What if the biggest mistake brands make isn’t failing to go viral, but believing they could control it in the first place?
Oliver Atkinson sits down with Henry Jenkins, Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts and Education at the University of Southern California, to explore why “going viral” is the wrong goal, and what fandom actually asks of a brand. Jenkins made fandom a serious subject with his 1992 book Textual Poachers, and he argues the word viral describes a level of control brands lost decades ago.
The conversation is thick with examples. Jenkins unpacks why Lotso, a minor Toy Story villain, is everywhere in China while unknown in the US, and what that reveals about fandom being built by fans, not brands. He draws the sharp line between a loyal customer (his toilet paper) and a fan (his Lego), and explains the “moral economy” of trust that makes audiences feel entitled to content when brands withhold it. He praises Remington’s playful “how does Superman shave?” campaign and Lego’s Braille instructions, born from a blind fan’s grassroots fix, then dissects where A24 went wrong issuing takedowns to the very Backrooms community that fed its biggest hit. Survivor’s broken promise to fans gets the same treatment.
With fans able to abandon a brand “within hours” in the social media age, this episode is for marketers, creatives, leaders and internal comms teams. The takeaway: stop shouting at the cocktail party. As Jenkins puts it, “companies don’t create fans, they court them.”
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