1. Introduction
[1.1] "And to my right is Bessie Strong Hall. You may recognize it as Gilbert Hall in A Different World. Many of the outside scenes were filmed on this campus." This fact was my favorite part of my job as an undergraduate tour guide at Spelman College. It allowed me to highlight my Black cast sitcom fandom and identify others who may share my enthusiasm. Guests would express their fandom by posing in front of the hall or quoting lines from the Black college-based NBC sitcom. For a moment, we entered what Victoria Godwin calls an "immersive experience" in the fictional Hillman College from the series (2020, 136). On one tour, a guest asked me, "Do you-all sell any merchandise from A Different World?" To my continued disappointment and dismay, the answer was no. As a fan of television, I was excited that I could locate merchandise from some of my other favorite television shows: Saved by the Bell (NBC, 1987–93) Bayside High School shirts or Jem (Syndication, 1985–88) shirts that recreated Jem and the Holograms band merchandise. However, no matter how hard I searched in mainstream fan apparel stores such as Hot Topic or Spencer's, there was nothing to represent any of the Black cast sitcoms I loved, such as A Different World (NBC, 1987–93), Martin (Fox, 1992–97), The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (NBC, 1990–96), or Living Single (Fox, 1993–98). For many Black fans, this experience is all too common. A lack of merchandise reveals a capitalist structure blind or indifferent to Black fans' desire for paratextual acknowledgment. However, Black fandoms always find a way, usually through unlicensed fan apparel, thus bringing visibility to Black television audiences and fans.
[1.2] This Black fan response to a lack of paratextual acknowledgment reflects how Black folks respond to the dominant culture. Peter Parisi, who examines Black fan merchandise, states, "African American culture by definition and necessity works in relation to dominant culture products. But the result is often distinct cultural inventions" (1993, 130). Those inventions include music, dance, and fashion. Parisi offers as examples DIY apparel and Black fan merchandise. In the early 1990s, Black TV fans of The Simpsons (Fox, 1989–) created Black Bart Simpson shirts to showcase their fandom. Another DIY Black fan apparel example is the African American Collegiate Alliance (AACA). AACA is a Black-owned collegiate clothing brand that appeared in Black media in the 1990s. Distinct for the kente-patterned AACA patch on the sleeve of shirts, this marketing of the Black higher education experience includes collegiate apparel for not only historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) but also predominantly white institutions and other minority-serving institutions. Many Black educational experiences are marketed by Black celebrities in music, film, and television. That brand focused on putting young Black faces in college apparel. Frequently DIY Black apparel is sold on the streets or in urban storefronts (Parisi 1993). The Hillman Bookstore uses a similar model but makes the collegiate experience a fictional one accessible to all. Items featuring Black Bart Simpson or AACA were sold on the streets, by local vendors, or in other modern-day African American Hush Harbors (AAHHs) such as beauty salons, barbershops, and community gatherings where local vendor solicitation is expected. As defined by Vorris L. Nunley (2011), these AAHHs are places originally created during slavery where Black folks could gather in public spaces privately with one another. Instagram has become a digital street vendor for Black DIY apparel merchants and consumers. The app recreates these physical Black commonplaces into a digital one. This digital space allows for immersion into a fictional world. The Instagram account for the bookstore @hillmanshirts is an example of how Black cast television merchandise has led to a transformative fan response of unlicensed fan apparel that immerses a fan into a fictional world. This transformative Black fan response centers on Blackness in fan studies (Scott 2017).
[1.3] The Hillman Bookstore is an online clothing company that sells apparel replicated and inspired by Black cast television shows and films. Hillman is the name of the fictional HBCU from the series A Different World. The Hillman Bookstore carries merchandise from not only A Different World but also from other popular Black cast sitcoms of the 1980s and 1990s, such as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Living Single, The Cosby Show (NBC, 1984–92), and Martin, as well as films such as Hardball (2001), Coming to America (1988), Lean on Me (1989), Boomerang (1992), Black Panther (2018), and The Five Heartbeats (1990). The store launched on Instagram with its first post, "America's HBCU…," while advertising a Black male and female couple holding hands in Hillman College shirts. The Instagram page of the Hillman Bookstore, @hillmanshirts, has 25.2K followers, including celebrities and activists such as Amanda Seales, Issa Rae, Yvette Nicole Brown, Matthew A. Cherry, and Lena Waithe in clothing from the store. Original cast members of A Different World, including Kadeem Hardison and Jada Pinkett-Smith, have all been seen in Hillman College shirts on the Instagram page. The cast's participation in the page creates a sense of authenticity among Black media fans and lends a more credible marketing value to the Black fan media retail space.
[1.4] The Black television fans of the Hillman Bookstore ascribe to a fundamental aspect of media fandom as identified by Henry Jenkins in that they are not beholden to a single text, genre, or even conglomerate; they "embrace not a single text or even a single genre but many texts…at the same time, it constructs boundaries that generally exclude other types of texts" (2013, 1). As Jenkins describes, Black media fans construct their fandom, allowing them to spread across multiple Black cast texts instead of a single text. Alfred L. Martin Jr. (2019) has demonstrated how Black fan communities weave together disparate texts to create alternative canons. While Black fans similarly construct their fandom across a variety of media texts, Black fandom has been historically set aside or entirely ignored. Poe Johnson states that "fan studies' disregard for the racism and white supremacy both within media texts and fan communities should threaten the intellectual integrity of the field" (2020). The lack of acknowledgment of race leaves a monolithic fantasy field devoid of real-life identity that shapes fans and their engagement. Rebecca Wanzo (2015) calls out this problem while examining Black fandom and the theorization around Black fans as marginalized figures. Black online fandom exists, and as Kristen J. Warner has shown, it approaches online spaces in a particular way: "a fandom driven by dual functions: the typical love of their fan object intertwined with a desire for racial visibility onscreen" (2017a). Issues of race addressed in fandom also include fans' ability to immerse themselves in a story world. While fan studies and media companies have historically discounted or ignored Black fans, Black fans have a long history of catering to their community. The Hillman Bookstore builds upon this fandom and operates as a site of transactional fan participation as defined by Derek Johnson. Johnson identifies transactional fan participation as a paradigm in which media companies offer fans "an economy of media relations in which agency and autonomy extend from the capacity to spend money within a meaningful cultural field" (2019, 257). Transactional fandom on the Hillman Bookstore utilizes the A Different World fandom and understands that fans of this show are often fans of other popular Black cast media. What sets the transactional fan participation at the Hillman Bookstore site apart is that the production of commodity culture does not come from a media company but from Black fans.
[1.5] Black transactional fandom operates differently than other fandoms even though it may at first appear to be another example of what Kristen Warner calls "plastic representation," in which Blackness becomes defined by "an empirical system of 'box checking,'" a "representation that offers the feel of progress but that cedes more ground than it gains for audiences of color" (2017b). An example Warner gives of plastic representation is the creation of Mattel's Ava Duvernay Barbie. While Barbie gives a representation of Black female directors, its image alone does not change the systematic barriers that Black female directors face in Hollywood. Plastic representation is more prevalent in appealing to Black fans and audiences and tends to be more marketable. The idea is that adding an image of Blackness to an existing image denotes racial progress. In the apparel space in which the Hillman Bookstore operates, Ralph Lauren released a collection of Morehouse College and Spelman College apparel (Marius 2022). Most of the items in the collection are over $100, and the most expensive items are nearly $1,000, bearing the Spelman and Morehouse names on Ralph Lauren clothes. As exciting as the partnership of an American fashion label with two HBCUs is for visibility and scholarships, even with the collection's creator being Black, placing Black bodies in expensive Ralph Lauren apparel is an example of plastic representation in HBCU fan apparel. Sarah Banet-Weiser states that in a supposed "post-racial society," there are "recent shifts in capitalism that contain and market race and diversity in the media using new strategies" (2007, 214–15). Given this example, merchandise produced by companies that hail Black fans may signal empowerment or racial progress but fall short of achieving anything but a change of color. The Hillman Bookstore offers something more via the cosplay aspects of apparel that create an immersive experience. For the sake of this article, I use immersion rather than embodiment to describe the experience of visiting the Hillman Bookstore. Instagram offers immersion in an HBCU world, while the actual apparel offers embodiment. With the apparel rooted in a Black image, the apparel offers a racial embodiment. How does this embodiment work within race and with Black fan apparel created for an immersive experience? Franz Fanon (1967) defines racial embodiment in four ways: total objectification, impeded bodily schema, symbol of the race, and overdetermination from without. The immersive experience for Black fans operates in the same way as racial embodiment. The Hillman Bookstore allows fans to immerse themselves in an HBCU experience, even if it is a fictional one, by making themselves the object of the Black collegiate experience, one that is visibly Black and an immersive experience of Black collegiate life and aspirational social mobility.
[1.6] In order to investigate the potential of a Black fan media retail experience, I provide a site analysis of the Hillman Bookstore website (https://www.hillmanbookstore.com/) and Instagram account, utilizing André Brock's (2018) method of Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis (CTDA). CTDA argues for a critical cultural approach to the internet and new media technologies. It pulls from critical race theory, racial ideology, critical culture theory, and Western technocultural studies to examine a group's social discourse. CTDA looks at the material, practical, and discursive properties of blogs, websites, and video games and examines cultural practices in digital spaces. CTDA differentiates itself from other discourse analyses because it focuses on Black culture linked to personhood and citizenship and its position within white society. I examine how Black fandom constructs a media retail space and how the arrangement of that space reflects Black fandom's understanding of their consumer power and fandom status adjacent to white media retail offerings. Martin notes that Black fandom operates in three evangelistic ways: "First, Must-see Blackness describes Black fans' 'civic duty' to see Blackness in all of its forms. Second, economic consumption drives 'must-see Blackness' in the sense that Black fans are cognizant of the precariousness of Blackness's existence in spaces that are either historically white and have been hostile to the presence of Blackness. Third, Black fandoms (and anti-fandoms) are driven by their Pedagogical properties: how fit are fan objects for learning and role modeling?" (2019, 379). The Hillman Bookstore focuses on Black aspirational social mobility and the consumer's civic duty to model Black fan objects for role modeling and making Black aspirational social mobility culturally visible through consumerism.
[1.7] Where consumerism is the least meaningful form of fandom in other communities, it is one of the most significant in Black fandom because of long-standing visibility debates. Black fan merchandise is more than economic visibility. Purchases in the Hillman Bookstore transport the fans and create a shared space for Black fans to recognize and inhabit a world where their shows are centered. It offers a public passport that signals affinity of fandom defined by Black social mobility, such as collegiate apparel or HBCU apparel brands. This brand, unlike others, is also connected to a fictional story world. I argue that the Hillman Bookstore as a fan site seeks not only to make Black cast television and its fans visible but also to create an immersive experience that curates fan objects for role modeling Black social mobility, which is a central theme of the shows featured in the store, such as A Different World. I look to expand the scholarship around Black fandom and Black television fandom and make a distinction between Black television audiences and Black television fans. A key value of this transactional participation space is the celebration and desire to demonstrate Black aspirational social responsibility, whether it is through visibility or activism. In the case of the Hillman Bookstore, visibility's responsibility is to uphold Black social mobility culture through visual texts and transactional fan participation, which makes it distinct from other immersive experiences guided by fantasy worlds, such as Star Wars or Harry Potter. The Hillman Bookstore seeks to create a Black media canon where fandom is rooted in Black aspirational social mobility.
2. Black television fan visibility
[2.1] A Different World is a spin-off of the number one sitcom in America for five consecutive years, The Cosby Show. Both shows ranked in the top ten Nielsen ratings most of their time on prime-time television. However, according to the creator of the Hillman Bookstore, NBC Studios did not feature merchandise for the show at their flagship New York City location, The Shop. The creator of the Hillman Bookstore cites this absence as the inspiration for their online shop on their website, HillmanBookstore.com:
[2.2] Well, why don't you do something about it…In March of 2010, I decided to take a trip to New York to visit the place where some of my favorite past and present television programming was created; The world-famous "30 Rock." Home base for GE, NBC, Cabletown, and the Sheinhardt Wig Company. I reserved tickets for the page-guided tour months in advance. My excitement to visit the television station that was so influential to much of my childhood…After a wonderful tour, my enthusiasm was directed toward the NBC gift shop, where I saw all types of nostalgic merchandise from television sitcoms including Saved by the Bell and Knight Rider. Seeing the T-shirts from memory lane prompted me to look for items from two shows that helped to create the person I am today: The Cosby Show and A Different World.
[2.3] I never knew what an HBCU was before A Different World, but that show's positive influence was enough to make me choose one for my college education. So, there could not be a better way to pay homage to the fictional institution than to wear a T-shirt bearing its name. I searched through the entire store for an hour looking for anything from either of the two groundbreaking shows. I could not find any merchandise, so I asked an employee for help finding these items, and he reacted with a very cynical scowl before telling me- "We don't carry that stuff." I was beyond pissed and decided to do something because I feel like "we" matter, and deserve to be represented.—And that is how we are here…— HillmanBookstore.com—… It's bigger than just a TV show… (Hillman Bookstore, under "Our Story")
[2.4] The NBC stores' merchandise shows that the broadcast network is aware of fandoms around its shows that span different decades. The lack of visibility of Black cast sitcoms angers this fan. The creator of the Hillman Bookstore brings to light the lack of visibility of not only Black media text in merchandising but also the lack of consideration of fandoms within Black audiences and the role television plays in Black culture.
[2.5] Stuart Hall (2009) defines Black culture as operating in the following ways: signifying the Black community, traditions, Black experience historically, aesthetics, and the Black counternarrative. Black culture encompasses images of the Black community in traditions such as family reunions and the teaching of Black history rooted in human rights and resistance. Images of Blackness throughout history rooted in popular culture and the diversity of the community create counterarguments about how Blackness operates and exists. It is how one talks in different dialects and accents and how one's dress reflects their Black regional culture and taste. Black culture is all-encompassing of the Black diaspora but not monolithic nor limited to one style of Blackness. The Hillman Bookstore sells merchandise from Black shows that fit Hall's description of Black culture, and the site functions according to Hall's parameters. The Instagram site and website focus on the Black community, traditions, historical experience, aesthetics, and the Black counternarrative poached from Black television shows and movies to sell the merchandise.
[2.6] For this article and the shows highlighted in the Hillman Bookstore, Black television shows are defined as shows with a predominantly Black cast. Alfred L. Martin Jr. (2021) identifies Black cast sitcoms in three ways: the primary racial background of the cast, the racial background of the majority of the actual (versus imagined) audience, and the show's interest in engaging issues related to the Black American experience. Historically, Black cast television has been around since the dawn of television. From The Amos 'n' Andy Show (CBS, 1951–53) in the 1950s to The Jeffersons (CBS, 1975–85) in the 1970s and the boom of Black television in the 1980s and 1990s, these shows capture the Black community, traditions, historical experience, aesthetics, and the Black counternarratives in their series. These shows also have an actual Black audience. Beretta E. Smith-Shomade identifies Black audiences as being demarcated by Nielsen ratings from 1990 to 1991 (2012). The segmenting of audiences created the ability to track audiences and identify how to attract these audiences. Smith-Shomade states, "Black folks' television usage far outpaces viewing in 'other' households, and Blacks have a higher percentage of homes with multiple sets" (4). This television usage led broadcast networks, such as Fox, UPN, and WB, to build networks with Black audiences through Black blocking—a scheduling pattern of putting Black cast television shows together on one programming night. Martin gives an example of the results of Black blocking: "When Fox loaded up on Black cast series, only to dump those series once it had secured broadcasting rights to Sunday Night Football in 1994, it served as a 'lesson' for Black-cast sitcoms" (2021, 26). The lesson for Black fans that Martin points to is the ephemerality in the eyes of the media industries. As networks, cable channels, and streaming services continue to focus on niche audiences to build their brands, Black cast television grew in production and syndication. The Black television audience is still a target in media marketing and programming, with the target demographic curating in streaming services and their social media accounts, such as "Strong Black Lead" and "Scene in Black" present on Netflix and Max. Even with the marketability of Black audiences, there is still a distinction between Black television audiences and Black television fans. Black television fans are across social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram. With Instagram predating TikTok, the 'gram became a place for Black television fans to archive Black media clips and share their love of these Black media texts.
3. Black fans and the 'gram
[3.1] Instagram is a social media app that launched in 2010. Its original intent was for users to share photography. As the base grew and was purchased by Facebook, the focus became more on advertisement, marketing, and branding. The authors of Instagram: Visual Social Media Cultures explore how Instagram grew from a photography and visual communication app to the marketing and commodity app it is today (Leaver, Highfield, and Abidin 2020). Instagram's scrolling design allows one to stop and like a post if it catches one's eye. Lev Manovich (2017) identifies Instagram's visual aesthetics as key to the platform's appeal, stating, "If Google is an information retrieval service, Twitter is for news and links exchange, Facebook is for social communication…Instagram is for aesthetic visual communication." None of these apps is used solely for this purpose but have expanded into one another. Instagram's aesthetic visual communication makes it a prime space for Black television fans to immerse themselves in a fictional HBCU to communicate their fandom of Black media and the Black collegiate experience to others. Instagram's visual communication also makes it a prime space for media fans to cultivate archival accounts, immersive accounts, and fan accounts for various media objects. The app is free to use, which makes it the prime space for Black fans to sell DIY fan apparel as digital street vendors. Instagram operates as much as a digital commonplace as it does a fan space. Fandom spaces are central to identity formation, according to Poe Johnson: "Fandom spaces—as much ideological as mediated or physical—encourage a collective engagement with mediated objects—including bodies and people—that allows for the coalition of identity" (2020, 170). The Hillman Bookstore allows for the creation of Black fandom space that distinguishes itself from archival fan pages.
[3.2] Instagram has various pages dedicated to both individual shows and a wide array of Black cast productions. These social sites emphasize archival clips, fan polls, and engagements around the shows. On Instagram, one of the most popular Black media fan groups is @80s90sand00vibes, dedicated to Black sitcoms, movies, and music videos from the 1980s to 2000s with 547K+ followers. @classictvandfilm, with 277K+ followers, focuses on archival clips from Black film and television. @ourtvclassics, with 38.3K+ followers, and @blacktvsitcoms, with 220K+ followers, have a specific focus on Black cast television programs. While these sites provide diverse archival fan sites for Black popular culture and media, several Black Instagram fan pages focus on individual television series. No Black cast television series has more fan pages than A Different World.
[3.3] A Different World has been on television consistently since its original broadcast in 1987, transitioning from syndication to streaming. This consistent accessibility has allowed for the creation and sustainability of its fandom for over thirty years. This fandom receives numerous reunions, academic articles, and social media accounts dedicated to the college-based series. The sitcom has at least four social media fan pages, each with over 10K followers. The original fan page @adifferentworld8793 has 74.2K+ followers and is followed by the sitcom's cast. This fan page was established in 2014, the same year A Different World became available for streaming on Netflix and Hulu. @thehillmanfiles is a fan account created in August 2020 with 108K followers. Another fan page with a large following is the @thechipmunk_chronicles Instagram account. Established in 2016, it now has 33.5K+ followers and primarily posts fan art, along with iconic moments in Black popular culture, mainly television. Chipmunk comes from the lead character Dwayne Wayne's family nickname. The account is also one of the online stores where Hillman College paraphernalia can be purchased. However, the Chipmunk Chronicles store does not predate the Hillman Bookstore Instagram account. @hillmanshirts offers not just an opportunity to ensure the visibility of Black fandom but, because of its merchandise, also functions as a fan transactional participation space operated by Black fans.
[3.4] In order to access the Hillman Bookstore on Instagram, one must click on the link in the bio. Whereas other Black brands on Instagram, such as the Chipmunk Chronicles, offer direct links, the Hillman Bookstore reflects the earlier models of Instagram that required links in the bio instead of stories and posts to access shopping because @hillmanshirts predates 2018 and the integration of Instagram shopping links onto posts and stories (Castillo 2018). Thus, the Hillman Bookstore is also a product of early Black culture bearings on Instagram to push transactional fan participation. Its functionality demonstrates a dedication to the merchandise and community that requires more clicks and intention to participate. As a merchandise store, it comes with prices and access. Each item can cost between $19.99 and $34.99, making them reasonably affordable for some but out of reach for others. The aesthetic of the social media accounts markets to a particular Black fandom: socially mobile Black folks represented in the text. This fan identification with the Black socially mobile aesthetic puts forth in the narrative worlds the responsibility of Black people to not only represent a particular image of social mobility but also be socially engaged. Fan identification is most common in posts on the Hillman Bookstore Instagram account.
[3.5] The primary focus of the Hillman Bookstore Instagram page is reposting photos of fans in Hillman College merchandise. Based on the Instagram reposts of fans in the shirts, the Hillman College sweatshirt is the most popular item in the store. While the Instagram page focuses on extending the narrative world of the sitcom, fans take pictures of themselves in Hillman College shirts for them to be reposted on the page—reposting functioning as an act of reclamation. As Tori Omega Arthur describes, these posts reclaim representation within the Instagram platform: "Each post and repost act as a digital counter-power truth that articulates this community's values" (2021). Arthur is looking at how reposting for Black folks functions as a reclamation of representation. The reposting of photos of fans gives visibility to Black collegiate fans and shows the shared values of education of these specific Black television fans. Many of the fans' captions include "Proud Hillman Alum." The shirts allow fans to dress as the characters from A Different World recognizably, whether it be engagement photoshoots recreating Whitley and Dwayne couple moments or dressing as different characters. This participation encourages liminal play, a means that allows fans to display their affection and identification with the fictional world (Godwin 2018). Much like Harry Potter fans who purchase Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry apparel, there is a connection to educational fan play that immerses one into representing a fictional institution as a means of community building and identification. The double duty of the Hillman Bookstore is that the fictional world replicates the real world where Blackness and its institutions in education and media are often ignored, and those who participate are left to be the ambassadors of both. The lack of merchandise around these popular Black media texts shows how the industry understands Black audiences but still misunderstands and negates Black fans and their needs for immersion and story worlds that reflect their racialized reality.
4. Black fan cultural knowledge and immersion
[4.1] The distinction between the passive social media followers of Black media archival Instagram pages and individuals who engage with the Hillman Bookstore is transactional fan participation. Where the other pages may sell merchandise, @thechipmunk_chronicles and @thehillmanfiles primarily serve as an archival fan space for various Black-centered media. The Hillman Bookstore's primary function is to serve as a digital media retail space for Black media fans. Daniel Herbert and Derek Johnson explore this in the introduction to Point of Sale: Analyzing Media Retail. Media retail is often an entry point for fans to immerse in narrative worlds. The authors state, "Retailing of media matters in part because of the centrality of cultural text like movies, games, books, and songs to the formation of individual and communal identities" (2019, 3). With the scarcity of merchandise and physical sites dedicated to the immersion of fans into the Black television world, the Hillman Bookstore functions as a media retail immersive experience for fans to connect to different, Black-centered narrative worlds. The use of Black television and film actors from these narrative worlds in the Hillman Bookstore authenticates this immersive experience that media retail creates. This immersion in the narrative world functions in two ways through media retail. First, it is transactional, meaning it functions in the existing market structures. Second, it is interactional, giving the experience of functioning within everyday culture (Herbert and Johnson 2019). The Hillman Bookstore allows for transactional fandom with an interactional use through apparel.
[4.2] By purchasing Black media texts' apparel, fans participate in liminal play, allowing them to immerse themselves in the fictional world (Godwin 2018). Fans also take pictures of themselves in the apparel and tag the account. Archival images are changed to fit the narrative of the fictional Hillman College while recreating college life moments that replicate a real HBCU experience: Spring Break, Homecoming Court, and Alumni Associations. The creators market their apparel in a way that creates a new world where Black cast media lives in one Black cast media telecinematic universe that seemingly designs a Black media canon. It is the fan production and the fan material practice of the evangelistic labor of Black fans that defines a Black media canon. This fan labor functions to make visible Blackness in media, to operate as archivists and historians over Black media culture, and to be socially and politically engaged. In other words, it makes the Black aspirational social mobility culture visible.
[4.3] Visibility is not the only or primary means to fix systematic inequality. However, the lack of access to a Black cast television experience triggers a legacy of segregation that prohibited Black Americans from enjoying recreational activities such as sports, public parks, and retail spaces. In response, many Black Americans created their own spaces for recreation. The scarcity of Black media text merchandise brings forth the same message found across the assumed identity of many different fandoms: that fans are predominantly white and fandoms mainly exist in white cast media texts. Therein lies a fandom that seeks to make themselves and their fan object visible to Black audiences. As Martin describes, Black fandom is evangelistic: "Black fans are typically not just concerned with loving their fan object but are also interested in sharing that love with others while paying attention to Blackness's space within the media industries" (2019, 739). Fandom as an identity is not separate from a fan's race, gender, or sexual orientation. This identity and occupation of fan space can lead to consumerism. As Paul Booth (2015) suggests, the more people occupy fandom, the more media industries will capitalize on turning that identity into a site of commodification. The Black fan identity lends itself to commodification and labor, which becomes a Black civic duty to promote visibility. In essence, Black fan labor reminds the world through fan spaces that Black lives matter. The Instagram account @hillmantshirts functions as what Tori Omega Arthur calls a "digital culture bearing" that focuses on "combining arresting imagery, thoughtful captions and hashtags, and precise geotags [so] the posts function as moments of mass-mediated cultural reporting" (2022, 2). The account employs the Instagram platform to nurture wisdom about the Black collegiate experience. What makes it immersive is that it relies on consumer participation that constructs a space for Black collegiate and Black television fans' visibility and also gives them a unifying immersive experience of digital American Black collegiate space. The Hillman Bookstore gives folks the opportunity to digitally and fictionally embody an HBCU experience, but only if they have existing knowledge of Black culture and Black media.
[4.4] To participate in the store, one must already know about Black media text. For example, replicas of Hillman College and ULA shirts are fictional collegiate shirts—from A Different World and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, respectively—but the shows are not on the apparel. There are specific story arc replicas from different series, such as Byron Douglass and Maxine Shaw's campaign shirts from A Different World and Living Single. The store also includes shirts inspired by moments from individual TV show episodes, such as the Gordon Gartrell and Rent 'Em Spoons episodes from The Cosby Show and Martin. The gamut of merchandise reflects The Cosby Show's socially elite, Black family humor and the outlandish, Black, young adult humor found in Martin. The merchandise categorization defines a Black media canon that encompasses different styles of Black sitcoms and shows that the connective tissue of these media texts is simply their Black aspirational social mobility. The site's organization reflects the practices of Black cultural capital. The shared television histories define Blackness, in this case around a canon of the story world of Black higher education and social mobility. This story world is built upon different shows and characters seeking social mobility through education, the workforce, or community engagement. Because each item does not state its ontological visual text, fans must come in already with a deep knowledge of the Black visual texts to participate with the store. An awareness of Black cultural events must be present to engage with the store.
[4.5] The @hillmanbookstore page utilizes archival photos with fictional captions to portray Hillman College, paired with historical events in the Black college experience, such as Freaknik, the 1990s Black college Spring Break experience in Atlanta, and Black family cultural moments like the family reunion. The archival photos are a reminder of Black cultural history found in the merchandise that matches family reunion shirts, items tagged as throwbacks, and college-based shirts. The socially responsible message is not limited to only Black culture but also political engagement. Much of the merchandise pulls from moments of political engagement from the different sitcoms. There are always posts about voting around presidential and congressional elections that coincide with selling replicas of campaign shirts from different shows. In one post, Issa Rae is wearing a Vote for Maxine Shaw shirt. Some posts recognize the National Pan-Hellenic Council, the Divine 9, or Black Greek Letter Organizations (BGLOs). These BGLOs exist in the fictional Hillman College and on most college campuses with a Black student population and active Greek life. There are posts with fans in Hillman College shirts throwing up their respective BGLO's hand signs that recognize each organization's founder's day. The signaling of Black Greek life creates a unifying space for Black collegiate fans who find themselves in organizations not limited to HBCUs. These cultural references capture the attention of one with an in-depth knowledge of Black collegiate life and Black media iconography.
[4.6] The most photographed shirts on the sites are those from the fictional college of the Black characters across different sitcoms. The college-based shirts bring you into the world where these sitcoms focus on the importance of education. The shirts do not name what show they are from, so it requires a knowledge of the fictional universities in these shows to identify them. The ULA shirt is from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, the university the characters Will Smith and Carlton Banks attend. Another is a Wakanda University shirt with a black panther mascot but not the Marvel character. There is an emphasis on fictional Black education institutions while using archival photos of Black scholars. These items immerse us not only in the narrative world of Black education but also link us to a social message of the importance of Black education. As Martin (2019) highlights, this part of the Black fan experience creates objects for learning and role models in our fandom. Transactions are available through this college-based merchandise, particularly Hillman College shirts. The sole focus of the Instagram page is transactional fan participation. Black transactional fan participation creates an immersive experience for Black television fans.
[4.7] The Hillman Bookstore functions as an immersive experience, and its merchandise reflects the shaping of the Black popular media canon. The creator of the bookstore also shapes this canon based on their favorite Black media texts, excluding popular Black sitcoms such as Girlfriends (UPN/CW, 2000–2008), The Game (CW, 2006–2009), Moesha (UPN, 1996–2001), and The Parkers (UPN, 1999–2004). In fact, except for Living Single, most of the Hillman Bookstore's apparel focuses on Black media texts that are male-led, released in the 1990s, or come from the major broadcast networks. The question then is how a Black television media canon should be shaped and who gets to shape it. Is it possible to include other shows in this immersive space, or will that be up to another creator of Black cast television fans? While the Hillman Bookstore focuses on A Different World and predominately Black male-led media texts, one wonders about fan merchandise from predominately Black female-led media texts. While a window opens, many more must be cracked open for Black female-led television merchandise. The lack of Black female-led fan objects reflects the ways fans are gendered in fan studies and merchandise. What would the Hillman Bookstore look like if it included more Black women's media texts? While the Hillman Bookstore may fight against issues of race in fan studies, it still leaves out gender within race. It leaves for further exploration the role of Black women in Black media canon formation and fan retail spaces.
5. Conclusion
[5.1] As Black fans take on the labor of making themselves and fandom sites visible, acafans should approach Black fans and merchandise within the context of race and its impact on how geek culture manifests. These Black media fans are ignored by an industry that has historically catered to white, male, cis-hetero fandom and geek culture. When a community of people is to be the counternarrative of what geek culture represents, how are they expected to be able to participate in liminal play and immersive experiences? As the Hillman Bookstore owner said, A Different World is more than just a television show. Along that same line of thought, Black fans, even Black acafans, do not have the pleasure of only being fans for fans' sake. We often carry the burden and pleasure of becoming Black evangelists for our media texts, fandom, community, and personhood in spaces not always designed to make us visible or allow an inclusive, immersive experience. As the Hillman Bookstore operates as a transformative fan practice, we create space, redefine space, and make our spaces visible. The bookstore is one of many emerging fan spaces that seek to validate Black media fans and begin defining a Black media canon unrestricted by medium, style, or genre, but one connected by Black cast and Black stories. The immersion in fictional Black worlds forms identity and creates a safe space for those to gather. When I visit my own safe space, my undergrad institution, seeing Hillman College shirts on campus brings me joy. Not only are Black sitcom fans able to identify with one another visibly, but now there is also an answer to where one can purchase merchandise from A Different World.
[5.2] Fandom has always been about the "affective sensibility" or way of being in the world that unites those who react to cultural texts similarly (Grossberg 1992). The Hillman Bookstore offers a shared sense of understanding about social mobility and the Black college experience. The fandom centers itself around Black higher education. While Black higher education is certainly not limited to HBCUs, the limits of merchandise and marketing for the Black educational experience through HBCUs reflect the scarcity around even the fictional Black educational experience. Only within the past ten years have "high profile brand partnerships expanded with professional sports, fashion, and beauty campaigns to celebrate the influence of HBCUs" ("Homecoming" 2021). Even with collegiate apparel generating $4.6 billion annually, only 29 out of 107 HBCUs have deals with the top licensing agencies (Gill and Hart 2015). Black celebrities promote many Black educational experiences in music, film, and television. This marketing of the Black higher education experience includes collegiate apparel for not only HBCUs but also predominantly white institutions and other minority-serving institutions. The AACA is a Black-owned collegiate clothing brand that appeared in Black media in the 1990s. It featured not only HBCUs but minority-serving institutions as well. Even A Different World features characters wearing AACA shirts from Howard University, Georgetown University, Temple University, and Morris Brown College, to name a few. That brand focused on putting young Black faces in college apparel. The Hillman Bookstore uses the same model but makes the collegiate experience a fictional one that is accessible to all, creating an American HBCU regardless of one's affiliation with the institution. It is a unifying space for all who love the Black collegiate experience—a unified Black collegiate experience that is not divided by public versus private, HBCU versus PWI, college versus university, or two-year versus four-year college. The Hillman Bookstore and its Instagram page are spaces where everyone can immerse themselves in a fictional institution that serves all Black fans of education and can coexist without division.
[5.3] Fans participating in buying Hillman Bookstore merchandise are making visible their fandom of Black media texts and their endorsement of the Black college experience. Fans are evangelizing through this fan transactional participation that their media texts not only exist but also that their fellow geeks and fans exist in an industry that renders them invisible. Black fans are showing that they are willing to participate in merchandise tailored for them and have the financial means to participate in fan merchandising. While immersive experiences assist with identity formation, they do not end racism or systems of injustice. The creator of the Hillman Bookstore sought to bring merchandise to a community of Black media fans. The Hillman Bookstore and its fans represent Black fans who do not fit the assumed image of a geek and fan. For merchandise to reflect Black fandoms, one must first reconfigure the image of a fan that moves beyond gender and sexuality and includes race.