The Institutional Fan-Made Paratext: the Case of the Van Der Memes

This paper discusses the case of the Van Der Memes, Internet memes based on close-ups of actor James Van Der Beek emoting feelings which, born as user-generated content (UGC), end up working as marketing tools for a rebranding campaign of the actor. Framing the case study into the complexity of contemporary mediascape, a digital environment where corporate branding strategies progress alongside remix culture, the analysis will unfold along two main directions: on the one hand, we will see how the same content undertakes constant reworks and repurposes, as the duration and circulation of the media objects involved gets inevitably altered. On the other, we shall see how the case of the Van Der Memes calls into question the conflict between bottom/up and top/down productions, as it exemplifies a profitable relation between the notoriously unruly world of UGC and the institutional environment of television industry.