Fans take seriously the things they love. Looking back over the whole term, I think the theory that helped me most was textual poaching, especially the ideas of Michel de Certeau and Henry Jenkins. What stayed with me most was the idea that consumption is never as passive as it first appears (de Certeau, 2008; Jenkins, 2014). In a game like Valorant, skins may be designed, priced, and marketed by Riot, but their meaning does not stop there. Once they enter everyday gameplay, they are tested in different situations, compared with one another, edited into highlight clips, ranked, and continuously discussed by players. For me, this is the part that felt most connected to my project. What interested me was not simply skins as decorative commodities, but how their value keeps changing once players begin to use them, judge them, and give them meaning through their own fan practices (de Certeau, 2008). At that point, it is no longer just a simple form of recirculation, but something that continuously encourages more people to like, understand, and even enter into the things that fans themselves are spreading.

Jenkins’ theory pushed this even further. In the lecture, fans were described as active participants in the construction and circulation of meaning, rather than passive consumers (Jenkins, 1992; Jenkins, 2014). This felt very close to what I was doing on my own website. My skin-testing videos, highlight edits, and written commentary do not simply record my personal preferences. When I compare different skins, rank the ones I own, and place my own experience alongside community discussion, that work already enters a broader fan culture. In that process, players are constantly negotiating what feels satisfying, what is overrated, what is worth buying, and what deserves to be remembered. From this perspective, my artefact is not outside the meaning-making process of fandom. On the contrary, it is part of that process itself.

What is more interesting is that this is not a simple story about fans resisting a commercial system. Players do not only challenge the commercial meanings produced by Riot; sometimes we deepen them as well. When I edit highlight videos, analyse the sound and hand feel of skins, or discuss which skins feel worth buying, I am not only reflecting on this commodity system, but also helping to continue the circulation of its appeal (Jenkins, 2007). This contradiction matters, because it shows that fan practice is not separate from consumer culture. It is entangled with consumer culture itself. That is also why the discussion of fans participating in brand construction was so useful to me (Jenkins, 2007).

In the end, I prefer to understand my artefact as something more than a simple “review” video. What it really cares about is how fans, through use, judgement, and sharing, keep testing, reinterpreting, circulating, and socially constructing the value of game objects. For me, this is the meaning of fandom.