Are We Finally Experiencing a Reckoning Over Toxic Fandom?

As singer Chappell Roan’s star rose at a dramatically speedy rate; so did the attention the previously niche singer experienced from fans far and wide. In the space of about a year, Roan went from a fiercely indie pop singer largely known to queer audiences to a bona fide superstar and Billboard hitmaker performing for millions. Throughout it all, Roan has been candid about how difficult the experience has been for her. She hasn’t minced her words when it comes to calling out more toxic fan behaviour or the ways that the press, deliberately or otherwise, misquote her. Some have claimed she’s gone too far in trying to assert her boundaries, but many fellow musicians have declared their support for her: Kesha, Tegan and Sara, Mitski, Mariah Carey, Charli XCX, and more. They know what she’s going through and they’re in her corner. Tegan and Sara even admitted that they’d longed to be as forward with their fans as Roan is but feared the backlash it would inspire. Perhaps we’ve finally reached the tipping point. Is the normalizing of toxic fandoms finally over?

It’s easy to forget just how absolutely batsh*t it is being famous, and all of the things that are expected of you would be considered utterly unacceptable by the rest of the human population. Yes, the job often requires a level of openness to your fans, a kind of relatability and charm that must be maintained in a field where your shelf life is short and there’s always a younger and hotter person waiting to take your place. If you’re a consumer, you want to get something out of this tenuous relationship. The basic agreement is this: the person makes something, you pay to watch/read/listen to it, and if you want more of it, you keep that up and enjoy the pleasures of that artistic experience. But then you have to add capitalism to that dynamic, as well as the oft-inexplicable and unpredictable nature of just being a person with emotions. Put the instant accessibility of social media on top and it’s no wonder that toxic parasocial relationships have become so common and so terrifying.

Let’s not forget the roles that record labels and publicists play in stoking these fires. As the music industry becomes a tougher and tougher field for working musicians to make a living in, it’s crucial for performers and their teams to foster dedicated fanbases who will open their purses for album sales, tours, merch, and so on. You want to show how big a fan you are? Buy the album plus all the variant singles and then get the VIP tour package and tell everyone about it on social media! The artist in turn should be open to sharing their life behind the scenes, to answering questions and taking lots of selfies. Hey, they want to be famous, so why would they care about privacy?

Some industries take this further than others. The K-pop world is notorious for how labels and management demand artists maintain a pristine private life that is open for all fans to devour. Many are told not to have love lives at all, or keep them fiercely hidden, lest they ruin the fantasy for fandoms who want to project their own desires onto them. Earlier this year, Karina of the band Aespa was forced to apologise for ‘surprising’ her fans with the news that she was dating someone. An unhinged subset of her so-called fans hired a truck to drive to her management’s headquarters demanding she apologise for the betrayal. ‘Is the love given to you by your fans not enough?’ they said. No, of course it’s not, you total shut-ins.

It’s just weird that we expect strangers to be unpaid therapists, replacement lovers, BFFs, moral guides, and pristine political activists based on how much we like a song they wrote or dance they did on TikTok. And we all know this. I wouldn’t say it’s an especially spicy take for me to make. Most people understand the limits and where they stand, but even the most level-headed of us become eye-rolling sceptics when a celebrity calls out their fans for aggressive behaviour. The truth is that a sizeable chunk of fans don’t really see their idols as people. An inherent part of fandom is the act of dehumanization, to turn a normal figure into something near godlike, and many take that to its cruellest yet most logical conclusion (stop throwing things at performers while they’re working, you weirdos!) Many fans talk about their favourites with the callousness and entitlement of pure unfettered haters, whether it’s screaming sexual demands aloud at concerts or spinning fantastical conspiracies about their loved ones and children. And we all know what happens when things go too far: stalking, intimidation, abuse, even death.

Some fans do seem to be coming to an uncomfortable self-realisation. It’s tough to look inward and realize that the thing you’ve been doing for so long, helped along by countless others, is negatively impacting the people you claim to love. Moving out of the herd can be treacherous. If you’ve been part of the zealots who dox their ‘enemies’ with impunity, you never want to end up on the other side of that. Escaping a cult-like mentality is easier said than done.

We’re long overdue for a reckoning, but it will take more than the celebrities themselves asserting their boundaries. It will require a paradigm shift in what fans expect and demand from this supposed relationship. But to make that happen, the entire industry needs to change. It’s all well and good asking fans to be nice but if the puppet masters of entertainment work overtime to incentivise obsessiveness and laser-minded devotion, how can progress be made? The entertainment world has so thoroughly gamified the act of being a fan that sitting it out often feels insurmountable. Concert tickets are bankruptcy levels of expensive. Cinema trips are pricier than ever. So are books and video games. Streaming has made the act of watching a TV show an exhausting race with impossibly high stakes that make every new season’s drop a battle to stave off cancellation. Being a fan is not meant to feel like a full-time unpaid internship. It’s no wonder so many feel the need to be hopelessly committed to the cause.

I don’t think we’ll see thorough progress until monopolies like Ticketmaster and Live Nation are toppled, but the loud and certain boundaries set by the likes of Chappell Roan are going to make a difference for so many. The customer isn’t always right and neither are the fans.