One thing that's interesting to me about these fandom cultures is that they tend to be focused on art (mostly pop music), but the aesthetic value of the music in question doesn't really correlate with the level of devotion. It reminds me of Gustave Flaubert's beautiful short story from 1877, "A Simple Heart." In the story, a lonely servant girl, Félicité, has nobody to love. So she redirects her devotion toward her pet parrot. I won't spoil the ending, but Flaubert shows Félicité beginning to associate the parrot with God, with the Holy Ghost.
When I read this story, I always wonder: is Flaubert making fun of Félicité, this poor lonely soul who has a ridiculous passion for a parrot? Or is he ultimately sympathetic, concluding that Félicité's passion and love for this creature is beautiful, regardless of whether the parrot itself is worthy of that love? Because the ending is so haunting, so deeply felt, I usually go with the second option, but perhaps that's because I'm a sap. We need to love like we need water, so perhaps there is no shame in loving something silly.
To bring it back to fandom: at the same time that I find the trends you write about here kind of upsetting, there's something beautiful and human about the forms of devotion that fans express for, say, One Direction, even when the object of that veneration is so clearly (well, to me, at least) undeserving. Like Félicité and her parrot, there's something both very silly and very sacred about this kind of love. What is clearly bad, as you point out, is the rather heartless harnessing of this sort of thing for the profit motive. If you're OK with long and meandering 3-hours interviews by comedians, you might want to listen to Bo Burnham's 2016 interview with Pete Holmes on the podcast "You Made It Weird." I think he's got some perceptive things to say about this.
"the aesthetic value of the music in question doesn't really correlate with the level of devotion"
Yes, I've thought about this a lot, so much of what is loved about a fan object is brought to the table by the worshippers. It's why I find fan studies so troublesome as they simply regurgitate and entrench fan hagiographies.
I tend to agree that it's human to devote yourself so fully. It's why I don't agree with those who think shame is the answer. Our responses are human; the profiting and feeding into them is where things go wrong. That's when cultish behavior takes hold.
I used to listen to YMIW back in the day! I don't remember this interview in particular but I know Burnham has jag some poignant comments on his fans so I'll definitely check it out/revisit it.
Reading this piece, I'm reminded of my own experiences with visual art and how I find the act of *viewing* artworks in an art gallery (as a kind of spiritual/aesthetic exercise) to be more fulfilling than fawning/admiring a singular artwork/artist's works. I like how going to a gallery gives you an excuse to look at an object curiously and lovingly (I'm not normally a fan of abstract paintings, but seeing a work in a gallery makes me want to view it as something special...) It's all very silly, but so is stan/fandom culture, in a way.
With that being said, unlike with visual art, I do consider myself a fan of certain musicians and have recently engaged in stan?/fan behaviour. I wanted to support Billie Eilish's new album release, so I bought a t-shirt, vinyl record, as well as tickets for her upcoming tour despite having not heard the album... On one hand, I expect it to be a good listen by virtue of it coming from a talented and experienced artist, but a part of it comes from my admiration of Billie as a person and my desire to support her regardless of the 'objective' quality of her work. I don't think I'm as obsessive about Billie as some other people are, though to Braudy's point I am sometimes envious of stans and what it says about their 'love' for the artist compared to mine. Like, am I 'really' a fan, if I haven't read/watched every interview, seen her documentary or purchased her book???
Agreed on the way galleries work! It utilises the physical space in a way that allows you to engage with the work differently if you choose to.
It's so easy to spiral in comparisons when you're engaging in fandom spaces--I've been there! I much prefer casual fandom these days; I think because my experience with the flipside/dark side of it all was traumatizing enough.
It's difficult not to be swept up in the current infrastructure and climate though. There are musicians whose work I love (LOVE!) but I don't like their stage clothes, or the set-list or whatever other random thing and that's *not allowed* in certain fandom spaces.
Your analogy in "converting" to a fandom is so apt. I definitely had that experience with regards to various fandoms participated in over the years, even recently with my dive into 90sBandom (Backstreet in particular for some reason). I even still remember particular moments I got "converted" and the kind of emotional highs I was riding afterwards. The limerence is also very apt since I definitely noticed the parallels with certain figures I ended up latching onto throughout my different fandoms and my actual experience with limerence irl.
I cannot help but feel a little worried about myself and also other people in similar scenarios. I definitely am "in love with love" and seem to latch myself onto people/things that fulfil certain fantastical ideals in my head about the kind of person I want to be with. It's one thing if people grow out of it or find a healthy way to deal with those feelings, but it's another thing when people are actively encouraged to sink deeper into these kind of feelings and emotions, especially by a larger "community" of individuals who are the same type of person. It's a little scary, NGL.
>>but it's another thing when people are actively encouraged to sink deeper into these kind of feelings and emotions<< yes, exactly! and now they are profiting the deeper people are involved. if nothing else I think we have to draw a connection between these feelings and the "stan attacks" that are becoming more frequent... but that's something I'll have to work on, I guess!
Daniel Cavicchi wrote a book about Bruce Springsteen fans and he really covered fan conversion really well. His work and Yuval Laor, who works on attachment, has been fundamental in my understanding of fandom attachment.
Right, I can definitely see your observation with regards to certain things that have happened over the years. I can also see it working in the opposite direction when fans attack the "fan object" because they didn't do something that was befitting to their image of them (eg people attacking celebrities for not towing the progressive line because they seemingly assume every celebrity is a prog by default). It's just as disturbing to say the least.
I'll definitely have a look at those two authors you mentioned. They sound interesting and might be good to have a look at.
One thing that's interesting to me about these fandom cultures is that they tend to be focused on art (mostly pop music), but the aesthetic value of the music in question doesn't really correlate with the level of devotion. It reminds me of Gustave Flaubert's beautiful short story from 1877, "A Simple Heart." In the story, a lonely servant girl, Félicité, has nobody to love. So she redirects her devotion toward her pet parrot. I won't spoil the ending, but Flaubert shows Félicité beginning to associate the parrot with God, with the Holy Ghost.
When I read this story, I always wonder: is Flaubert making fun of Félicité, this poor lonely soul who has a ridiculous passion for a parrot? Or is he ultimately sympathetic, concluding that Félicité's passion and love for this creature is beautiful, regardless of whether the parrot itself is worthy of that love? Because the ending is so haunting, so deeply felt, I usually go with the second option, but perhaps that's because I'm a sap. We need to love like we need water, so perhaps there is no shame in loving something silly.
To bring it back to fandom: at the same time that I find the trends you write about here kind of upsetting, there's something beautiful and human about the forms of devotion that fans express for, say, One Direction, even when the object of that veneration is so clearly (well, to me, at least) undeserving. Like Félicité and her parrot, there's something both very silly and very sacred about this kind of love. What is clearly bad, as you point out, is the rather heartless harnessing of this sort of thing for the profit motive. If you're OK with long and meandering 3-hours interviews by comedians, you might want to listen to Bo Burnham's 2016 interview with Pete Holmes on the podcast "You Made It Weird." I think he's got some perceptive things to say about this.
"the aesthetic value of the music in question doesn't really correlate with the level of devotion"
Yes, I've thought about this a lot, so much of what is loved about a fan object is brought to the table by the worshippers. It's why I find fan studies so troublesome as they simply regurgitate and entrench fan hagiographies.
I tend to agree that it's human to devote yourself so fully. It's why I don't agree with those who think shame is the answer. Our responses are human; the profiting and feeding into them is where things go wrong. That's when cultish behavior takes hold.
I used to listen to YMIW back in the day! I don't remember this interview in particular but I know Burnham has jag some poignant comments on his fans so I'll definitely check it out/revisit it.
Reading this piece, I'm reminded of my own experiences with visual art and how I find the act of *viewing* artworks in an art gallery (as a kind of spiritual/aesthetic exercise) to be more fulfilling than fawning/admiring a singular artwork/artist's works. I like how going to a gallery gives you an excuse to look at an object curiously and lovingly (I'm not normally a fan of abstract paintings, but seeing a work in a gallery makes me want to view it as something special...) It's all very silly, but so is stan/fandom culture, in a way.
With that being said, unlike with visual art, I do consider myself a fan of certain musicians and have recently engaged in stan?/fan behaviour. I wanted to support Billie Eilish's new album release, so I bought a t-shirt, vinyl record, as well as tickets for her upcoming tour despite having not heard the album... On one hand, I expect it to be a good listen by virtue of it coming from a talented and experienced artist, but a part of it comes from my admiration of Billie as a person and my desire to support her regardless of the 'objective' quality of her work. I don't think I'm as obsessive about Billie as some other people are, though to Braudy's point I am sometimes envious of stans and what it says about their 'love' for the artist compared to mine. Like, am I 'really' a fan, if I haven't read/watched every interview, seen her documentary or purchased her book???
Agreed on the way galleries work! It utilises the physical space in a way that allows you to engage with the work differently if you choose to.
It's so easy to spiral in comparisons when you're engaging in fandom spaces--I've been there! I much prefer casual fandom these days; I think because my experience with the flipside/dark side of it all was traumatizing enough.
It's difficult not to be swept up in the current infrastructure and climate though. There are musicians whose work I love (LOVE!) but I don't like their stage clothes, or the set-list or whatever other random thing and that's *not allowed* in certain fandom spaces.
Your analogy in "converting" to a fandom is so apt. I definitely had that experience with regards to various fandoms participated in over the years, even recently with my dive into 90sBandom (Backstreet in particular for some reason). I even still remember particular moments I got "converted" and the kind of emotional highs I was riding afterwards. The limerence is also very apt since I definitely noticed the parallels with certain figures I ended up latching onto throughout my different fandoms and my actual experience with limerence irl.
I cannot help but feel a little worried about myself and also other people in similar scenarios. I definitely am "in love with love" and seem to latch myself onto people/things that fulfil certain fantastical ideals in my head about the kind of person I want to be with. It's one thing if people grow out of it or find a healthy way to deal with those feelings, but it's another thing when people are actively encouraged to sink deeper into these kind of feelings and emotions, especially by a larger "community" of individuals who are the same type of person. It's a little scary, NGL.
>>but it's another thing when people are actively encouraged to sink deeper into these kind of feelings and emotions<< yes, exactly! and now they are profiting the deeper people are involved. if nothing else I think we have to draw a connection between these feelings and the "stan attacks" that are becoming more frequent... but that's something I'll have to work on, I guess!
Daniel Cavicchi wrote a book about Bruce Springsteen fans and he really covered fan conversion really well. His work and Yuval Laor, who works on attachment, has been fundamental in my understanding of fandom attachment.
Right, I can definitely see your observation with regards to certain things that have happened over the years. I can also see it working in the opposite direction when fans attack the "fan object" because they didn't do something that was befitting to their image of them (eg people attacking celebrities for not towing the progressive line because they seemingly assume every celebrity is a prog by default). It's just as disturbing to say the least.
I'll definitely have a look at those two authors you mentioned. They sound interesting and might be good to have a look at.