Toxic fandoms: When ‘passionate’ fans lose all sense of proportion or perspective, they become unhinged

In the Anne Hathaway rom-com The Idea of You, she plays Solene, a 40-year-old divorcee, who rediscovers pleasure when she hooks up with a younger man, Hayes.

He also happens to be a super-famous member of a boy band and when their relationship is made public, the vitriol pours in from his fans. They attack her not just for her age but for merely existing and daring to be part of Hayes’ story.

At one point, a fellow mother scolds Solene for breaking the heart of her young daughter, because apparently that tween had her sights set on Hayes, and that it was Solene’s fault that wasn’t going to happen. It’s deranged.

The Idea of You is a hum-drum rom-com with a lot of generic beats but the specificity of the trolling aimed at Solene is the film’s most effective story point. It works because it’s so familiar.

This past weekend, Irish actor Barry Keoghan posted a statement on social media calling out all the harassment he’s received, that his “name has been dragged across the internet in ways I usually don’t respond to”.

But he had enough. Too many lines had been crossed. He claimed people had turned up to his grandmother’s house and knocked on her door, and sat outside his child’s house, “intimidating them”.

“The messages I have received, no person should ever have to read them,” he posted. “Absolute lies, hatred, disgusting commentary about my appearance, character, how I am as a parent, and every other inhumane thing you can imagine.

“Dragging my character and everything I worked extremely hard for and stand for. Talking about how I was a heroine (sic) baby and how I grew up, and dragging my dear mother into it also.”

He reminded them that everything people are saying about him is something his son will have to read one day.

Keoghan didn’t say it but the catalyst for this increased trolling was his split with popstar and former Disney Channel kid Sabrina Carpenter, the news of which broke earlier last week. Carpenter’s fans picked a side in a conflict they has nothing to do with them, and they’re going hard.

This is where we are now with fan culture. The level of toxicity of so-called well-meaning and passionate fans has reached terrifying levels.

The scenes out of The Idea of You didn’t come out of nowhere. The character of Hayes was drawn from a handful of famous men, among them, Harry Styles. When Styles was dating actor and filmmaker Olivia Wilde, who is 10 years older than him, she was roundly bullied by his fans.

Justin Bieber had to publicly intervene and respond to years of trolling aimed at his wife, Hailey Bieber nee Baldwin. In 2019, he called out one particular post that claimed, “You are NOT in love with Hailey. You only married her to get back at (Selena Gomez)”. Bieber was furious.

He unleashed at that poster, calling them immature and illogical. He also said that he had seen many messages of a similar vein but he had never wanted to engage previously, and he won’t again.

It was a sustained campaign against Hailey Bieber, who Gomez fans felt had supplanted the person they believed was the one true love of Justin Bieber’s life. Bieber and Gomez dated on-and-off until early 2018.

Hailey Bieber said in 2020 that social media is “such a breeding ground for cruelty towards each other”, and admitted that she could sit and say the hate doesn’t affect her but that it does, and that it “hurt” to be targeted online.

Increasingly, thanks to the false intimacy created by social media between a celebrity and their fans, those followers have become more and more bolshie about what they think they’re entitled to.

They’ve also lost perspective and every perceived slight is now a hill to die on.

Gomez’s fans can be a particularly virulent presence. The collective raised hell over two jokes made on American TV shows about Gomez’s kidney transplant, a procedure she undertook in 2017 to help treat her lupus.

One of these jokes was on the Saved by the Bell revival in which some characters debated over who donated the kidney while the other happened during The Good Fight in a scene specifically about whether or not you could make a joke about Gomez’s transplant.

The Good Fight was a drama-comedy that was highly referential to what was happening in the political and cultural sphere and was likely nodding to the fan-driven uproar over the Saved By the Bell joke, which forced the producers to apologise.

Those same fans came out in force again. It’s not about not being able to take a joke, it’s that those two jibes weren’t making fun of people needing transplants or who have health issues, or even specifically Gomez herself. In context, those gags were actually observing something about the fandom around Gomez.

There is no sense of proportion or perspective in toxic fandoms. Everything is a BIG DEAL. Everything is a with-us-or-against-us reaction.

Not that long ago, you might make a remark to a friend or workmate – “Oh, did you catch that Selena Gomez joke last night, ooph” – but now with social media algorithms supercharging heightened emotional reactions, everything is the end of the world.

The more extreme you are, the more you’re rewarded with exposure and likes.

Which leads to these fans not only believing it themselves but being part of a community that is endorsing and feeding into each other’s mania. They believe they are entitled to be part of a celebrity’s life, which manifests in these bullying behaviours.

Taylor Swift fans sent death threats and doxed American reporter Chris Panella after he “gently” criticised her Eras tour. Star Wars bros viciously went after Moses Ingram, Amandla Stenberg, Kelly Marie Tran and John Boyega – all actors from non-white backgrounds.

Toxic Lord of the Rings fans did the same to the diverse cast of The Rings of Power and Zack Snyder fanboys bullied female journalists who didn’t like his DC movies – Snyder even, arguably, sent them after the women.

It’s great to be a fan of something or someone, to connect with their work and relate to it, and share it with like-minded people. Sometimes you feel as if you’ve found your tribe.

But it doesn’t mean subjectivity doesn’t exist. You might think Glen Powell’s dog, Brisket, is the cutest thing, but it doesn’t mean someone else must agree.

A celebrity or the creators of a show, movie or book doesn’t belong to you. Chappell Roan called out fans who got mad when she hasn’t wanted to give them a hug in public.

You’re entitled to have a relationship to the work but not to the person. When they’re going through something, you’re not. Sabrina Carpenter’s break-up is not your break-up. Barry Keoghan is not your ex-boyfriend.

Social media companies also need to step up and stop rewarding bullying behaviour. It’s not passion, it’s unhinged.

The word that has been used to describe extreme fandom is “stan” or “stanning”, which is often thrown around like it’s something cute rather than destructive parasocial bond. People forget it’s derived from Eminem’s 2000 single, “Stan”, about a deranged fan who kills himself and his girlfriend.