Fans are "NUTS"

This week, we discussed participatory culture and media convergence. I can think of many types of fans that seem to take it to the next level in participatory culture: Star Wars, Star Trek, Lady GaGa, Avatar, X-Men, Batman, World of Warcraft, etc.... All of those people who are extreme fans seem foreign to us and very weird. We do not have any great fandom like them! We just know every line from Family Guy, know the batting average of every Sox player, or know every lyric to our favorite artist. Oh, wait..maybe we are like them!
One of the most interesting thing about participatory culture is the great effect it has on what people are fans to. For example, "Chuck" is a very low-rated show on NBC. For multiple seasons, fans have gotten the show back on the air even with the low ratings. They do this through things like twitter campaigns. Another instance is the fandom for the show "Jericho." Fans sent 20 tons of nuts to CBS headquarters to revive the canceled show. The nuts referred to a specific scene in the show. After this incident, the show got renewed for 8 more episodes.
Examples explained above show how different the media is these days. To an extent, People can now have a say in what is shown in the media. If someone wants a show to stay on the air, start a campaign. If someone wants a leaked song from their favorite artist, they can tweet producers to leak those songs. Fan have more power than they probably realize. If enough team up together, they could probably get anything they want to happen for what they are fans of.