Fandoms

Fandoms have become cults and can have dangerous impacts on our society.

Usually, when you think of a fandom, you would not think of it as a cult, as the word “cult” has a much darker and sinister connotation to it. However, it is becoming easier and easier to call fandoms cults.

With that said, it does not mean every fandom is a cult, and that everyone in a fandom is someone who is a deviant. Yet, at the same time, fandoms have a great amount of power and are affecting our society today; especially my generation.

Any major band or artist is mostly likely going to have a fandom whose members follow that artist or pop stars’ life and very much look up to them as a role model. None of this is bad, and it can actually be quite good for a person to have someone to look up to in their life. Many known fandoms of this day and age are the Justin Bieber followers, who have named themselves the “Beliebers” or the boy band One Direction, whose members call themselves the “Directioners”.

These large groups of people, who are mostly made up of teenagers, and a large portion of that is made up of females, have a large impact on our society today. This power, when misused, can have severe consequences and many do not think of the impact it can have on many people’s lives.

When Liam Payne, a member of One Direction tweeted, “@williebosshog huge love to you/your family huge respect for your business prosperities and the family values you still all behold. big fan.” It raised a huge amount of comments on twitter.
Tyler Oakley, a You Tuber and blogger, replied to his tweet, (which he quickly took down, due to the back-lash). Oakley received a staggering amount of hate and death threats to his response to Payne. He said along the lines of, he was disappointed and hurt by how Payne could back a family who supported homophobic values.

Due to this “twitter fight” Oakley lost many followers and received numerous death threats and hate mail.
The reaction of the One Direction Fandom was completely uncalled for and very immature. It is one thing to enjoy and support One Direction, but to blindly follow and love the members, even when they are clearly wrong, is another. It is very disturbing that people are willing to go to such extremes when they do not even know the person.

There have been many different times that fandoms have clashed with each other over many different actions that one or more stars committed.

A large fandom issue occurred when the Twilight series just recently became popular and many members inside the fandom chose one or the other of who Bella, the main female character, should be with. “Team Edward” and “Team Jacob” became a very common theme to see within the Twilight fandom. These “teams” where to show their support of who they believed that Bella should end up with in the book.

Whatever can be said about fandoms, is they do have a certain amount of power that they hold, and many members can become fanatical about what they believe. This creates a situation, like the one that was created when Payne sent the tweet, that can have a very dangerous aspect to it.