Why Fan Culture Is a Lie...

Fan culture, in its simplest form, is the circulation of creative material by the people who consume it.

Even in its simplest form the lie begins, because in order for fan culture to exist, the hype has to be built by the creators and distributors of the aforementioned creative material in the first place. This means that before we even truly begin anything, creators are already grafting and vying for the attention of some members of the general public.

As someone who has, in fact, been involved in both sides of this process on many occasions, I can confirm that fan culture almost always starts from within the creators’ inner circle. But what happens from here is quite the worldwide phenomenon.

Fan culture is essentially the indoctrination of the minds of content consumers, and I’m not saying that this is always a bad thing. Without fan culture, life would be incredibly boring. People would have very little to be passionate about, creators would have no one to create for, and then, what would be the point?

This phenomenon, at its roots, is innocent. It’s not wrong to want to share the work of a creator you believe in. It’s not wrong, as a creator, to pass your work around and convince people to give it a chance. In many cases, these creations are things that grow on us until we cannot remember a time in which we may have picked it apart for its faults, and I think this is the key area in which the culture becomes a lie.

Being a ‘fan’ of something is almost like a virus. It starts with one person and it gets passed on again and again until a vast number of people have at least heard of it, if not been affected by the bug, and once a virus sets in, there's very little anyone can do to stop it. So what about this process makes fan culture a lie? Leaders, followers, and the fickleness of opinions.

Some people are born leaders, some are born followers. Some people hold their opinions in a vice-like grip while others choose to change theirs based on the company they keep, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with either of these approaches to life. If one leader, a person holding their opinion in that vice-like grip, however, loves a song, book, film or painting with such vehemence and passion that the next person they tell about it can’t help but be sucked into this whirlwind, a vortex of fiery passion and thoughts, without actually having a moment to stop and think about whether they actually like the material to begin with, a knock on effect begins to ensue where being a fan of something actually starts to become a foggy jungle of thoughts and memories; where one thing seems to tangle into the next, and no one actually has any idea how they got there in the first place. This is one of the most beautiful and tragic things about becoming a fan of something, especially if that thing ceases to exist or fades into the background. At this point, somehow it becomes something of an overwhelming, painful nostalgia, rather than the buttery yellow, exciting prospect that it used to be.

But how does this destroy good people you may ask? Well, in my experience, that answer lies within the realm of the creators and their relationships with fans, friends, and everyone in between.

When a creator starts out, in most senses, they are usually humble people who just want one person to experience and enjoy the content they create. But like anything in this world, that desire for one consumer grows to a desire for two, and then three, and so on until even one hundred still doesn’t seem to fulfill the growing hunger that this strange chain of events seems to create within so many people.

Let me disclaim that not all creators end up this way and that some of the kindest, most humble people I know even now are creators who know the struggle for this balance very well, but it doesn’t mean they’re all like that. Even some of the people I have been closest to in my lifetime have ended up being consumed by the hunger that fan culture creates, and when they are, it’s very hard to pull them back from that abyss.

Sometimes I do wonder if the real culprit for this is money, maybe even greed, but who can really say what any one person's motivations are in life, except for that person?

I would say though, that the rise in ticket and merch sales seems to correlate quite well with the ever-growing hunger that some creators just don’t seem to be able to shake.

It’s funny really, as you grow from a fan to friend, or even just a fan to a well-seasoned one, you can watch the decline of “thank-you’s” as if you were plotting it on a graph. The birthday and Christmas messages somehow teeter off to an occasional “How’s the family?” And before you know it, even though you’ve spent a good majority of your time at the heart of helping one creator or the next, you’re soon out of favor and the next round of young fans with pocket money and without full-time jobs to contend with is rolling in with brand new prospects for a creator's future. And that’s okay because that is how fan culture works naturally, but what of the other side of it?

What happens when the lines between a creator and a fan, or several fans, are blurred? What happens when payment by money becomes payment by sexual favors and a drink here, an expensive gift there? The answer is simple; hurt, loss, and sadness.

Every fan thinks they’re special when they get a reply, a hug, maybe even a message, but in reality, creators and fans alike, we are all part of one well oiled, extremely corrupted machine that exploits and warps the minds of everyone involved until all that is left, in the final, dark moments of existence, is regret and sadness for everything we did wrong, everything we wish we could change and everyone who hurt us and was hurt by us.

From fan culture stems a whole lot of love, passion, happiness, and friendship, but, on the much darker side of the moon; regret, loss, greed, sadness, and corruption.

Is there anything we can do to change it? Probably not. Does anyone really want to change it? Again, probably not. Corruption feels good to human beings because corruption means danger and danger is exhilarating, but how far does it have to go?