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I’m going to preface this by saying that I stan and ship with the best. I follow my favourite band around when on tour. I spent years writing RP slash. I live for a beautiful Fae boy’s eyes.
So. I am saying all of this as someone who has lived at the heart of fandom for more years than I’d like to think about.
Let me start with something that is patently obvious (or should be to anyone with a brain and a modicum of empathy): people’s private lives are that. Private.
The fact that a person is famous doesn’t make their private lives our business. Or the media’s. Or anybody else’s.
The fact that we fancy/ship (or hate) famous people does not give us ownership of them, or entitle us to a say in how they live their private lives.
The person we stan is *never* going to ask you out/date/marry us, so them dating/marrying/fucking someone is *none of our fucking business*.
Also under *none of our fucking business* is whether they have a child or a whole litter of them. Or with whom.
Yes, I admit to going weak at the knees when the most beautiful pair of eyes in the known universe looks out of my phone/tablet/laptop/tv and straight into my soul. But I am (marginally) sane enough to know that he doesn’t know I exist, and even if he did he wouldn’t care.
I also admit to going a bit (or a lot) googly inside at the thought of a certain pair of beautiful mofos being together. And to shipping them hard. That still doesn’t make their private lives *any of my business*.
We seem to forget that the fact the people we stan grant us glimpses of their lives behind the fourth wall is an incredible privilege, not a right.
That stalking them at hotels and airports and cafes and shopping centres is... well... stalking—it is most certainly not being ‘a real fan’ whatever that means. These are not even remotely ‘work adjacent’ events.
Waiting at a venue’s door to catch a closer glimpse and maybe an autograph? Ok. Sure. God knows I’ve done it often enough.
I did the airport thing once, when I was younger and stupider. I felt like I needed to take a shower afterwards, it felt so stalkery.
There’s an toxicity inherent in fandom culture, a sense of entitlement, a feeling that stanning somehow confers ownership. That anyone who doesn’t feel that sense of entitlement is somehow a ‘bad fan’.
An even more toxic aspect of fandom culture is the “I stan X, therefore I must hate Z” crowd. This is perhaps the most baffling to me. That cult-like wild-eyed zealotry that requires active hate of anyone and everyone outside the one true idol.
That someone would go out of their way to wish, or actively cause, harm to someone just because *they are not the person they stan* is so deranged it defies comprehension. Yet anyone who’s been involved in fandom culture knows they are there, and the havoc they can cause.
For my sins, I am now inside C-ent fandom, and there is a temptation to go, ‘oh, C-ent’ and just shrug off the ugliness of it all. But the ugliness is not unique to C-ent.
Yes, the nature of the C-ent economy amplifies and encourages some of these behaviours. After all, if fans drive revenue, it is only a mental step away for them to think of their idols as commodities they own.
But make no mistake, it is an intrinsic feature of fandom culture. And it is not just ‘the young ones’ who exhibit these behaviours. I’ve seen people old enough to know better behaving disgracefully to show they are ‘true fans’.
Don’t get me wrong. Most aspects of fandom—the enduring friendships you make, the sense of *belonging*, of having your heart beating in unison with millions around the world as he (or she, or they) steps onto the stage/appears on your screen—far outweigh the negatives.
But on those days where the news breaks that yet another individual who has dedicated their career to bringing joy and light into complete strangers’ lives has had their privacy violated, or harm done to them, in the name of ‘fandom’, a bit of the fan in me dies.
P. S. You don’t like an artist? Don’t listen to/watch/read their output. Shut the fuck up and leave them the fuck alone.
P. P. S. You like an artist? Support them. Don’t pirate their IP. Respect them and their privacy.
