When the tinhats are right
The commodification of shipping culture and packaging of ready-made relationships has calcified a pattern.
While intraband relationships have been part of showbiz since showbiz was a thing, the involvement of the audience and the volume of their opinion makes it a completely different game at the present time.
That’s why the reveal that Hayley Williams and Taylor York of Paramore are dating was an interesting piece of celebrity gossip. That fan speculation is acknowledged, meant there were believers celebrating and antis attempting to gracefully concede, and some that will cling stubbornly, perhaps crossing the rubicon and inventing a conspiracy of their own.
We’ve seen this in action in Twilight fandom. During the peak of the film series’ popularity and Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson were together, there were still those that rejected the public narrative. These were the Nonstens, those who thought the hookup was for publicity and that Stewart likely was gay. As opposed to the public narrative, they were the default antagonist for their opponents.
These opponents were the Robsten shippers, who were eating up the smorgasbord of publicity, and remained the majority of fans that shipped in the fandom. However, when Stewart and Pattinson announced their break up, some of the believers couldn’t let go.
Despite the denial of the concept of publicity and closeting in entertainment, it suddenly seemed more believable that the dissolution of the relationship was a publicity stunt, and Stewart and Pattinson were still together. These devotees bought into something that was too important to let go of and found ways of justifying their beliefs.
While audiences of the past speculated on stars’ relationship status, stans of today are evangelists to the cause.
This type of mental gymnastics happens because the devotion is to what that relationship represents and evokes in them. This is one of the biggest fallacies of the human mind, the unrelenting faith that can be pledged that allows us to double down when faced with opposing realities. There are plenty of words for this from various fields, the sunk cost fallacy, and cognitive dissonance, but I’m partial to the awe attachment theory.
I’ve discussed it before, always attempting to verbalize that feeling of knowing, the noetics of it all. The physical sensation of a connection to a fan object can elevate a fan to a stan. It’s hard to fight something that you know, in your body, that has vibrated internally, physically, beneath your ribs.
In Paramore’s case what we’re being privy to is the chaos ensuing from Tayley shippers (or believers) “being proven right” which is simply part of the cycle. With something as fluid as an interpersonal relationship that can fluctuate, and certainly does away from the limelight, it’s odd to stake your claim on any hill. And one’s relationship with others in the community will remain in movement, and adaptable. If it’s allowed to be, that is.
One of my surprise discoveries was the existence of a McLennon shipper fandom. These are the fans that believe John Lennon and Paul McCartney got together. I only learned about this because of circulating post referencing a 2018 GQ profile of Paul McCartney. The pull-quotes of interest included that of a Beatles’ group masturbation session, which is what had caught the glee of the shippers. They felt vindicated and feasted on the crumbs.
The quote from the article that always stuck out to me was McCartney likening the band dynamic to army barracks, the “enforced closeness” of it all. In any situation where that type of bond is shared, the intensity of the relationships formed can be profound.
It’s a type of liminal sphere that eradicates many boundaries and elevates already intense emotions. Relationships do form, and fans gain familiarity with the players, using them for their own make-believe. They are supporting characters to provide insight, almost a proxy.
For devoted fans, the people making up the fabric around their primary fan object help to inform their idea of what kind of person they are.
When I think of toying with the public narrative, my mind goes to The White Stripes, and their ultimate con, pitching themselves as siblings when the official paperwork said they were married. And when reality became an unavoidable topic, Jack White downplayed it purposefully.
David Fricke: Do you think the brother-sister thing was a miscalculation — that you overdid the mythmaking?
Jack White: It’s funny that people think me and Meg sit up late at night, in front of a gas lamp, and come up with these intricate lies to trick people.DF: But because you present that relationship as fact, it obscures your real connection as a couple — the truth and value of what you play together.
JW: I want you to imagine if we had presented ourselves in another fashion, that people might have thought was the truth. How would we have been perceived, right off the bat? When you see a band that is two pieces, husband and wife, boyfriend and girlfriend, you think. “Oh, I see . . .” When they’re brother and sister, you go, “Oh, that’s interesting.” You care more about the music, not the relationship — whether they’re trying to save their relationship by being in a band.
— The Mysterious Case of the White Stripes, Sept 2005
A more contemporary example would be Taylor Swift who in the past indulged in fully publicizing affairs, to hers and their benefit, naturally. Replete with outings and fluff, we were served up concert attendance, family visits, beach outings, red carpets, park promenades served on a platter. Whether it was all a set up or real time depictions of infatuations, we cannot pretend that it wasn’t presented for consumption.
Swift and her camp are far from unique in this regard (pop quiz: which celebrity couple recently had three wedding ceremonies?) But teasing the audience with a dash of erotic possibility was used even by respected and serious musicians, like Prince. When The Revolution was his band, he was involved in positioning musicians Lisa Coleman and Wendy Melvoin as a duo.
While long speculated, it was only confirmed in 2009 that Melvoin and Coleman had been in a relationship at the time, one that ultimately lasted over two decades.
“Prince saw us as the couple that we were and used that relationship to add more mystery to him. And I think Lisa and I were willing to go there because at that time we felt mysterious. We were young and it was the thing, so we went with it, not knowing what the result of that would mean or imply later in life. We didnt think about it in those terms.”
— Wendy Melvoin quoted in OUT Magazine, 2009
Then there’s the blue valentine of emo bandom, Ryan Ross and Brendon Urie’s theorized affair, abbreviated as Ryden in shipping circles. Even though Ross departed the band in 2009 and has remained mostly out of the limelight, the ship sails on.
In an interview with Paper Magazine, Urie allowed for the opposition, the fans who despite what they were being shown still believed, they were given an OK, their truth permitted to continue within their imaginary social worlds.
Beatrice Hazlehurst: [Ross] was such a heartthrob in his own right. He has fans.
Brendon Urie: There are still fans that ship us together as a gay couple. It's adorable. For like the last 13 years they are like "Rydon is real." I tell them "no" all the time, and they don't believe me. I'm like, "Good don't believe me."
NH: What's "stage gay"?
BU: For our first headline tour I would go up to Ryan our guitar player, and like kiss him on the neck or kiss him on the mouth and he would be so mad. I was like, I just want to kiss you bro. I would hang out with friends and after five or six beers we're just kind of like smooching on each other. People just get hammered and fool around.
The way these mediated real-world soaps are projected will always be found by people who need to believe something specific, but shippers—tinhats and miscellaneous conspiracists—are being tended to, sometimes in more direct ways than others.
It’s understandable that the broader public and even fandom might be unaware, but those reporting on the matter, observing the cycles, should know better.
Even when discussing a thread about Q-Anon, which we know was irresponsibly spurred on by officials, journalist Tara Mulholland still pegs tinhats as some detached entity rather than a customer cohort where emotions can be harnessed for profit. They worship in the language of capitalism, the act of consumerism, and are always fuelled by the opposition and naysayers.
Stans worship is the language of capitalism, the act of consumerism, and is always fuelled by the opposition and naysayers.
So if stirring the pot, dropping even an eye drop of content, might work to pull someone in, to get some more eyeballs on release dates, well. Why not?
"Relationships do form, and fans gain familiarity with the players, using them for their own make-believe. They are supporting characters to provide insight, almost a proxy."
This is what interest me, mostly because fans detach themselves from the /real people/ involved, or the realities of what's unfolding in front of them. I've kind of stared into the abyss of US politics and noted that it's all about fandom tactics: being able to rub your opponents' faces in the dirt at your superior position, or your victories. It feels horrifying, because it's what people typically see from dystopian sci-fi fiction: a demoralized populace realizing that they can't affect anything, so they might as well make it entertainment.
I think you're right on the money with needing to highlight that these strategies are moneymaking methods instead of being benign or innocent. That indictment needs to be drilled into peoples' heads more, because I think they perceive it as having... sanctity? that it doesn't have.