I've been fascinated with the idea of "Participatory Culture" since I first read some of Henry Jenkin's work on the subject in my Freshman year of undergrad. It's the fan culture that arises from privatized work. A cultural space that forms in the gutters of media monopolies.

What's The Problem

We live in an era where the culture we belong to is almost entirely private. Our childhood songs, our favorite books, most memorable pop-culturally heroes; they all belong to private corporations. In order to even engage with the culture and media have been surrounded by since birth, we need to create an alternative cultural body that lives in spite of the people who control the culture. From fan games to fan fiction, we create this participatory culture by scraping together whatever we can in hidden corners of the internet, avoiding the legal repercussions if our work gets too much notice.

Unlike the folk culture that came before us, we cannot truly make a living fully engaging with our culture, unless we join the corporations that control them. In fact, all "proper" engagement with our culture involves supporting the corporations and billionaire rights-holders. This not only limits what official or canonical media can be created and who can create it, but it requires we financially support and back entities, even if they go against our morals just to be a part of a culture.

An Example

Take J. K. Rowling and the Harry Potter series. The series lives as a massive part of Western culture. For some, it has defined their pop-cultural upbringing. Reading the books in school, seeing the movies as a teenager with their friends, dressing in their House colors all the time, going to fan meetups or engaging with fans online; Pop-culture creates a cultural identity. A cultural identity that now relies on directly funding anti-trans legislation. J. K. Rowling was a key part in the 2024 UK Supreme Court ruling that trans women are not considered women under UK law, donating the equivalent of around $88,200 to the anti-trans group For Women Scotland to aid their appeal. She has since started her own anti-trans fund, J. K. Rowling Women's Fund using the money that she has earned from Harry Potter.

The band-aid solution is to just leave behind the culture we participate in for another participatory culture living under the watchful eye of another private controller. It's not a solution, it's a cycle. We have watched creator's turn our culture into funding for hate and violence. We have seen creator's abandon their official cultural media while cracking down on participatory media like fan games or preservation efforts. There needs to be a radical change in how we participate in our culture. One that center's the participates and gives them direct access to the culture. One that makes us collaborators instead of consumers.

We Already Have Solutions

This isn't unheard of in today's culture. Greek Mythology has been a staple of Western pop-culture. Especially since it's has been entwined with Western education in such a way that that it becomes a part of our cultural upbringing some way or another. Despite popular adaptions like Disney's Hercules, Greek Mythology has evaded a modern canonical legacy. Instead, the myths, the themes, and the characters continue to be engaged with in a variety of ways. This isn't participatory culture, it is a collaborative folk culture that we can engage with on equal footing as most creators.

Recent collaborative cultures aren't unheard of either. The SCP Foundation is a collaborative horror fiction wiki site that not only allows people to contribute directly to the wiki, but allows people to freely adapt and transform the material since it is released under a Creative Commons license. This again, offers a collaborative culture instead of one controlled by a private entity.

We need more open culture projects. We need more culture that is built from the ground up for anyone to contribute to, not just a corporation or a handful of creators. You should be able to proudly engage in the culture and media you grew up with without fear of legal recourse. This could be through a centralized collaborative wiki like the SCP Foundation or even a network of fiction using the same characters under a Creative Commons license that allows anyone to collaborate, form their own ideas of canon, and just be an equal part of the culture.