According to Jenkins, a transmedia story “unfolds across multiple media platforms, with each new text making a distinctive and valuable contribution to the whole.” That is to say, every outlet through which the story is being told, be it through film, novel, or video game, should be able to stand on its own. While every individual piece of media consumed would benefit from the background provided by other incarnations of the story, one need not seek out every related piece in order to “get” the story. A good example of a cultural artifact that uses transmedia storytelling is The Matrix. Below is a trailer for The Animatrix, which is an example of storytelling across platforms, illustrating the shift from the live action film to a collection of animated stories.

It is worth noting that at the end of the trailer, there is an additional plug for the CD album, which is another platform through which The Matrix and all its related entities may continue to tell its story. With the trailer for The Animatrix, there are elements familiar to fans of the movie, with its dramatic angles, cuts, and fight scenes. In many ways, it is meant to draw in fans who already understand the source material, but it holds very little barrier for those who may have never seen the film. The announcer for the trailer declares that the stories in The Animatrix “takes the world of The Matrix to its unimaginable limits.” So while the animated stories exist within the world of The Matrix, the focus is not to continue the narrative of the films but rather continue building the world through the various lenses available through this different platform.

This look through multiple lenses is what ultimately signals a shift away from casual enjoyment to the ability to act as a cult piece of media. According to Jenkins, a cult artifact “must provide resources consumers can use in constructing their own fantasies.” The Matrix and its related entities more than deliver on this front with its various platforms and incarnations through which consumers may enter. However, for some viewers, consumers, and fans, these artifacts may go beyond the simply telling a story. In the need to gather all the information available on the world of The Matrix, fans may choose to buy, consume, and analyze every piece of media available in order to fully understand the constructed world. From an economic standpoint, this is ideal – a pool of passionate consumers willing to buy into every bit of the franchise that gets released to the public.

But when do the consumers stop buying? The Animatrix uses excellent hooks to reel consumers in, with the announcer of the trailer declaring it as a “groundbreaking collection of nine animated stories from seven visionary directors.” The phrasing of that sentence suggests new material from quality producers. It seems, then, that in order to truly sustain transmedia storytelling, the producers must 1) have source material that allows itself to be a cult artifact and gain a cult following and 2) take its audience seriously. Without the latter, the consumers become aware of the economic drive behind the storytelling and the magic of wanting to understand the constructed world is lost. According to Jenkins, new Hollywood demands that we “keep our eyes on the road at all times, and that we do research before we enter the theater.” Research, however, is only worth doing if consumers are satisfied with the story.

The ties that come with fandom are pretty huge. From personal experience, once you’re in it, you’re in it for the long haul. As I read Jenkins’ chapters on Survivor and American Idol and the various fan communities that come with it, I realized I was very familiar with the behavior that Jenkins was describing. That is, the loyalty and fervor that comes with discussing and dissecting a reality competition show.

Before I get in too deep, here is full disclosure: I was, in fact, a loyal viewer of American Idol during season 8. I was such a loyal viewer, in fact, that I decided to join an online community on the blogging site Livejournal and connected with other fans – but interestingly enough, even after the competition was over, we still kept in touch. Kris Allen had been crowned the winner of the season, but we still found things to discuss, from the Idols going on tour to whatever lighthearted tweet was sent out that day. The Livejournal community I participated in posted “In Case You Missed It” posts every week, which served as a similar sort of shared knowledge community described by Jenkins in Convergence Culture. That is, fans would work together to aggregate videos, tweets, and articles so that everyone in the community was up to date.

Quite a few of us had a bias towards certain contestants. This is understandable, given the fact that we were fans of a singing competition – undoubtedly some of us would have favorites and want them to win and be successful. But as loyals (described by Jenkins in contrast to zappers and casuals) who gathered in an online community, the connection we felt to the contestants was very strong. So strong, in fact, that we took it upon ourselves to try to trend different hashtags for our favorite Idols. During the summer of 2009, the community celebrated by trending #happybdaykrisallen and creating a fan video with user-submitted images.

This desire to connect with the contestants on screen is not unlike that of the Survivor fans Jenkins discusses. The fans in the Survivor community who focus on spoilers look at the show on a deeper level. Gone are the days of simply wanting to know who wins – these fans want to know about the challenges, want to know how contestants got certain injuries, and, simply put, want to figure out the ending for themselves instead of having it explained by the show. The same sort of thing was occurring in the American Idol fandom – we definitely wanted to know more about the contestants, but we knew better than to trust every video package at face value. This, then, is why we gravitated towards things like tweets and conversations with family members.

Fan communities are a bit of a beastly thing. Whether it’s a reality show or a serialized drama, the intensity that fans bring to their viewing experience works not only to create buzz around the show, but also work to create bonds among fans. It was interesting reading about the fame gained by user ChillOne among the Survivor fan communities. I myself have definitely noticed the Big Name Fan phenomenon happen across various fandoms. In either case, from what I’ve noticed, Big Name Fans (and their followers) don’t tend to dominate fan spaces because these communities are meant for discussion with others – and it is perhaps this sense of open dialogue is what makes fandom so appealing to many loyals.