Set between the Culture Futures Lab’s “Hacking the Asian Waves” and Mechademia 2026, we had the opportunity to attend the Trans-Asian Transcultural Fandom Symposium on May 28 at the National University of Singapore. The symposium was organized by Bertha Chin, Michelle Ho, and Weiyu Zhang. Two packed parallel sessions provided broad and rich insights into contemporary fan studies within the Southeast and East Asian research communities. The plenary session featuring Anthony Fung (Chinese University of Hong Kong), Lori Morimoto (Temple University Japan), and Wikanda Promkhuntong (Mahidol University) provided a more casual and personal, yet still serious, discussion on the directions and futures of transcultural fandoms in East and Southeast Asia.
The sessions covered a wide range of topics, including digital platforms, fan labor, K-pop fandoms, conflict and moral regulation within fandoms, Boys’ Love (BL) and other transcultural discourses of desire, the social dimensions of gender and race, as well as affective economies and theoretical approaches to fandom. As the JVMG project relies on fan-curated databases and, through its visual media graph, acts as a bridge between fan communities, aca-fans (academic fans), fan and media studies, and academia more broadly, the presentations provided valuable insights into the inner workings of fandoms. By connecting with fan studies scholars and engaging with their research questions—not only in the Japanese context but also in relation to broader transcultural flows and negotiations—we gained new perspectives and a deeper understanding of the complexities of fandom in transcultural contexts. Thus, we would like to thank the symposium organizers for the opportunity to engage with fandom scholars, as well as for their excellent organization and hospitality.