the-blorbo-project

[the-blorbo-project]

Blorbos at Conference!

Long time, no update, but this project is moving forward! This weekend, we're at a conference hosted by the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, or SCMS, presenting as part of a panel devoted to fan studies.

Why do panels matter?

First and foremost, it's a way to get research before a bunch of other researchers while it's still in progress. This helps catch poorly formed ideas, surface new good ideas, and share what's coming up with the fan studies research communities. It's also good for our humble PhD student CVs!

The Findings

Of course, the most interesting part is what, actually, we're presenting, AKA the findings! They're a work in progress, and the hardest part is the coding (talked about here). Therefore, I'm focusing on what I could do deep analysis on relatively quickly. (note: these images don't have image IDs because I summarize them below, but they're graphic representations of what I talk about in the text).

The majority of survey respondents were young: about 39% were 18-22 and 32% were 23-27. A further 17% were 28-32, about 8% were 33-37, and then it got progressively smaller from there. Shoutout to all 3 respondents who were 63 and over! So glad you're here.

In terms of social media usage, most people used tumblr - unsurprising, since that's where we got our most traction for the survey. Discord was the second most likely. Part of a later analysis will be seeing if these terms are more likely to be used by different age groups or on different platforms, which is cool.

Almost everyone surveyed had heard of these terms. Blorbo was the most-used and meow meow was least used, but very, very few respondents had not heard of these terms at all. This may be in part due to how we used them in our survey recruitment, since we did want to find people who knew what these terms were so that they could define them for us.

These numbers slope slightly down because something broke when we imported them into NVivo (a coding software) and frankly I don't understand it well even when it actually works, let alone when it breaks.

Here's a little visual of the terms you suggested for characters. Unfortunately, NVivo crashes every time I try to exclude words from this word bubble (like "term"), so it's not as clear as I'd like it to be, but there are some interesting ones. Particularly interesting are the cluster of gendered terms; husbando and waifu, malewife, sexyman, boy, girl, etc. I want to do some analysis of this because it parallels some preliminary coding results. Y'all also really find your blorbos scrunkly/skrunkly/scrungly, huh?

I also want to figure out how to tell the visualizer that "glup" and "shitto" go together, because "shitto" all by its lonesome over there is cracking me up.

Qualitative Findings

Like I said, the coding is...so far from done. That's mostly due to some Ao3-author levels of life disruption from both of us. BUT! I can tentatively say a couple of things:

There are notably clear definitions about these terms. We weren't sure if there even really was a definition of "blorbo", but it clearly refers to a very specific kind of one-true-character. By contrast, comfort characters are associated with experiencing positive emotions, and meow meows are more likely to be evil or morally grey (but you love them though).

Unsurprisingly, your characters make you happy. We're distinguishing between general positive emotions, attachment, relatability, and one-true-character belovedness. Also sexiness, but that (surprisingly) hasn't come up that much.

There are a couple of ways in which darker themes come up. Villains remain beloved, but a recurring theme is also using tragedy or trauma in fiction as catharsis.

Finally, there's a lot of playful and tactile language. "Rotating him in my mind" really is that common.

Additionally, I'm really interested in the role of gender. Many of you referred to your blorbos/meow meows as your guys, with some of you clarifying that it was "my little guy (gender neutral)". Others noted that most characters you'd seen people describe as blorbos or meow meows were men/masc. This did not come up for comfort characters. Analysis of the characters you consider exemplars of each definition will help flesh out this analysis.

Still to Come

SO much. Who are these characters? Is a specific character exclusively a meow meow, or are they also a common comfort character? What types of positive emotion are associated with each type? Are these character types or do they speak to a fan's individual (or a fandom's communal) relationship with a character?

Additionally - we didn't ask about neurodivergence, but many of y'all referenced it. I'm looking forward to exploring that as well.

That's all for now! I present this live in about two hours. If you're somehow following this account AND at SCMS, please come by!

[the-blorbo-project]

she IS the blorbo

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creating an OC for your favorite media is like “look, it’s blorbo from my delusions of grandeur!”

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Me in public: I'm such a normal media consumer! i like stuff just the right amount! just like everyone else!! i'm not weird at all!

Me at home:

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It's fun talking about characters you have a complicated relationship with like omg I love him so much, I'm gonna kick him into the sun <3

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When I say “rotating my blorbos in my mind” it’s imperative you know I am not only spin-drying them horizontally and vertically but also this

[Image: several simple, black-and-white line doodles of a nondescript figure small enough to fit in a hand. In the first, they are sitting in the palm of an outstretched hand, as though being presented politely to the viewer. In the second, the hand is being turned so that they must struggle to climb over from one flat side to the other to stay on top, much like a lizard might. In the third, the two hands are clasped around each other, with only the two eyes of the small person visibly peering from the space within. In the fourth, the person is lying on their front, pressed against the floor by the hand’s much larger thumb. Their eyes are wide and they flail their limbs in futile attempts to escape. End ID.]

[the-blorbo-project]

Blorbo from my shows / Blorbo

Noun

An endearing term used to describe one's favorite fictional character from any form of media.

Source(s) and other definitions under the cut

Knowyourmeme: "Blorbo From My Shows is a slang term for a person's favorite fictional character and is used similarly to terms such as Glup Shitto and Scrimblo Bimblo."

Urbandictionary: "Originating on Tumblr, the term 'blorbo' refers to a person's favorite or beloved character from any piece of fandom media. Can be synonymous with scrunkly, scrimblo, or eeby deeby."

Source (found via user @/lumarys! tysm! :D)

[the-blorbo-project]

logging onto tumblr be like

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*to the tune of She’s Always a Woman by Billy Joel* He’s Wet and a Freak but he’s always a Blorbo to meeeeeee

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I would greatly appreciate if you would reblog this for a greater sample size!

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he has bewitched me mind body and soul

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*turning to my mutual* Hey, can you hold my blorbo while I use the bathroom? I only trust you with them

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He's so blorbo shaped 😊

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THE TUMBLR HORSE DERBY

WELCOME TO THE FIRST TUMBLR HORSE DERBY (that i know of, anyway)

HOW TO HORSE: 🐎🐎🐎 - Vote for your FAVOURITE horse to make them go faster! (yknow, like those carnival horse derby games!) MAY THE BEST HORSE WIN

(also sample size reblog yadda yadda yadda HORSE)

[the-blorbo-project]

can you guess who my new blorbo is

[the-blorbo-project]

for the redditors coming here, this is how we spread news of important events in the world, with a Destiel meme