Product Code Database
A fan or fanatic, sometimes also termed an aficionado or enthusiast, is a person who exhibits strong interest or admiration for something or somebody, such as a celebrity, a sport, a sports team, a genre, a politician, a book, a television show, a movie, a video game or an entertainer. Collectively, the fans of a particular object or person constitute its fanbase or fandom. They may show their enthusiasm in a variety of ways, such as by promoting the object of their interest, being members of a related fan club, holding or participating in or writing fan mail. They may also engage in creative activities ("fan labor") such as creating , writing fan fiction, making Internet meme, drawing fan art, or developing fan games. Some excessively avid fans are called " stans" (a portmanteau of stalker and fan).
Use of "the fancy" to mean avid sports enthusiasts emerged as an American English in the mid-19th century. The Dickson Baseball Dictionary cites William Henry Nugent's work asserting that it was derived from the fancy, a term referring to the fans of a specific hobby or sport from the early 18th century to the 19th, especially to the followers of boxing. According to that theory, it was originally shortened to fance then just to the homonym fans. The Great American Baseball Scrapbook attributes the term to Chris von der Ahe, owner of the Saint Louis Brown Stockings in 1882. Von der Ahe sold tickets for 25 cents, hoping the many patrons would purchase his beer; the low ticket price helped him lead the stats in attendance. He called the fanatics filling his stands "fans".
Supporter is a synonym for "fan" that predates the latter term and is still commonly used in British English, especially to denote fans of teams. However, the term "fan" has become popular throughout the English-speaking world, including the United Kingdom. The term supporter is also used in a political sense in the United States, for a fan of a politician, a political party and a controversial issue.
There are several groups of fans that can be differentiated by the intensity level of their level of involvement or interest in the hobby (level of fanaticism) The likelihood for a subject of interest to be elevated to the level of fandom appears to be dictated by its complexity. Complexity allows further involvement of fans for a longer period of time because of the time needed to work the subject of interest 'out.' It also contributes to a greater sense of belonging because of the mental effort invested in the subject.
The latter is somewhat related to the concept of parasocial interaction where audiences develop one-sided relationships with media personalities and celebrities.
Not all fans have a crush on their idols. There are also fans who want to become their friends or respect an idol's relationship. In fact, there are fans who idolize celebrity couples.
Science fiction fandom developed its own slang, known as fanspeak after the "Newspeak" of the novel Nineteen Eighty-four. Fanspeak is made up of , blended words, obscure in-jokes, , coinages from science fiction novels or films, and archaic or standard English words used in specific ways relevant or amusing to the science fiction community. Some fanspeak terms, like fanzine have become standard English. Some fanspeak terms relate to fans themselves:
Specific sub-groups of science fiction fandom are often known by a collection term. For example:
The mentality of the sports fan is often such that they will experience a game, or event while living vicariously through players or teams whom the fan favors. This behavior manifests itself in a number of different ways, depending on the venue. At a stadium or arena, sports fans will voice their pleasure with a particular incident, player, or team by cheering, which consists of clapping, fist-pumping, or shouting positive exclamations toward the field of play and ultimately, the favorable object. Likewise, displeasure toward a particular incident, player, or team may be met by fans with booing, shouting of expletives, and sometimes throwing of objects onto the field. This violent type of fan reaction is often called hooliganism.
Lighter, more harmless objects are also occasionally thrown onto certain fields of play as a form of celebration of a favorable sports feat. This is most common when a member of the home team scores a hat trick in hockey. Other, more mild forms of displeasure shown by sports fans at sporting events involve simple groans of disappointment, and silence. These actions often denote that the favored home team is being outperformed by, or has lost to the much less-favored road team.
In North America, extremely enthusiastic fans are often called "superfans": fans who dress up in outrageous and ostentatious costumes or outfits showing their devotion. Fanbases well known for their tenacious love and undying support are called Rabies fans or fanatics. These fans often congregate hours before kickoff in what is known as a tailgation or tailgating. At sports bars, sports fans will gather together, often while consuming food and alcoholic beverages, with the purpose of following a particular sporting event on television as a group. Sports bars often advertise in hopes of drawing fans of a particular player or team to watch together to increase bonds between fans and prevent fights. This can create the sense of unity in a sports bar as all cheers and boos will appear to be synchronized due to similar feelings and reactions by nearly all fans at the fortunes and misfortunes of the favored team or athlete. Due to the level of devotion and intensity of feeling towards the favored team or athlete by sports bar patrons, as well as partially due to the alcohol being served, behavior that would be seen as unruly or fanatical outside a sports bar is generally more common inside of one. The intensity of cheering and jeering at a sports bar by sports fans can often range from equal to stronger than that of fans actually at the sporting event for particularly significant games and matches.
At home, sports fans may have few fellow fans but also more freedom. This is sometimes where the most intense cheering or jeering will take place. In the fan's own home, unbridled and lengthy screaming, crying, acts of destruction to household objects, and other manifestations of joy or anguish, are perhaps seen as most acceptable in comparison to the sports bar or sporting venue simply because such acts taken to such an extreme can be seen as disruptive to a large number of fellow fans even if they share the same sentiment if it is of less intensity. The greatest variables of the reaction of a sports fan in their own home are the intensity of the fan's desire to see their team win or perform well, and the presence of another: often a wife, children, or friends who may be significantly less ardent sports fans or not sports fans at all, which may significantly temper the fan's reaction to a highly positive or negative moment due to the fear of causing a scene or scaring those close to the fan, or alienating themselves from said others. Often sports fans will invite other fans of relatively similar rooting intensity over to their house to experience a sporting event together so that all involved can voice pleasure or displeasure to their heart's content and increase male bonding in the process. It is becoming common for this type of bonding to take place over sports-related social networks.
They attribute people becoming fans to the following factors: One element is entertainment, because sports spectatorship is a form of leisure. Sports is also a form of escapism, and being a fan gives one an excuse to yell at something, an activity that may be constrained in other areas of one's life. Fan activities give participants a combination of euphoria and stress (about the potential for their team to lose) for which they coin the name "eustress". Fans experience euphoria during moments when play is going well for their team, and stress when play is going against their team. This tension between the two emotions generates an unusual sense of pleasure or heightened sensations. (2008). 9780786437269, MacFarland. ISBN 9780786437269
Aesthetics are another draw for some fans, who appreciate the precision or skill of play, or of the coordinated movement of the players during a pre-planned "play". Family bonding is a reason for some fan activities. Some families watch televised sports on a regular basis and go to sports games as a family outing to watch events and form a human bonding with one another and as a family. Others with no biological relations may view the team and fanbase as their family as Arsenal fan Maria Petri stated. Going to sports events can create a borrowed sense of self-esteem if fans identify with their teams to the extent that they consider themselves to be successful when their teams have been successful (e.g., as seen in the phrase "we have won"). If a fan identifies strongly with a favorite team, they will respond to the performance of the team as if team success were a personal success and team failure a personal failure. (2025). 9780415873581, Routledge. ISBN 9780415873581
Fangirls and fanboys in fandoms sometimes, with various meanings, consider their fandom to be their "family", and feel very loyal to it, usually.
According to a study by from Cambridge University, the more that people publicly express admiration for a public figure, the more likely it is that the fans' faith in the public figure will remain unaffected following "moral violations" by the adored person.
Some of these monikers are almost universally known and used by fans of the artists as well as outsiders. Other nicknames are not commonly used, neither by outsiders nor by the concerning fan-base, such as Kylie Minogue's "Kylie Stans", Madonna's "Madonna Fans", Maroon 5's "Maroon 5 Stans" or Nick Jonas's so called "Nick Jonas Fans", usually appearing on social media networks such as Twitter and Tumblr, The term "stan" is also used to describe fans of K-pop. The term is not to be confused with Sasaeng fans, which are overly obsessed fans who stalk and sometimes bring harm to idols.
The term was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2017.
Singer-songwriter Lorde has a different opinion on the matter of giving her followers a nickname. She discouraged it by saying "I find it grating to lump everyone into a really awkward, pun-centric name" and affirmed she will never name her fanbase.
In other words, the term 'groupie' (used synonymously with the term 'fan' or 'fangirl') is frequently used to shame women involved within the music community, restricting their involvement to sexual relations with band members or worshipping male rock stars.
This trend can also be observed within other fan communities, such as comic book fandoms, where women are frequently portrayed as "Fake Geek Girls", only interested in comic books to impress guys or to view the attractive men present within their content, or sports communities, where women are often made uncomfortable at live sporting events due to the overt sexism and aggressive masculinity displayed by male spectators, and then labelled as 'inauthentic' for viewing the games via television instead. Within hockey, female fans are often called "Puck Bunnies", defined as,
Such discrimination against female fans can become violent at times in an effort to police "authenticity". The recent events known as GamerGate provide a good example of such attacks, whereby multiple women working within the gaming industry were victims of sexual harassment and violent threats, some even forced to leave their homes for fear of a physical confrontation.
The fangirls', often stereotyped as female, so-called 'hysteria' is described as the product of sexual repression. However, while it is expected for women to be involved in certain fandoms for physical or sexual reasons, this is also viewed as undesirable and driven by hormonal changes.
These acts of adoration are societally limited to adolescent youth, or menopausal women, in both instances blaming "these two periods of hormonal lunacy" on the irrational, overtly sexual behaviour. For instance, Cheryl Cline, in her text entitled "Essays from Bitch: The Women's Rock Newsletter with Bite", discusses how women need to keep their interests hidden once they pass adolescence. In her own words, "it's a sign of maturity to pack up all the posters, photos, magazines, scrapbooks, and unauthorized biographies you so lovingly collected and shove them in the back of the closet.
These conflicting accounts of fangirl behaviour are due to the belief that women are not supposed to express such sexual fantasies unless influenced by some hormonal induced craziness, while for men it is normal to be sexual regardless of age. As Cheryl Cline summarizes,
He later elaborates, stating that,
And, most importantly, they're taught that real men turn to violence not as a last resort, but as the go-to method of resolving disputes – and also as a primary means of winning respect and establishing masculine credibility.
In the predecessor to this documentary, Tough Guise, Katz also addresses the issue of body image, using multiple movies, such as The Terminator and Rambo, as well as action figures like G.I. Joe, to illustrate how 'real men' are defined as big, strong, and muscular. Tough Guise. Writ. Jackson Katz. Dir. Sut Jhally. Media Education Foundation
Production, 1999.
Fanboy portrayals, by definition, do not fit into this mold of a 'real man', with the exception of sports fans. In a study by Gerard Jones on comic book fans, he described the comic book fanboys as "small, anxious, withdrawn, and terrified of the opposite sex."Jones, Gerard. Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book. New York: Basic Books, 2004. Quite the opposite of the 'real man' previously described by Katz. Their interests may also be considered as a deviation from societal gender roles, according to Noah Berlastsky, such as playing Dungeons & Dragons instead of football. This lack of traditional masculine traits warrants them much teasing from peers, parental figures, coaches, or older male role models for not conforming to these ideas of masculinity.Pustz, Matthew. Comic Book Culture: Fanboys and True Believers. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999. A popular example of such treatment in mainstream media is shown on the sitcom The Big Bang Theory, where, multiple times throughout the show's run, the four main characters, portrayed as 'nerdy fanboys', are humiliated by larger 'real men'. For instance, in the show pilot, the two main characters, Leonard and Sheldon, get their pants taken by the main female character's ex-boyfriend, who is portrayed as big, strong, tough, confident, and successful with women."Pilot." The Big Bang Theory. Writ. Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady. Dir. James Burrows. Chuck Lorre Productions. Warner Bros. Television, California, USA. September 24, 2007.
Furthermore, fanboys also deal with issues of gender discrimination in relation to their fandom interests. For example, Bronies, a group of young men enthralled by the TV show , a show typically geared towards young girls, are often the target of ridicule. Their interest in a 'feminine' media item can be the cause of great shame, causing many to become 'private' bronies, enjoying the show in secret out of fear.
Furthermore, while discussing Beatlemania and the crazed Beatles fangirl behaviour, Barbara Ehrenreich, Elizabeth Heiss, and Gloria Jacobs mention how the 'only cure' for what was at the time considered an affliction was age, and that similarly to "the girls who had screamed for Frank Sinatra," the Beatles fangirls would "grow up to be responsible, settled" individuals.
An exception to this portrayal is the sports fan, who is expected to be overtly sexual, and aggressive.Gosling, Victoria K. "Girls Allowed? The Marginalization of Female Sports Fans." Eds. Gray, Jonathan, et al. Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World. New York: New York University Press, 2007. Print. 250–260. This portrayal is particularly dominant within the sports arena, which provides a legitimate site for people to act in hypermasculinized ways. According to "Many men want to be overtly sexist and racist. They need to have this exaggerated sense of their sexuality to defend themselves from potential accusations that they are not real men."Coddington, A. One of the Lads: Women who Follow Football. London: Harper Collins, 1997. Print.
Celebrity reaction
Celebrities have positively reacted to their "stan" followings. Notably, English singer-songwriter Jessie J had this to say about her stans, "They support me and buy my albums and singles, and they stand outside hotels, and they come to shows, and they get tattoos of my lyrics and they cut their hair like me. You have to love your fans. That's why I call them my Heartbeats, because without them I wouldn't be here". In 2012, after Jessie J broke her leg, a stan broke her own leg to emulate the injury. The fan tracked down Jessie J's personal address and sent her a photograph of the self-inflicted injury. The singer was horrified and decided to increase her security.
Gender stereotypes
Societal gender roles
Discrimination against females
Women tend to be "more restricted in their leisure choices and opportunities than men," and their experiences within fandoms are typically demeaned to a more sexualized, emotional, or bodily experience, as opposed to intellectual interests.Cline, Cheryl. "Essays from Bitch: The Women's Rock Newsletter with Bite." Ed. Lewis, Lisa A. The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media. New York; London: Routledge, 1992. Print. 69–83.Railton, Diane. "The Gendered Carnival of Pop." Popular Music: Gender and Sexuality. 20, 3. (Oct. 2001): 321–331. JStor. Web. October 26, 2014.Crawford, G. and Gosling, V.K. "The Myth of the Puck Bunny: Female Fans and Men's Ice Hockey." Sociology: 38 (3), 2004. 477–493. For example, in music, women are more predominant, and accepted, within pop music fandoms, which Diane Railton describes as evoking an emotional and physical response, in contrast with the 'masculine' rock music, which is defined as 'serious' music with a 'meaning', focusing on political, cultural, and psychological discussion. Due to this, women are rarely given space or voice within the intellectual realm of music. According to Frank Zappa, "men come to hear the music and chicks come for the sex thrills,"Hiwatt, S. "Cock rock." Twenty-Minute Fandangos and Forever Changes: A Rock Bazaar. Ed. J. Eisen. New York: 1971. 141–7. implying that women's involvement in fan communities is purely sexual, and that they are incapable of displaying intellectual or artistic interest in the music itself. Those who do manage to become involved within the world of 'serious' music are often relegated to the realm of a 'groupie'. A groupie, according to Cheryl Cline, is
A person (a woman, usually), who 'chases after' rock stars, as my mother would say. But 'groupie' is also used more or less synonymously with 'girl Rock fan', 'female journalist', and 'woman Rock musician'; it's used to mean anyone working in the music field who isn't actually a Rock musician; it's used as an all-purpose insult and a slut on one's professionalism; it's used as a cute term for 'hero worship'; and it's used interchangeably with 'fan'.
Someone who hangs around the players, always on the lookout for the chance to get that autograph / photograph / quick pint drink / quick knee trem-bler round the back of the Arena from the player or players (or even coach) of their choice, heck let's face it even the water carrier is in with a chance here.
It's much easier for a man to be indulgent about the crushes of teenage girls than it is for him to be fair-minded about the sexual fantasies of the woman he loves when they're about someone else. And the same guy who'll leave Penthouse in the bathroom will yell, 'No woman of mine is gonna hang a poster of Prince naked to the waist on the inside of the closet of the spare room where no one will see it!' … Until you reach the age when everybody thinks you're crazy anyway, so why not admit to an intense hankering to run your fingers through Willie Nelson's whiskers?
Discrimination against males
According to Jackson Katz in the documentary Tough Guise 2, boys are taught early on that to be "real men" they need to be tough and not to show their feelings. Tough Guise 2. Writ./Dir. Jackson Katz and Jeremy Earp. Media Education Foundation Production, 2013.
Men can't show any emotion except anger. We can't think too much or seem too intellectual. We can't back down when someone disrespects us. We have to show we're tough enough to inflict physical pain and take it in turn. We're supposed to be sexually aggressive with women. And then we're taught that if we step out of this box, we risk being seen as soft, weak, feminine, or gay.
Qualities like compassion, caring, empathy, intellectual curiosity, fear, vulnerability, even love – basic human qualities that boys have inside them every bit as much as girls do – get methodically driven out of them by a sexist and homophobic culture that labels these things as 'unmanly,' 'feminine,' 'womanly,' and 'gay,' and teaches boys to avoid them at all costs.
Fangirl
Fangirls are often portrayed as teenagers obsessed with something to a frightening degree. The term is often used in a demeaning, derogatory fashion and is said to describe the fans that give "normal" fans a bad name. In fact, the term "fangirling" is used to describe anyone who obsessively follows a certain fandom to the point where it interferes with their daily lives. Such a trend of 'authentic' versus 'inauthentic' fan is common within fan communities, and is particularly pertinent to gender discrimination and misogynistic ideals. However, on the other hand of the spectrum, some fangirls have embraced the title, considering it a compliment rather than a derogatory term.
Immaturity in fangirls
In terms of their involvement within fandoms, fangirls are typically portrayed as losing all control, fainting, sobbing, and dashing about in mobs.Ehrenreich, Barbara, Elizabeth Hess, and Gloria Jacobs. "Beatlemania: Girls Just Want to Have Fun." Ed. Lewis, Lisa A. The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media. New York; London: Routledge, 1992. Print. 84–106. For instance, while describing the phenomenon of Beatlemania, fan activity is described by stating that:
The appropriate reaction to contact with the – such as occupying the same auditorium or city block – was to sob uncontrollably while screaming, 'I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die,' or, more optimistically, the name of a favorite Beatle, until the onset of either unconsciousness or laryngitis. Girls peed in their pants, fainted, or simply collapsed from the emotional strain.
Fanboy
supporter]]Fanboys are frequently portrayed as "angry nerds", over-aggressive, derogatory, and protective of the object of their obsession, or as bespectacled, geekoid, obsessive fans. The term nerd, defined as "an insignificant, foolish, or socially inept person; a person who is boringly conventional or studious; a person who pursues an unfashionable or highly technical interest with obsessive or exclusive dedication,""nerd, n." OED Online. Oxford University Press, September 2014. as well as the term geek, defined as "a person … who is regarded as foolish, offensive, worthless; an overly diligent, unsociable student; any unsociable person obsessively devoted to a particular pursuit,""geek, n." OED Online. Oxford University Press, September 2014. are often used to describe stereotypical fanboys. In regards to chosen fandoms, they are typically associated with comic books, video games, science fiction movies or television series, or technology (such as computer or smartphone brands).
Immaturity in fanboys
Fanboys are often portrayed as quite angry, violent, and offensive while defending the objects of their affection, such as the smartphone fanboys who frequently verbally attack anybody saying anything the slightest bit offensive about their chosen technological product through online anonymous sites.
See also
(2025). 9780415924634, Routledge. ISBN 9780415924634
External links
|
|
