The inevitability of anti-fandom
Fandom is seen as an expression of appreciation, but negative fandom exists, and it's more widespread than you might think.
Despite what it sounds like, anti-fandom is not about being against fandom itself but rather having a negative attachment to a fan object or what it represents; in some cases, the negative attachment is even baked into the existing fandom, i.e., part of being in a community means you adopt communally decided adversaries and may accrue more as roadblocks and competitors come up. Sometimes those feelings can simmer past the demise of your involvement with the primary fandom, carrying on grudges and schadenfreude.
We don’t tend to think of those who dislike a piece of media or hate-watch a series as fans, but they have a lot more in common with them than you might think, some even participating in communal acts of anti-fandom. Some on full-time dedicated blogs, or as a social activity.
Research shows humans are more likely to bond over dislikes than shared affinities. From looking at the state of fan community bonding, it checks out.
The concept of imaginary social worlds that John L. Caughey explored has been incredibly useful in making sense of things, and it’s certainly helped me visualize these internal realities. In 1984, when it was published, the current fandom climates were unthinkable, but human attachments remain the same.
The fundamental difference from then in this department is how many more characters, human brands, and alternate, spin-off universes we are being bombarded with, leaving us to form some sort of opinion and attachment to them all.
With vast landscapes of imaginary worlds, we don’t differentiate between what’s real and what isn’t. Pseudo-interactions can still affect your mood and associations. It’s like shaking off a nightmare, which can take some effort even though their unreality isn’t questioned.
“[Anti-fans'] level of hostility is often astonishing. Sometimes these negative feelings lead the individual to elaborate an artificial social relationship that is the inverse of the stereotypic fan relationship. Here the basis of the relationship is not esthetic appreciation, admiration, or love, but hatred, anger, and disgust.”
- John L. Caughey, Imaginary Social Worlds: A Cultural Approach
One of the more revealing arguments that Caughey makes is that the expression of hatred was “more satisfying” in pseudo-reality than in real social interaction. It’s a description that predates troll culture on many levels, yet explains it perfectly. Escalating violence and crossover into real-world aggression is a real problem, and I suspect we will see more in the future.
Caughey’s revelation of being sated by hatred was new to me, but it’s apparently not a new concept. I didn’t realize others reveled in their hatred openly, but sifting through old online artifacts proves informative, yet again.
The Toast hosted a discussion dedicated “to the books we hate so much it makes us glad to exist, that we can play host to so pure and so fervent a hatred it feels like a blessing.” And the comments certainly deliver.
The earlier explained term of imaginary hatred was more satisfying, I still couldn’t quite relate. It was more like steam being let off, more than any type of blessing.
Yet, I’m not unfamiliar with that approach; I saw it in so many others. It’s part of what became such a turn-off from fandom—what exacerbated my disbelief and disappointment and has kept the embers of my frustration alive to this day.
In some fandom corners, I’m considered the epitome of an anti-fan; and I’ve certainly accrued many negative emotions and expressions over the years. At least, I’ve actually tried to step away; I never enjoyed the hatred, it was always more of an avalanche threat, the smothering of any and all enjoyment a real possibility on the horizon.
I won’t rehash what I covered in my cultic fandom essay, though it provides some background information. My problem was remaining emotionally hostage, as ridiculous as that might sound.
Having been summarily dismissed from fandom, I was left still grasping for something to lean on. Something to believe in. I was really more disappointed and disillusioned than anything else, but the hatred and disgust came with time.
There was no questioning allowed within fandom because when your conspiracy is disproved you have to double down. We had been wrong about the behind-the-scenes loyalty, the alleged brotherhood, and mutual respect. But some couldn’t accept it, capable of levels of denial, hostility, and wilful blindness that it was hard to believe. If Harry Styles’ connection to legendary manager Irving Azoff wasn’t about the band but about just him, well— we were wrong about a lot.
It wasn’t just about misjudging One Direction and the industry behind them, I had misread my own community.
To this day the community refuses to address reality head-on. Some have convinced themselves we are witnessing a Britney Spears-type scenario, adopting #FreeHarry as their rallying cry. He’s mistreated, they say, he’s held hostage by the millions poured into promotion and the unbearable weight of genius.
My dislike of lyrics and questioning of the promotional approach and the railroading of former band members was considered beyond the pale. It’s what earned me my scarlet letter which apparently still shines like a beacon, six years later.
I wasn’t keeping mum, so I understand why I was an easy choice to pick on. But other fans were attacked on the presumed basis of hatred. Silence itself was seen as hatred. It actually seemed that the only thing that could unite corners of fandom was the out-group derogation serving as a bonding experience. If not strengthening the community itself, it fortified the walls surrounding it.
The oustings happened all over fandom, from the Liam Payne and Niall Horan fans questioning why James Corden and Ben Winston of Late Late Show seemed to have an exclusive deal with Styles, delivering a full week residency and follow-up appearance across the pond, despite Horan and Payne both having records out at the same time and having longterm relationships with both. Pointing out that Corden and Winston had a vested financial interest in the Styles product, delivering videos and documentaries under their production company, that was a conspiracy, a hateful smear suggesting talent wasn’t the driving factor behind success. And we all know that couldn’t possibly be the case.
If you believed that Styles actually asked for the “hiatus” you were a hater. If you were upset about the rewriting of history, brought to you by those who knew better, you were a hater. If you were surprised and disappointed that Styles would be on board with a revisionist TV show based on his own life, courtesy of Winston and CBS, then you just didn’t understand the depth of manipulation he was under. Producing a televised white-washing history less than a year into a solo career, the hubris was never his, and to suggest that it was revealed how little we thought of him.
Even fans who had identified as harries were blindsided that an anonymous venting account was created just for them, Well That Was A Letdown, as they had grown scared of sharing their opinions on their blogs. The blog attracted more than just them, and it quickly became clear how expansive fandom opinions could be. But in this we were united, all fuming at the corner we’d been painted in and the empty promises we’d swallowed.
The more fandom pushed these ideas, insisting that the special treatment we were witnessing was perfectly normal, the more rage was built up. The fans with a superiority complex that treated Styles’ ascent as a fait accompli had been right all along, but not because of undeniable talent, but rather because of immensely manicured, well-financed campaigns.
The little hope I had was that the inevitable success of the other band members would rise to awareness, eventually. But with Spotify playlist placements at the mercy of label influences, TikTok’s admitted collaboration with businesses on creating “viral” hits, highlights how important industry backing still remains, despite what we’re told. If records are broken and never reported on, does it really matter? When fans can’t actually supplement lacking label support, sending gift baskets to radio stations where songs weren’t even made available, what’s the point?
Eventually, my disenchantment won.
That’s when I personally stepped back, unwilling to tolerate the gnawing pit of despair in my stomach. I made a real, valiant effort to remove any possibility of accidentally encountering Styles in the wild.
I revised follows, blacklisted, blocked, and rebuilt my online presence. But despite the promise of personalization, of our curated feeds and targeted advertisement, opting out was impossible. The HSHQ supremacy campaign was unavoidable, which is the entire purpose of having a mammoth publicity machine at your service, naturally.
Most egregious in my case was Live Nation who thought I needed mobile push notifications about Styles’ tours and Ticketmaster who likewise sent me email updates about Styles’ fashion brand. And no, there were no past purchases on my part to suggest this was welcome. The crossover promotion of the 2018 film “A Star Is Born” proved successful enough that the same tactics were recycled.
This brings us back to the idea that we cannot quite opt out of anything anymore. Our custom-designed noise-canceling visors, shields, filters—whatever you might call them, are only as effective as what you’re trying to avoid is persistent.
It isn’t enough that antagonism has served the industry by bringing in profit by the bucket and giving fans purpose—it’s been weaponized in some cases. Fans in the K-pop universe are organized enough to set up activation accounts to mass report perceived opposition; often directing complaints directly to the top. Big Hit Entertainment has told fans they have—and will continue to—pursue legal action against “perpetrators” and won’t back down: “Big Hit will not settle these cases or grant leniency under any circumstances.” So people participate in online pile-ons as an expression of their anti-fandom, in turn, become mass reported by organized fan swarms on a mission.
Not everything is for everyone, the death of niche culture and the drying up of subculture has left us with a smorgasbord of sponsored content, an ever-expanding landscape filled up with an unavoidable cast of characters. It might be tolerable if the heckling didn’t come from the crowd as well, rather than from the content machines themselves.
The purity of hatred is one of the only solid expressions left for people to hold on to, one of the few reliable alliances that can be made. The enemy of my enemy, and so on.
We’ve gotten so used to being able to control our feeds, tending to our little corners of the internet as if they were our backyard gardens. That always presumed the existence of a fourth wall, a dynamic with others based on something other than fannish affiliations. But our imaginary social worlds have become more of a collective exercise than a private practice.
And in this brave collectively constructed world, anything that isn’t fully private is fair game.
Great stuff as normal. I want to be able to vibe with optimism but I feel increasingly isolated when it comes to my fandom.