Fans and merchandise

Matt Hills theorizes that the diminished focus is due to the perceived relationship between merchandise and consumerism that has dogged fan cultures and which fan scholars have worked so hard to recuperate by emphasizing fan productivity at the expense of fan consumption practices. Ultimately, the aversion to taking material fan practices seriously has led to large gaps in studying what fans actually do with the merchandise they acquire and how these material objects function as veritable sites of struggle and negotiation over what constitutes fandom and who can gain access to/status within a particular community. Fandom's relationship to merchandise is complicated. Merchandise can be an outlet for demonstrating financial and emotional investment in a franchise or brand's "lovemarks" but it is also an approach typically understood as shallow compared to other fan practices. The entertainment industries' revaluation of fans has led to the manufacturing and marketing of merchandise tailored specifically for their 'lifestyle'.