Practicum 7-Lauren

Today my attention was drawn to the large percentage of users on my Gleefan website that consist of a young female demographic. I kind of can’t believe it took me this long to realize that the very vast majority of the Gleefan users are largely female (just like these crazy, adoring fans seen above). Although there is no way to specifically know any of these user’s ages, their discussion seems to be a tell-tale sign of such. Most of the discussion boards in the “mature” section consists of male character discussions. Even the discussion forums that talk about the hottest girl on the show is mainly dominated by female users. It’s very clear just from the content of the posts, that many of the posters are indeed women. Beyond that, the genre of Glee consists of a mixture of musical, comedy, and drama. The drama and musical aspects of the show, definitely cater to a much larger female audience than it does male. Comedy is what keeps Glee from becoming so hyper-feminized and helps to bring in a wider, more gender mixed audience.

But, again speaking more specifically about the Gleefan website-- I believe that this female dominated discussion is indicative of the large audience base that the television show is actually targeting— so it makes perfect sense that majority of users on this site are younger females. I think that this shapes the website in a very specific way. It guides much of the initial topics for discussion forums, as well as the direction in which these discussion forums go. I think it’s very important to realize your audience when studying these various online communities. And my study is unique due to the fact that is a special interest fan site, largely dominated by a young, female audience.