Acknowledgments

For giving me a love of reading and always encouraging my writing, I am permanently indebted to my parents, Craig and Robin Lingel. I also am indebted to my siblings and their partners—CJ, Kim, Anna, Amilia, and Dante. While struggling to write a book about the margins, I have consistently had my family as my center.

As a qualitative project, this research was possible only because of the openness and support of participants from the communities that I have studied. I am deeply grateful to all of my interviewees for their time and hope that I have done right by them in my analysis.

This book grew out of several collaborative projects. In 2009, I started a project on New Brunswick punk with Aaron Trammell, Nathan Graham, Joe Sanchez, and Mor Naaman. In 2011, I worked with danah boyd as an intern at Microsoft Research New England on Body Modification Ezine (BME), and her mentorship has profoundly influenced my work and career. Adam Golub first brought me to Brooklyn’s drag community. I also am deeply grateful to Mark Hansen and Michael Kirsch from the Brown Institute for their support and friendship while researching this community. These brief mentions are woefully insufficient given the support that I have received from these individuals. Any errors in this book are mine alone.

Most of the book’s manuscript was written while I was doing postdoctoral work at Microsoft Research New England in Cambridge, MA, and I am grateful to a number of lab colleagues for their friendship and feedback: Nancy Baym, danah boyd, Kate Crawford, Kevin Driscoll, Meg Finn, Tarleton Gillespie, Mary Gray, Rebecca Hoffman, Sham Kakade, Tero Karppi, Eva Lyubich, Annette Markham, Kate Miltner, Greg Minton, Jonathan Sterne, and Siva Vaidhyanathan. I am also deeply grateful to Jennifer Chayes and Christian Borgs for their support of my work during my time at Microsoft Research.

After my postdoc fellowship, I moved to the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania, where I am grateful to be part of a rich and rigorous academic community. I am particularly thankful for support from Sharrona Pearl, Kelly Fernandez, Marwan Kraidy, and Joe Turow.

A number of friends and colleagues provided comments and advice on this manuscript at various stages, including Sarah Banet-Weiser, Jack Bratich, Jack Gieseking, Germaine Haleguoa (my office spouse!), Dave Hesmondhalgh, Brian Hurley, Henry Jenkins, Michelle Lipinski, and Raz Schwartz. Michelle Mariano provided sage advice and much-needed editing. At the MIT Press, Gita Manaktala has been supportive of this project from the outset, and I am very grateful for her enthusiasm and support.

Writing this book was sometimes wonderful and sometimes agonizing. I am grateful to Warren Allen, Sylvia Bierhuis, Stephen Bolles, Suesan Cota, Kirk Vader, Laura Wade, and Ryan Wilson for supporting (and putting up with) me in various forms and moods in the last two years. Thanks also to Rinaldo Dorman and Sara Marx: Boston was a happier place for me because of their friendship. In 2014 and 2015, I was lucky to be hosted by friends who welcomed me into their homes as informal writing retreats. To the Davidsons in Harlem and to Brian Crabtree and Kelli Cain in Delhi, my heartfelt thanks for your hospitality (and bourbon!).

Finally, the greatest gift that Boston could ever give me was a chance encounter with Ben Merriman. From this serendipitous meeting grew a friendship that has made my life (not to mention my writing) better. I am profoundly grateful to Ben for his love, loyalty, and ability to push my thinking in new ways. For these reasons and more, Ben, I adore you.