In the paper proposed herein, I will present an ethnographic analysis of the on-line community of fans of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (BtVS) who frequented the now-defunct linear posting board known as The Bronze.  This paper will build on my previous work, elements of which have been previously presented, in order to highlight the linguistic underpinnings of The Bronze community and to assess its current condition.  Some of this previous work, included in Derik A. Badman's Academic Buffy Bibliography, is available on line at http://www.wam.umd.edu/~aali/buffnog.html.

I begin with a brief description of BtVS and The Bronze, both to position myself, and to explicate the foundations of The Bronze community.   I argue that the postmodern nature of BtVS, its focus on alienation, and its particular use of language inform the nature and constitution of The Bronze.  Indeed, BtVS encourages the use of richly connotative language that allows community members to engage in the thickly layered conversations--which frequently include "off-topic" discussions about such real-world issues as feminism, racism, and homophobia--that structure and characterize the community.  I then discuss changes in the community that have resulted from a series of disruptions--including the closing of the official Bronze posting boards and the subsequent end of BtVS--to The Bronze.  I conclude by suggesting that, although The Bronze community continues to exist in a variety of real and virtual incarnations worldwide, its fragmentation makes it unlikely to retain the dynamism that existed during the first five seasons of BtVS.