Critically comment on any aspect of fan labour
The economic exploitation or unilateral monetisation of the intellectual property created by
their fans, done by the objects or subjects of fandom (such as popular brands, celebrities and
artists etc.) is one aspect of Fan Labour that has been historically been swept under the carpet
in the capitalistic social setup. However, many scholars in the past few decades have started
to voice their opinion through publishing academic literature highlighting the multifaceted
exploitation of fan’s labour that is carried out by multinational corporations. LEGO and its
business strategy provides one of the most peculiar examples of Fan Labour being capitalised
by corporations for idea generation, content production and product marketing, while
simultaneously making the consumers (fans) feel a growing bond between them and the
object of their fandom (that is, LEGO Playsets). The article titled “How Do Danish Bastards
Sleep at Night?”: Fan Labor and the Power of Cuteness by Joyce Goggin presents a
comprehensive analysis of the company’s business strategies and mobilisation of fan labour
to produce more business for the company.
The author provides a brief backdrop of the circumstances that lead to the farming of fan’s
creative labour (in the form of acknowledging and posting the work,) that proffered financial
gains and free promotion of the LEGO Group’s product. As the brand grew and fan culture
around LEGO developed, fans started making stop motion animated films, creating characters
with personalities and live-action storylines using only LEGO blocks and objects, which were
eventually termed as “Brickfilms”. The first brickfilm “Journey to the Moon” dates back to
1973, however, the initial few brickfilms were not picked up and released by the LEGO
Group until 2013. the brickfilms were most significantly popularised by music videos made
for recording studios which were broadcasted widely through the MTV Network. Summarily,
the it can be concluded that the LEGO Group cashed in on the animated Brickfilms concept
that was an idea generated by fans. The company started officially commissioning fan-made
brickfilms in 1987, however, with the beginning of the 21st century, the company started
encouraging such production which helped the LEGO Group advertise new themes of the
LEGO Playset. The company’s financially driven decision making is evident from the fact
that the LEGO Group started releasing the initial few brickfilms made in the 1970s and 1980s
online in 2013, only when a financially viable broadcasting platform (such as YouTube) was
available, which further enabled them to derive profits from fan-made content. While on the
