Anti-Fandom For Profit: Disco, 90210, and Dawson's Creek
Capitalizing on negative fan attachments as a business move.
One of the most well known culture wars of the modern age is that of rock versus disco, and it’s one with a plentitude of examples of businesses and individuals stoking the flames for profit.
Oftentimes, the “war on disco” is reduced to Chicago’s Steve Dahl and the White Sox anti-disco night: Dahl, the disc jockey who acted as the host and was the radio promoter for the event is credited and/or blamed for killing the scene. You’d be hard pressed to read or watch anything about disco that doesn’t mention Disco Demolition Night as a turning point for the genre. It certainly made the most waves, but there was active campaigning against disco before that night.
Dahl became antagonistic towards disco following his radio job being eliminated when his station switched to an all disco format. He landed a gig at a rock station, and was loud about his dislike of disco as a genre. The audience reaction to his negativity was positive, and he amassed a large following of anti-disco fans.
The newfound (anti) fan army were christened the Insane Coho Lips, with their mandate being, “the eradication of the dreaded musical disease known as DISCO.” Before he ever worked with the White Sox, he was mobilizing his followers through events and protests.
Simultaneously, the White Sox were struggling with attendance numbers. Two years earlier, they had run a (pro) disco promotion which had gone over well, but doing the opposite felt like a good option, especially if they could get Dahl to amplify it. The radio promotion was intended to appeal to a younger crowd, promising discounted tickets if they brought in records that would be blown up by Dahl after the first game of that night’s double header. The stadium was overfilled, with thousands more outside, trying to get in. The second game never took place as the audience stormed the field and became uncontrollable. In retrospect, mayhem seemed inevitable.
Billboard was reporting on the controversy of radio’s adoption of all-disco formats early in 1979, with multiple program directors quoted as being against the genre entirely. According to Village Voice writer Frank Rose, Dahl’s early success signaled to radio consultants that he was on to something.
Consultants with a large roster of radio stations convinced 60 stations to stage anti-disco campaigns. This was not exclusively based on Dahl’s success, but also the research of John Parikhal, a former student of Marshall McLuhan’s, who served as their consultant. Parikhal had been part of the effort that pushed the change to disco formats in the first place, pulling multiple struggling stations back from the brink. But now his research was suggesting a backlash from rockers was on the way. According to him, focus groups were mostly neutral towards disco until a few people verbalized their distaste, after which, others started piling on. This seemed to be a case of people “joining in simply to be where the action is.”
Some additional anti-disco stunts that took place at the time:
San Diego disc jockey, Dennis Erectus, had a recurring segment on his show called “Wreck A Record” where a bit of a disco song could be heard after which he destroyed it on air. Stations in Denver, Seattle, Portland, Columbus, Utica also destroyed disco records on air, often allowing listeners to vote for which records should be destroyed. Other stations simply refused to play the genre.
Insane Darrell Wayne of the Los Angeles rock station KROQ not only put together a “No Disco” album with anti-disco songs, but also organized a stunt wherein he performed a “disco burial” on the beach with various records.
Chicago club Mother’s leaned into anti-disco branding, with matchbooks and napkins emblazoned with “Disco Sucks,” and they sold shirts with that messaging as well as “Death To The Bee Gees.” They also leaned into the anti-disco angle in advertising.
Multiple bands released anti-disco songs with titles such as “Death to Disco” and “Disco Sucks.” One unsigned band managed to gain radio spins and book shows thanks to their anti-disco tune.
Even established bands encouraged antagonism against disco at their concerts, including Scorpions and Van Halen. Sometimes their tour crew would rev up the crowd. Australian band Midnight Oil hosted multiple “Death to Disco” gigs.
Twisted Sister were particularly vocal about their anti-disco stance and their on-stage antics included burning posters, destroying records and hanging effigies of disco performers. On a few occasions, closing disco clubs had them perform and tasked their fans with destroying the venue. Jay Jay French said, “I knew they didn’t like [disco] but I had no idea that they deeply hated it. So, I immediately saw the marketing angle.”
One of the radio program directors who was not participating in the anti-disco antics told Rose the antagonistic approach, “uses people’s fears as a manipulative tool for ratings purposes.” This is what a lot of anti-fandom ends up as. A business approach that sours the social climate.
Just as devotional stans cannot be controlled once you start engaging and enabling them, the same applies for anti-fans. One of the consultants who pushed the anti-disco campaigns said, “We didn’t expect the rock & roll crowd to react like it did.” Proving the point that you have no idea just how people will behave when given carte blanche. Profit, but at what cost?
When Beverly Hills 90210 premiered in 1990, it took a while to take off, with 1992 marking a shift in public interest. There was media coverage, yes, but also online usenet newsgroups dedicated to the show.
While fans of today seem to like Shannen Doherty’s character, Brenda Walsh, that wasn’t the vibe back then. Those who were around recall that she was widely hated. I went through archives of those early newsgroups to do a temp check, and Brenda was, indeed, overwhelmingly singled out for pile-ons.
A post from December of 1992 shared a flyer posted on the UCLA campus, asking for submissions for a soon to be published I Hate Brenda Newsletter.1
Behind the newsletter were two zine veterans, Darby Romeo and Kerin Morataya, who had been running the Ben Is Dead zine since 1988. Romeo had started hate-watching 90210, and took on hating Brenda, specifically, as a side hustle. The newsletter ended up sweeping through the cultural sphere, resulting in an MTV news segment and worldwide press coverage.
“For about two months straight we did up to ten interviews a day in person and over the phone with press from all over the world.”
“In one sense the press was just what we needed, since we had just made the difficult decision to sell BID in Southern California, (as we do throughout the US), instead of giving it away free, while keeping our circulation 16,000. We couldn't turn away the opportunity to use “Brenda” to garnish attention for BID. We made a rule not to do any Brenda interviews unless they would talk about Ben as well.”Darby Romeo — Ben Is Dead #22, 1993
This wasn’t the end of their anti-Brenda crusade. Soon, The “I Hate Brenda” Book: Shannen Doherty Exposed followed, as well as a novelty band that released a full album called Hating Brenda, with songs all about how much Brenda sucked. Beyond these endeavours, the wide coverage their side-hustle received ended up being beneficial as both Romeo and Morataya were tapped to contribute to multiple mainstream magazines, including Vanity Fair. Since then, they've published a book about their Harry Potter fandom.
The anti-Brenda trend stands out because it seemed to be aimed both at the character and Doherty herself. I’ve seen a lot of complaints about today’s audiences having difficulty separating actors from their roles, but this was a shameless conflation of the two. Some people were overt about Doherty’s political affiliations being the cause for their dislike of the character. If you read the lower right hand side of the newsletter’s front page, you’ll see it in action.
In the wake of the success of the I Hate Brenda Newsletter, more anti-fandom zines sprung up. One targeted Lemonheads’ singer Evan Dando with Die, Evan Dando, Die! It received mainstream coverage and was picked up for distribution in various record and book stores. The creator was briefly courted by MTV, but instead went on to collect bylines in more than a handful of high profile magazines.
There was also the anti-Urge Overkill zine entitled, The Stalker which released ten issues. It was called, “viciously effective,” in a Jersey Beat review. This one stands out because the writers were serious about their anti-fandom. A 2014 interview with half of the duo behind it emphasizes that the goal was always to stop the band and “expose” how awful they were.
The wave of anti-Brenda sentiment is reminiscent to what happened years later when Dawson’s Creek premiered in 1998. It was a massive show, and an active online fanbase sprung up in no time. They were opinionated and a recurring theme was hatred for Michelle Williams’ character, Jen Lindley.
Going through the usenet newsgroup archives revealed that much of the anti-Jen sentiment was focused on looks—she was ugly and fat, while Katie Holmes’ Joey was beyond stunning. There was also a lot of rage that Jen was disrupting a potential romance between Joey and Dawson.2
The anti-Jen sentiment didn’t have as big of a footprint as the anti-Brenda movement, but there was an anti-fan website masquerading as a general fan site for the show, with a distinctive thread of Jen-hatred woven throughout.
I suspect that one of the reasons why the anti-Jen movement didn’t blow up is because the show itself attracted a lot of hate, and featured many insufferable characters (notably, the titular Dawson.) There was even an anti-Dawson’s Creek usenet group that would occasionally troll the fan groups.
The show was so hated that you can thank it for the creation of the snark site Television Without Pity (TWOP). Originally, the site was called Dawson’s Wrap and exclusively wrote about Dawson’s Creek. Co-creator of the site, Sarah D. Bunting, told the New York Times that the show’s, “insidious, sexist, lazy writing had us apoplectic,” and that’s why they started covering it.
According to a Columbia Journalism Review piece, they expanded coverage to other shows because they had been picked up by an ad portal and, “generated enough traffic to make the portal money ‘hand over fist.’”
This snarky approach to television writing that TWOP fueled also has a connection to 90210: the creators of the site met on Daniel Drennan’s 90210 recap site, originally chatting about Dawson’s Creek on his forum before taking the leap and building a dedicated site for their recaps. Drennan himself has said that they ripped off his style, and CJR created the below illustration to show how the snarky commentary spread and expanded across the media landscape.
Upon the news that TWOP would be shuttering in 2014, Kelsey Miller eulogized its original form, concluding that,
Dawson's Wrap is what taught me how to hate-watch. It's what showed me that TV writing, even when it's about loathsome, cheesy teen dramas, can be great. It pointed me toward the possibility of being funny, smart, and smart-mouthed as a career.
It would be too simplistic to say that the site is responsible for the culture of today, but it certainly was a stepping stone for many writers and online dwellers. Being a hater can be a career.
If you know of any campaigns that piggybacked off of anti-fandom sentiments, please do share!
The flyer, which also included a mailing address and hotline number for people to share their stories, read:
The "I Hate Brenda Fan Club" is announcing the premire (sic) of their newest contribution to the world... The I Hate Brenda Newsletter otherwise known as the Walsh Quarterly And YOU are invited to participate!
We're looking for people who have THE dirt on this girl. Anyone who's dealt with Shannen (either on a sexual or platonic basis) this is your chance to spill your guts and get your 15 minutes of fame. We're also saying: looking for contributors send in your I Hate Brenda related artwork, short stories, poetry, etc.
Join us in our quest toreveal the REAL nature of this prima donna. Brought to you by your friends with nothing better to do at Ben Is Dead Magazine. Picking up where the Qualyle Quarterly left off...We will not stop 'til Shannen's off the show
Much of the anti-Brenda sentiment was also centered on her being ugly and comparing her unfavourably to Jennie Garth’s character, Kelly Taylor. When Doherty left the show there was still negativity, but now it was simply redirected to other female characters such as Valerie, Donna, and even Kelly herself. When she was gone, plenty of people wanted Brenda to return to the show, which reveals the problem with catering to one loud audience faction. They never speak for everyone.
I'm curious to hear more about how whiteness figures in all of this? In UK, rock vs disco is heavily inflected by white "I don't dance" masculinities.
Dawson's Creek makes a hard pivot, in middle of the second season, from being a story about a boy choosing between two or more girls to being one about a girl choosing between two or more boys. I think that's part of why Jen hate might not have really caught on: the show quickly became Joey's story, Pacey was promoted from being Mr. B-plot to being a bona fide supporting character, and Jen sort of took Pacey's old place. The early episodes of the show are almost avant-garde, like an attempt at a Western live-action shounen romance manga, before the producers came to their senses and realized that most of its viewers were female.