The sociology of fun

FUN

BEN FINCHAM

THE

SOCIOLOGY

OF

The Sociology of Fun

Ben   Fincham

The Sociology of Fun

ISBN 978-0-230-35857-7 ISBN 978-1-137-31579-3 (eBook)

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-31579-3

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016945178

© Th e Editor(s) (if applicable) and Th e Author(s) 2016

Th e author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identifi ed as the author(s) of this work in accordance

with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Ben   Fincham

Department of Sociology

University of Sussex

Brighton , UK

For my children Nancy and Joshua

and my grandmother Betty Hutchings.

Th is was her idea really.

vii

My thanks go to the fi rst cohort of students that took the Th ird Year

Undergraduate Course, ‘A Sociology of Fun’, in the Department of

Sociology at the University of Sussex in the spring of 2014. Th ey are an

inspirational group of people who gave themselves wholeheartedly to the

study of fun. So, thanks and credit to Laurie Amar, Sophie Anscombe,

Charlene Aure, Ashley Barnes, Megan Bond, Rhyanna Coleman, Jess Di

Simone, Geraint Harries, Zsuzsa Holmes, Rosie Hyam, Jennie Leighton,

Juliette Martin Useo, Ella Matthews, Jess Midgely, Becky Reynolds, Amy

Sarjeant, Beth White and Lainey White.

Th anks must also go to the 201 people that took part in the ‘fun’

survey.

I would like to thank people working at the Salvage Café in Hove in

the spring and summer of 2015, where much of this book was written. In

particular, I would like to say thank you to Matthew English, Tazz Khan,

Lauren Joy Kennett, Holly Macve and Joshua Taylor who were patient

in the face of what must have seemed like some weird questions at times.

I would like to thank Palgrave Macmillan publishers, especially

Philippa Grand, Beth O’Leary, Harriet Barker and Amelia Derkatsch for

their support and encouragement during the production of this book.

Acknowledgements

viii Acknowledgements

Finally, I would like to thank my family. My mum and dad, Deborah

and Barry, who provided the perfect backdrop for my fun growing up—I

realise how lucky I am that they are my parents. I want to thank my

brother, Joe—who probably does not know how prominently he features

in my stories of fun throughout my life. Now my partner, Bree, is pro￾viding the perfect backdrop for my and my children’s fun—which is as

important to me as anything. Th ank you, Bree.

ix

1 Introduction 1

2 Th eorising Fun 27

3 Fun and Games: Childhood 47

4 Fun and Frivolity: Adulthood 83

5 Fun at Work 121

6 Phenomenal Fun 155

7 Fun and Recollection 183

8 Conclusions 197

Bibliography 207

Index 209

Contents

xi

Fig. 2.1 Schema of fun 40

Fig. 4.1 Average personal wellbeing by age group UK 2012–13 91

List of Figures

© Th e Editor(s) (if applicable) and Th e Author(s) 2016 1

B. Fincham, Th e Sociology of Fun,

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-31579-3_1

1

Introduction

Towards a Sociology of Fun

Fun is taken for granted. In everyday talk people use the term anticipating

that others will know what they mean when they describe something as

fun. In fact it is so taken for granted that outside of dictionary defi nitions

there is very little in the way of explanations for what fun is and how to

discern it from other social experiences. What we know is that sometimes

we have it and sometimes we don’t, one person’s idea of it is not neces￾sarily another’s and having too much of it is often frowned upon. Much

of the literature that is used in this book refers to fun as rooted in activi￾ties presumed to be fun—‘camping and water-based activities’ are ‘popu￾lar and fun’ according to a study of ‘rural family fun’ (Churchill et al.

2007 : 282) 1

—or confl ates fun with things like play (Yee 2006 ; Churchill

et al. 2007 ; Kelty et al. 2008 ), happiness (Cameron 1972 ; Jackson 2000 ;

Sumnall et  al. 2010 ), leisure (Scanlan and Simons 1992 ; Bengoechea

et al. 2004 ; MacPhail et al. 2008 ) or deviance (Riemer 1981 ; Redmon

2003 ; Keppens and Spruyt 2015 ). Whilst it is the case that all of these

1

Clearly this will be a moot point for those that hate camping.

areas may contain elements that people would describe as fun, there is

precious little in the way of theorising or describing what it is. Fun per￾tains to other areas of life but is rarely viewed as a defi ning feature of

it. Th e most pertinent example of this is found in the recent interest in

issues of happiness and well-being. Opinions and expertise on happiness

emanate from a wide array of academic disciplinary backgrounds. People

working in psychology, psychiatry, economics, social policy, health stud￾ies, philosophy, geography and youth studies—to name a few—have

been applying themselves to understanding what constitutes happi￾ness, its relationship to well-being, how to measure it and importantly

how to instil a sense of it in individuals and populations (Rodriguez

et al. 2011 ; Bok 2010 ; Veenhoven 2009 ; Waite et al. 2009 ; Diener and

Biswas-Diener 2008 ). At the same time as the world economic recession

of 2008–2009 reverberated through economies several national govern￾ments became interested in measures of happiness in populations. In the

UK the government decided to conduct a survey through the Offi ce for

National Statistics to assess how ‘happy’ the British population was in

2011 (Directgov 2010 ). Th e intention of offi cially monitoring happiness

was to steer government social policy (Stratton 2010 ). Elsewhere, the

governments of France and Canada developed national happiness mea￾sures at the same time as the UK (Stratton 2010 ). Th e discussions about

happiness and well-being were generally centred on a few core themes,

the most prominent being wealth and income, job satisfaction, feelings of

community, relationships with friends and family, environment, cultural

activities, health and education (Directgov 2010 ). Th e thinking is that if

you can get a sense of these facets of a person’s life as successful or unsuc￾cessful, attained or unattained, then you should be able to infer levels of

happiness. However, the point for this book is not to dwell on the obvi￾ous diffi culties in defi ning and then measuring something subjective like

levels of happiness—or whether it is a worthwhile pursuit or not—but to

note that there has been an important omission from almost all discus￾sions about what makes people happy—namely, fun . Th e absence of fun

perhaps relates to the confl ation of happiness with well-being where fun

is peripheral to the more weighty matters of physical health or economic

security—but when considered alongside happiness, this absence is odd.

During two particular studies I have been involved with, one looking

2 The Sociology of Fun

at informal labour markets and the other into the relationship between

mental health and work, the importance of fun to people became appar￾ent. In interviews when asked what made them happy—particularly at

work—many participants identifi ed having fun as a fundamental reason

for being happy. Obviously, this is not a novel observation, as Donald

Roy points out in Banana Time several commentators in the 1950s had

made similar points. As an interviewee in work on assembly line workers

by Walker and Guest said, ‘We have a lot of fun and talk all the time … if

it weren’t for the talking and fooling you’d go nuts’ (Roy 1959 : 158). Th e

role of fun for making situations at worst tolerable and at best enjoy￾able is clear—which is what makes the omission of fun as an object of

serious study all the more perplexing. Th ere is a general absence of any

engagement with fun as a central feature of happiness; rather, fun is a by￾product of activities that are supposed to make us happy. Th is book is an

attempt primarily to acknowledge the central role fun plays in our lives

and also to develop a sociological approach to fun.

By way of an introduction to fun and sociology, this chapter estab￾lishes the parameters within which the rest of the book operates. Here a

sociological defi nition of fun is, very broadly, outlined. Th ere is a descrip￾tion of how fun has been conceptualised by academics historically—with

specifi c reference to the 1950s literature on ‘fun morality’. Th ere is an

account of references to fun outside of sociology and many of these will

be picked up in further chapters. Important for a sociological defi nition

are the ways in which fun operates diff erently in various contexts—work,

family, education, leisure, and so on—and this contextual aspect is high￾lighted here. It is also in the introduction that the distinctiveness of fun

as performing specifi c social functions—and its relationship to power—

is introduced. After the historical view, further debates that the book

engages with are outlined. More generally, the book questions the ‘taken

for granted’ nature of references to fun. Do people mean the same things

when they talk about ‘having fun’? Why is one person’s idea of fun dif￾ferent from somebody else’s? Th e relationship between fun, happiness

and well-being is also addressed. Th is is the fi rst book that explicitly sets

out a ‘sociology of fun’. As such it is an exploration of the diff erent ways

that fun features in everyday life and how sociology can bring something

distinctive to that analysis.

1 Introduction 3