hint that fandoms are discourse communities, begins with the easily
observable practices they take part in, such as fan fiction, that are all focused on one thing: the
media the fandom is a fan of. In my case, the fandom I am investigating is the one centered on
the television show Archer. The two biggest, most popular websites to find Archer based fan
media are Pintrest and a division of fanfiction.net dedicated to Archer. On Pintrest, most of the
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communication takes the form of .gif files of the fans favorite clips of the show. This is very
different from the way the members of fanfiction.net communicate. On fanfiction.net, an
extremely small portion of the communication is based around anything but text. The site is
comprised of a list of original fan fiction works and links for comments/critiques. In terms of
membership, neither website actively limits their membership, but since the show is rated TV
MA, both websites are comprised of an older group of people. Again, due to the shows rating,
most of the fan fiction/posts are not kid friendly. The fan fiction posts are usually rated T or
M, and range in content from slash fan fiction to even Archer branded lit erotica.
John Swales defines a discourse community as having, a broadly agreed set of
common public goals, has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, uses its
participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback, utilizes and hence
possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims, in addition to owning
genres, it has acquired some specific lexis, [and] has a threshold level of members with a suitable
degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise. (Swales) The Archer fan fiction site has the
common goal of sharing personal opinions about the show and expressing their love of the show,
uses the internets text based communication system, has many genres of Archer fan fiction, and
many of the members are experienced fan fiction writers.
The website I chose was productive to my research by providing insight into the inner
workings of the fandom I have chosen. This is extremely important because the television show
Archer is far less popular that a series such as Harry Potter, and therefor has far fewer outlets to
do the things that all fandoms do: share their love for a specific media. In my particular website,
fans of Archer submit their own ideas for episodes or just simple stories about the characters
from Archer. After sharing, users have the option of constructively reviewing the works of
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others, causing the community to progress as a whole. This site is appropriate for studying the
literacy practices of fandoms because the Internet allows people to anonymously post things.
Behind the shroud of anonymity, people are more encouraged to submit work because if it is not
good, no one can tie it back to them in real life. Because of this, fandoms can be observed in
their most natural, most primal state of being. Nothing is held back on the Internet.
Although I am a die hard fan of Archer, I have no personal ties to this particular
website because I do not actively compose or review fan fiction of any kind. After being
exposed to this website and reading some of the posts, I have become increasingly more
interested in internet based fan fiction composition and now have considered taking part in it. I
expect to learn quite a lot about literacy by observing this site because there are very few other
places to find literacy being used in its most basic definition: the act of reading and writing.
Fandoms are easily defined as discourse communities because of their adherence to both
Swales and Porters definition. They function extremely well on the Internet and facilitate the
education of literacy practices through fan fiction. Because the fans of Archer are so dispersed,
the Internet is the only thing that holds this small fandom together. Without it, Fans would have
nowhere to congregate and vocalize their love of the show. Now that we have discussed how the
Archer fandom and fandoms in general operate as discourse communities, research methods and
ethics must be taken into account.
Part One: Code of Ethics
Purpose: I have worked with websites related to the Archer fandom in order to derive
more information about the literacy practices and characteristics of said fandom and the fan
fiction written by the community. By doing so, I have completed an ethnography over the
literate behavior of online fan communities. I used MLAs Statement of Professional Ethics to
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guide my research along an ethical path for the reason of privacy protection and fair use. I
worked alone on the project of creating ethnography over the Archer fandom.

Methodology: Because of the Internets nonstop nature, I conducted my research
whenever it was most convenient for me. I accessed the site during classes, after classes during
the time I have allotted for working, and whatever other time I see fit to conduct research. These
times could range anywhere from ten in the morning to twelve at night. To gain entry to the site,
I simply entered the web address into the address box within my browser. In terms of
permissions, I did not have a signed consent form from any website I have used previously for
my research. I did my research for this ethnography until the end of the spring semester.

Interviewing/Collecting Materials and Research: To observe a website, I simply repeated
the process of gaining access to the website, and the scoured the site for information easily
usable in my project. I am an insider to the Archer fandom but an outsider to any fanfiction
websites I use, as I do not write, nor read, fan fiction of any kind. This position caused me to act
in favor of the Archer fandom community. In terms of interviewing, I took almost any insider to
the Archer fandom due to the scarcity of interviewees.

Data Usage and Risks: To present my data ethically, I used an anonymous interviewing
process to ensure the privacy of all interviewees. In terms of sensitive information, which for
this ethnography will probably be scarce, I followed whatever agreement I entered into with the
provider of aforementioned information. All research will be stored on my computer or in my
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university email account, ensuring that no data will be viewed by anyone other than intended
recipients or me.
The potential risks for participants in my research are so incredibly negligible that there
there is no reason to even list them.

Part Two: Consent Form
Name of Researcher: Jacob Honchell
Purpose of Research: To gather information on the Archer fandom and compile said information
into an ethnographic study.

I understand that I am assisting in an ethnographic research project conducted by Jacob Honchell
for English 1302 at Texas A&M University at Commerce taught by Rachel Cantrell. I agree to
let him use the interview (or any other materials agreed upon) to write a paper for the class,
which will later be presented at the Celebration of Student Writing. It will not be used for any
other purpose. I have been informed that if I become uncomfortable at any time during the
interview, I do not have to answer questions or I can ask to have the tape or video recorder (if
used) turned off. I am aware that I can request that a pseudonym be used. I understand that by
signing this form, I give permission for the interview to be used for the purposes stated above. If
I have any questions about this project and/or the research data I have given, I can contact:
Jacob Honchell
honchellj@gmail.com
Your name:
Your email:
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Do you agree to participate in the
Interview ( ) YES ( ) NO
Can the interview be recorded (audio and/or video)? ( )
YES ( ) NO
Should a pseudonym be used? ( ) YES ( ) NO

Signed: ____________________________

Date: _________________



Part Three: Fan Questionnaire
To gather information/observe the Archer fandom, I created a short questionnaire on
surveymonkey.com to try to gain some general knowledge about the common mindset of Archer
fans. I posted this interview on the Archer Subreddit on reddit.com. The questions below are
exactly what I asked and the responses are either a summarized collection of the answers for the
most answered questions or a direct, word for word quote from the singular person who writes
fanfiction. Here is the link to my results: https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-
LCJDWFJ/
1. What Initially drew you to the show Archer?
Most responses had to do with friends showing them the show or hearing about the show
from someone affiliated with the show on a professional level. After the initial, a friend
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showed me response, many interviewees went on to say that they enjoyed the shows
unique brand of crude, witty, socially aware humor.
2. What does the show Archer mean to you?
For this question, most of the respondents answered buy saying something along the lines
of, this show means a good time, or, Its my favorite show. Some responded with
nostalgia to the 007 or Get Smart series.
3. Do you participate in Archer related fan activities? If so, which ones?
Almost all of the interviewees responded simply with, No, or responded by saying
what I already knew, that they take part in the Archer Subreddit.
4. Do you write Archer fanfiction?
96.15% of the respondents responded with No, while a meager 3.85% (1 out of the 26
responses) responded with Yes.
From this point on, survey results are direct quotes from one person.
5. What was your initial motivation to write Archer fanfiction?
Im a cunning linguist.
6. What websites do you post you fanfiction on?
I dont, I just keep it under my pillow for those special times.
7. How long have you been creating fanfiction?
How long is a piece of string?
8. What type of fanfiction do you write and why?
Erotically charged meta-fiction, rife with convoluted aphorisms and socio-political
undertones.
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9. What motivates you to continue writing fanfiction?
My incessant boner
From these results, I can conclude that many of my initial assumptions about this fandom
were exactly correct. Despite having a large amount of knowledge of the fandom before
beginning my research, (from being a part of it) there were still a multitude of things that
surprised, intrigued and disturbed me. First, I found the high percentage of lit erotica within the
Archer fanfiction websites to be all three of those things. Although the show is extremely
sexually charged to begin with, I was not expecting the community to take that aspect of the
show and run maybe a bit too far with it. The next thing I found surprising about this fandom
was its size. For some reason I assumed that the show had far more weekly viewers than its
average of about 1.7 million. Even with that many weekly viewers, the subreddit only has about
seventy thousand subscribers and the Archer dedicated Tumblr and Pinterest have even less.
Overall, I learned how massive of an impact the Interned has on, not just the Archer fandom, but
also every fandom that has fans with access to the Internet. The Internet can create a link
between people from all over the earth with only the touch of a button.

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Milliot, Jim. "Rate of Print Decline Flattened in 2012." PublishersWeekly.com. N.p., 04 Jan.
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Plante, Courtney N., et al. "One Of Us: Engagement With Fandoms And Global Citizenship
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