Another one from the archives everyone! I presented this paper in 2017 but thought it was time to put it out there since Supernatural (2005-2020) is just ending its 15 season run. I say this is about Supernatural, but it’s really about Supernatural fans and the ways in which they’ve been put to work in service of others.

The Supernatural fandom labours all the time and in many different ways and there is just no way I could talk about all of that labour in one presentation (I think it would be a great book though!). Fans of the show labour as show boosters, and supporting their stars, but they also labour for the community creating charities and supporting others started by the stars themselves. The fandom has proved itself a force for fundraising and as loyal support – which is part of the reason the show has been able to stay on the air for 15 seasons earning the title of the longest-running genre show on broadcast television.

The strength of the fandom has led many to make use of it. I will be talking about power/control to a certain extent, but I want to pause very briefly here to recognize that fans are autonomous entities. They are not unaware of their own labour so we do need to recognize their choice in this situation. Likewise, fans organize on their own and would continue to do so without the intervention of “the powers that be” (TPTB). However, the relationship between fan & producer is changing and the fact is that fandom exists very clearly within a commercial/consumerist society means that the ways in which most fans now enact their fandom are determined by consumerism to some extent. The uneven distribution of power and control means that producers are often in a position to exploit fans. I don’t like the term “exploit,” though, because it does ignore the power fans themselves wield. So, I try to discuss things in terms of “leveraging” the power of fandom. 

So, with that said, I am actually interested in discussing the ways in which the show’s creator, Eric Kripke, has recently leveraged the Supernatural fandom in support of his new (at the time) show Timeless (2016-2018). Kripke created Supernatural in 2005 and it has become a flagship show for the CW. Though Kripke left the show as showrunner after season 5, he has remained close to the fandom through social media. Kripke and Shawn Ryan co-created the show Timeless for the 2016-17 season. This show follows the adventures of a history professor, soldier, and scientist as they travel back to a different time period each week to stop a man who is determined to change the timeline. As the show develops we learn more about the overarching conspiracy while getting to know our main characters and learning about history (in the same way that shows like Sleepy Hollow (2013-2017) have taught us about popular conceptions of American history).  

Throughout the life of the show Kripke has, of course, pushed hard for new viewers on twitter. He didn’t immediately call upon the Supernatural fandom to support this new product, but he did request that help fairly early on. Since joining in 2015, Kripke has become a fairly prolific tweeter, as most successful producers of television content must be. As the promotion of the show gets going in the summer months of 2016 with San Diego Comic-Con and the show’s premiere, these tweets show up more often, as does the “spnfamily” hashtag. 

As promotion for the show ramps up, so does his engagement with the fans. Regardless the reason for the initial increase in engagement with the fandom for a different show, Kripke began to appeal directly to that massive fanbase in a different way once the show got started. We see him make direct connections between story elements and characters. By pointing out elements of Timeless that were inspired by elements of Supernatural, Kripke is appealing to the intertextual nature of fandom. Most fans do not limit their interests to one product and crossover fic and art is quite popular. By making the connections between storyworlds obvious, Kripke is inviting a certain kind of reading and engagement with his oeuvre.

This cross-promotion all culminates in a push to get fans to join the show after the mid-season break by revealing the inclusion of two popular actors from the Supernatural world. Jim Beaver joined the show in episode 14 and shortly after Misha Collins joined. Kripke presented the inclusion of these two actors as a treat for the Supernatural fandom and worked very hard to get existing fans to “tune in” since, as he reminded everyone, NBC cares most about same day and time viewers. 

Kripke’s ploy worked. According to social media anyway – many existing Supernatural fans did tune in just to see Misha Collins … and were sorely disappointed. Spoiler alert here (though, if you didn’t know this had happened, you probably don’t care about the show or the actor!), Misha’s character (Elliott Ness) was killed off early on in the episode. Fans, as you can see from these tweets, were very upset.

The term “Misha-baiting” was coined at this point based on the term “queerbaiting” and meant to describe the way in which Kripke baited his audience with the promise of Misha, only to pull the bait away at the last minute and reveal it was a hook meant to catch them. 

Now, I’m not suggesting showrunners should never make connections between their own products, but I am interested in the way Kripke leveraged his fans and the intertextual nature of fan culture to sell his new product. He wrote a trip to NASA into Timeless that includes a scene with an Impala just like the car, affectionately named Baby, that Sam and Dean drive in Supernatural and tweeted about the connection using the “spnfamily” hastag. This direct engagement with the fans is pretty smart marketing. It relies on fan labour to sell the merchandise. But it isn’t really all that new. There is evidence of engaging “fans” (before critical/popular discourse referred to them as such) throughout history including early film, for example where we get tie-in marketing between newspapers and serials or magazines appealing to the fan and offering meet and greets with actors (whereas fans now can try to directly engage with those actors on social media). I do think that the conception of a fan has changed and that marketing agencies are interested in a new idea of the traditional demographic – they are now looking for the fan demographic, rather than a specific age/race/class/gender, etc. – they are interested in the type of person that will bring a certain level of engagement to their role as audience member. Along with this comes a desire to control what it means to be a fan. Corporations are always interested in taking something that works really well and making it work for them. Fandom can be one of those things, but it can also turn against the creator.

One thing that producers tend to forget when embracing the new pliability/complete lack of the fourth wall dividing fans and producers made possible by social media, is that it is not a one-way relationship. While producers may hold most of the power, fans are not the sheep that producers are looking to cultivate. Kripke’s push to leverage the Supernatural fandom has, on occasion, failed. The Misha-baiting situation was the biggest example of that momentary failure, but by no means the only. Kripke’s attempts to appeal to the fans by connecting the names of two characters led to many fans pointing out Supernatural’s problem with fridging and/or killing off all of its female-identified characters. This one seemingly innocuous tweet opened up a debate that has raged in the Supernatural fandom, ultimately bringing all of its baggage to this new, fledgling show. While Kripke’s attempts to #RenewTimeless were generally positive, these minor moments are reminders that the Supernatural fandom could just as easily boycott the show as promote it.

In Fan Studies we like to talk about the transformative nature of fandom and its positive nature. I am certainly not disagreeing with this position, but I think it is important to note, as people like Anne Jamison (2013) have, that, while we may talk about fandom as one mass, fans themselves are individuals and have individual perspectives. This means that not every fic written is really that transformative (in fact, many aren’t) and that fandom is not a place of rainbows where everyone gets along and appreciates the differing opinions of other fans. Fans also have different relationships with TPTB varying from complete refusal to take their intentions into consideration to wide-eyed belief and loyalty. Obviously, corporations are interested in the latter type of fan. One that is cowed into producing fanworks that rival anything the marketing team could produce and at a much cheaper price – namely a retweet or reblog vs. actual payment for services rendered.  

Theorists looking at the internet – and its early public history in particular – have discussed the free labour users have put into the medium. Tiziana Terranova (2000), for example, suggests that this work building websites – freely given and enjoyed – was (and is) required for the internet to become the place it is today. Abigail de Kosnik (2012; 2013) takes this idea and extends it to free fan labour suggesting that the material created by fans (websites, fic, art, vids, gifs, meta, etc.) is representative of unpaid labour. She goes on to question whether this labour should/could be paid for and what it would do to the culture of fandom. Beyond this work that is freely created by fans for fans, we must consider the work fans do for the producers/TPTB. Leaving aside the fact that the act of sharing fan works within the fan community is a form of advertising, if only to other fans, the nature of social media and Web 2.0 is such that fan material is both shared with a wider audience and appropriated by TPTB themselves. Producers have begun soliciting content to be used as advertising material (as shown above). They have also begun creating avenues for fans to play with that material – in a way that allows them the opportunity to restrict how that material is considered (so, we may get slash, but it is often a watered-down version). 

Kripke is part of this process whether he considers himself a part of the system or not. In fact, Kripke himself uses the terminology “TPTB” to appeal to the fans and place himself as outside of that structure. While he may not be in charge of which shows get renewed at NBC, Kripke is definitely in a position of power. By appealing to the Supernatural fandom, and in the language of the fandom, he is helping to reshape what fandom is and can be. He, like the corporations with whom he works, wants a group of people who consume voraciously, but respectfully. When Kripke discusses ships on the show, he speaks only of naming the main pairing of Lucy and Wyatt – should it be Lyatt or Wucy? No space is made for Rufus and Wyatt or even Rufus & Jiya – the only relationship that actually exists in the storyworld.

This push toward something the show (and Kripke as a writer) is supporting shows how Kripke is interested in the labour of fans, but only in a way that he approves. My suggestion is that TPTB are finding new ways to control fans and their engagement with the content and each other online. This is leading to a reshaping of the meaning of being a fan. Essentially, TPTB are appropriating fan engagement for their own benefit.