Reflections on Teaching Popular Culture and Taylor Swift (Aca-Fan in the Philippines)

Purpose: problematize what it means to be an aca-fan in the Philippines; share learnings from teaching Celebrity Studies: Taylor Swift in Focus at UP Diliman.
Key term: aca-fan (coined by Dr. Henry Jenkins) – fans who integrate fannish life into academic work.

Personal engagement with local and transnational pop culture (komiks, TV, movies, radio).
Active fannish life spans: X-Files, superhero/sci‑fi/fantasy, queer female characters (Thai GLs), POC-centered shows (Warrior Nun), local Darna fandom (Darlentina: Darna × Valentina, 2022 series).
Celebrity fandoms: Angel Locsin, Angelina Jolie, and a sustained Swiftie identity.
Fan practices: collect merch, read fanfics, buy tickets, donate to campaigns, defend favorites online, write essays, attend conventions, maintain a fan account.

Field: media studies with roots in Philippine Studies; emphasis on local conditions and historical context.
Theoretical anchors: political economy of media, gender, popular culture, and fandom.
Acknowledgement of potential biases from being an aca-fan and the importance of reflexivity.

First pivotal moment: pursuing the 2007 Darna TV series for an interview with Angel Locsin; Textual Poachers (1992) inspiration; led to dissertation work and later teaching on media cultures and superheroes.
Second pivotal moment: the 2022 Philippine presidential elections; celebrity volunteers and fan mobilization; observed Swiftie activism supporting Leni-Kiko; demonstrated how transnational celebrity can be repurposed as political capital; linked to ongoing research on fandom and activism.

Questioning global north/global south binaries; prefer terms that acknowledge diverse popular cultures beyond Hallyu, Japanese anime, Thai BL, and Bollywood.
Third world as a condition and third space (Homi Bhabha, $1994$ ): in-between spaces where new cultural identities form and transform.
UP Diliman’s Taylor Swift course (celebrity studies) sparked online debate in Feb $2024$ ; some criticisms and calls for dismissal; underscores tensions around value, resources, and taxpayers’ investment.
Clarification: the class examines celebrity culture as embodied by Taylor Swift, not a degree in Taylor Swift.

Education crisis and misperceptions: course vs degree; desire for more “productive” subjects that seem job-oriented.
Popular culture often undervalued in academia and public discourse; anecdote about Eat Bulaga as an underexplored political/cultural site.
Narrow definitions of “national” in pop culture studies; media products are inherently transnational, translocal, and global in form and content.
Evolution of fandom scholarship: from national focus to cosmopolitanism and transcultural fandom, with political engagement as a dimension.

Fandom practices and scholarship have shifted from nation-centric frameworks (Iwabuchi) to broader transcultural perspectives (Jenkins, Chin & Morimoto).
The author emphasizes that aca-fan practice is not constrained by geography; knowledge is produced in interstices rather than fixed borders.

UP and state-funded education: education should be for the public good, potentially free and freeing, not merely debt to be repaid.
Socio-economic realities: students and families ask what a class teaches them about employability and career skills; the author highlights communication and media strategy competencies relevant to a media-saturated environment.
Teaching approach: using social media sensing as an active-learning tool to analyze online discourse and foster critical reflection.
Pop culture courses as a way to connect learning to daily life and youth aspirations (Dream Project PH; Joaquin, $2022$ ).

The author remains a fan and finds meaning in fan-driven identities, which contribute to personal and intellectual development.
Universities can be spaces for humane, creative inquiry (pagkatao); pop culture can anchor learning in everyday experience.
Being a fan is part of personal identity and pedagogy, with potential for social relevance and humanizing education in challenging times.

Bhabha, H. K. ( $1994$ ). The location of culture. Routledge.
Chin, B. & Morimoto, L. H. ( $2013$ ). Towards a theory of transcultural fandom. Participations: Journal of audience and reception studies, 10(1), 92-108.
Iwabuchi, K. ( $2010$ ). Undoing international fandom in the age of brand nationalism. Mechademia 5, 87-96.
Iwabuchi, K. ( $2002$ ). Recentering globalization: Popular culture and Japanese transnationalism. Duke University Press.
Jenkins, H., Shresthova, S., Gamber-Thompson, L., Kligler-Vilenchik, N., & Zimmerman, A. M. ( $2016$ ). By Any Media Necessary: The New Youth Activism (Vol. 3). NYU Press.
Jenkins, H. ( $2006$ ). Fans, bloggers and gamers: Exploring participatory culture. NYU Press.
Jenkins, H. ( $1992$ ). Textual poachers: Television fans and participatory culture. Routledge.
Joaquin, B. ( $2022$ , January 7). ‘8 Out Of 10 Filipinos Do Not Have A Dream. One News PH. https://www.onenews.ph/articles/8-out-of-10-filipinos-do-not-have-a-dream