In this article, I examine the role of mass creative, predominantly online practices in forming and maintaining transmedial projects in the realm of popular culture. Unlike other studies that explore amateur practices from the perspective of an aesthetical canon, high and low cultures, professional and amateur activities, I focus on them in a wider socio-cultural context and interpret them as practices built in the contemporary models of cultural production. I demonstrate how transmedia reflect the contradictory nature of contemporary popular culture: they provide opportunities for mass creativity and, at the same time, signify total commodification of amateur practices. I use Invasion, Metro 2033 and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. as my case studies.
Language of contribution: Russian