This amused me, a piece in the Guardian by Shaad D'Souza that argues:
Since it was alleged that Taylor Swift is seeing Matty Healy, the frontman of the pop band The 1975, these fans have been up in arms, cancelling orders of Swift's forthcoming album, posting lengthy reflections on Twitter justifying their attendance (or lack thereof) at Swift's current tour, and launching a campaign – #SpeakUpNow – implicitly demanding that Swift break up with Healy. (Swift has not publicly acknowledged the relationship, but Healy has been seen at her concerts and the pair have been photographed together multiple times in recent weeks.)
Apparently:
In the #SpeakUpNow letter, circulated by a number of Swift's fans and reported on by a handful of major news outlets, the authors urge Swift to "reflect on the impact of your own and your associates' behaviour", "advocate for inclusivity, celebrate diversity, and promote empathy and understanding", and "actively engage in this process of personal and social transformation". Although never explicitly stated, the letter's message is clear: Taylor Swift needs to dump MattyHealy in the name of racial justice.
Had to go to wiki to see the problem, such as it is.
Anyhow D'Souza continues:
If you're not well-versed in the intensity and politics of stan Twitter – "stan" is internet lingo for fan, by way of the Eminem song from 2000 –this will probably read as massive, incomprehensible overreach: an example of people acting in a bizarrely paternalistic and proprietorial way over a star whom they supposedly love. If you do follow stan Twitter with any regularity, you know that this behaviour now passes for business as usual. The star/fan dynamic has almost inverted in recent years: many musicians now take their cues from social media. To some degree, pandering to your core base is a necessity of the job – even the most omnipresent star can no longer assume that they have a captive audience whose attention won't be directed elsewhere when they're about to release something new.
I only learned in the last few years that Dave Vanian of the Damned married Patricia Morrison of Gun Club/Sisters of Mercy years back. None of my business. I didn't know because at the time we didn't have the internet to link up fans in this way. There wasn't the cosmetic social media immediacy of such relationships, at least of people at that level, nor the concern at their doings.
I've no particular interest either in Swift or Healy or whether they are together or not. But I don't think either that it is really anyone else's business as to their relationship and it seems to me that there are category errors aplenty in all this. As D'Souza puts it, once they were the sort of fan who was complaining about all this - "thinking that an intense devotion to someone's art should translate into some level of input on their day-to-day life."
But that's an illusion and quite a dangerous one too. Because if we examine our own lives and our interactions we, many/most of us, have family, friendship, work links with people who are flawed or wrong about issues or whatever. The idea others would intervene in the manner discussed would be deeply inappropriate. Moreover adults can make their own decisions.
D'Souza mentions writing an opinion piece criticising Grimes for her then relationship with Musk and arguing that it was the opposite of her political 'leanings'. All true, but all irrelevant. If only the world was so simple. And Healy doesn't seem to be close to Musk's level of problematic.
But this obsession, this strangeness about fandom, is something else. Living one's life vicariously through others, and then demanding that those others accord to some sort of pre-selected direction of travel. Very strange. And oddly enough deeply destructive I suspect to those who are the fans.
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