McGrath & Mills/The Beatles in Perspective - A Carnival of Light, 7. “My Name’s Ringo and I Play the Drums”: Being a Beatles’ Fan in the Age of Interactivity

The 21st century has seen various public initiatives and digital projects led by Beatles fans utilizing both low tech and high-tech approaches. Examples range from the online crowd sourcing campaign in 2008 to save Madryn Street in Liverpool 8 (the location of Ringo Starr’s birth home) from demolition, to the high-tech success of Rock Band: The Beatles (2009), and fan-generated sites such as The Beatles: Live At The Internet. To study the effects of user-generated opportunities provided by digital media on audiences and fandom, an interdisciplinary approach is required, drawing on celebrity and popular music research, as well as performance theory and digital media studies. By using the above examples as case studies of the many ways in which Beatles fandom is manifesting itself in a digital age, this chapter argues that digital media has allowed music audiences a new sense of ownership created through performance and user generated content.