Beyond The Box (BTB): Introduction and Chapter 1

Ross brings up many points that I have talked about with my friends. Having been briefly part of the Buffy phase, I find it hard to believe that it was considered such a cult, solely because all of my friends watched it. I thought that it everyone watched Buffy and it was considered a cult because of the dark alternative style that the show had. Which I find interesting to look at, as Ross mentions, what constitutes a cult, is shaky considering; a cult by definition has to be something appreciated by a small group of 'certain' people and topic. It also helped that it was on WB and UPN two networks that weren't too mainstream.

Following Ross' arguments was fairly easy but I didn't find it particularly stimulating. The use of her research group anecdotes was engaging and nice to read however, I think it was over used to hammer in a point, which was simple enough. I wish that she went further into the interactions between the Internet audience dialogue and its translation and effect on the television programming. She sets up the triple O terms: overt, organic, and obscure, however briefly uses them in Chapter 1. I find these terms to be very interesting and wish she used some more examples in regards to Xena and Buffy to make her arguments stronger, because citing only a few examples, especially her Buffy organic description of Jonathan's character, was not very convincing.

I liked a lot of the work and topics that she is presenting and thinks that she brings a lot of the Internet fan cult/culture worlds to light. However, I do think that she could be more concise with her evidence, many of these topics and examples seemed redundant and filled with common knowledge.