Obsessive Fans

Which behavior? Toxic fans or actors being silly?

I am reminded of stuff like this (someone had actually tweeted her that Eponine wasn't the role for her): 

All fandoms can be terrible. But luckily I don't think theatre fans assault in bulk like film/tv fans, simply because of the live nature of the beast.

A good thing to keep in mind: 

I just don't think it happens as much to theatre actors because it's easier to be rude or at least abrasive to a TV/film celebrity who you can assume (however wrongfully) isn't reading their own mentions.

I will say there was an entertainingly tense exchange between Russell Crowe and Andrew Varela back in the day:

Given that Star Wars have used a wide range of diverse looking and sized performers over the years, I found the trolling of the lady in question Kelly Marie Tran very sad.

Star Wars has always had obsessive fans and it has been a long running joke about how they are stereotyped. I work in an IT Dept and some of the techies in there certainly fit that description.

Last week I went to see a singer and actress Naomi Scott in concert. She is apparently playing Princess Jasmine in live action Aladdin film next year. Anyway previously she was in the Power Rangers film last year which I'd forgotten about. A group of Sci-Fi fans appeared at the concert carrying character models in carrier bags and remained at the back all throughout the concert. They had merely gone to the concert to meet Naomi afterwards and get photos with and their Memorabilia signed!

I thought fairplay to them as concert was only £10 and at a Convention/Collectormania event to have photo with Naomi and get stuff signed would likely have cost £40/£50. I never found out what she thought of the fans lurking at the back, she didn't encourage them to come forward during her set.

There are always a minority who have reactionary impulses, often seeming more numerous than they are because their fear of change makes them stridently vocal. I suppose keeping them away from politics is vaguely useful but that’s no comfort for their targets. The Doctor Who gender change was a good recent example (although as a psychological issue it is very much a cross gender one).

LOve never dies was fascinating the way it brought out the crazies. I wish it had been good to mess with them further.

There are crazies everywhere, and in all fandoms - theatre is not immune: remember the 'Love Never Dies' situation?

The more popular something is the more fans it has and therefore the more crazies there will be among them. It's just the internet has made it very easy for them all to connect with each other to reinforce their craziness, and amplified their voices.

Sometimes the obsessiveness is relatively benign - like endless discussion of how many understudies people have seen in various roles - sometimes it is even positive, like people fundraising for good causes to celebrate the birthday of an actor or singer (and hence get some attention from them). Unfortunately there are also times when it becomes downright toxic and impinges on people's personal lives (and not just of the object of affection - intra-fandom disputes can get really nasty!). 

In some ways the media picking up on this stuff and writing about it gives it far too much prominence, and is counterproductive. 
Obsessive fans become toxic because they are lacking something in their own lives, leading to an over-investment in whatever they are interested in, have an outsized sense of entitlement, seek attention and influence over it. Letting them know that they *have* influenced whatever it is they're complaining about - if only by successfully making the lives of the people who made it miserable - actually rewards their efforts. 

In other words, don't feed the trolls! But that approach does nothing to support the people being individually  targeted.

Back in the dawn of the internet it seemed there was a much clearer separation between fans and fandoms and the creators/objects of affection. There was a sense that fan activity happening online was not expected to impinge on the creators - indeed, when it came to fanfiction, fanart and general discussion lots of fans would have been mortified if the creators/object of affection had seen what was going on in fan spaces. I do wonder if we're going to end up going back in that direction with social media, just for the sanity of everyone involved. There's already settings on twitter and the like that allow famous people to filter their mentions to just the people they actually follow and ignore the general noise. And I think we're seeing push back from (established) actors and singers over the idea that they *must* have an active social media presence - the Rock has reportedly demanded a separate fee in his contract for social media promotion, the likes of Robert Downey Jr has an active SM presence but it's rather obviously run by his PR team with minimal personal input, and several well-known actors have either publicly declared they've given up on SM, or just quietly stopped using it, or never joined to start with. 

That doesn't address the root cause of the craziness - but I'm not sure that is a problem that can actually be solved, since there will always be people who channel their own dissatisfaction with life into their hobbies and interests.

In the case of Dwayne Johnson, he does seem to enjoy social media but fair play to him to get more money to promote his films and television shows on social media rather than doing it for free. 

Isn't going to see the same show dozens of a times rather more obsessive than posting insults on Twitter?

I know. I saw your original post. I don't think insulting an actor on Twitter is necessarily a manifestation of obsessive fandom. If they weren't doing that, they'd be posting crazy comments on Daily Mail articles. Some people just get nasty when they hide behind anonymity

I am not good at explaining myself and finding it very difficult to explain.

I think the ones that wrote to him where (from how they wrote) teenage girls. I think more when you get fans who are very defensive over how their fandom "should" be portrayed either on screen or stage. It's still an obsessive thing to me. I think in todays worlds with social media it takes a different form. I mean understand trolls online who do this. But I remember 20 years ago being 14 and having people in my year obsess over a TV show like Hollyoaks to the point where they would hate the actor who played a character they didnt like. If twitter was around then they probably would have send hate mail.

Not as I put it maybe obsessed fans but fans who obsess over the an orginal production and feel the need to be defensive of the production which in turn means dismissing or abusing actors.

I just thought it would be an interesting topic to discuss about but I am finding it difficult to express myself.

Yes, so much so that famously back in the days of paper fan mail some stars’ assistants used to filter it by ink colour - for some reason the hate mail seemed to be mostly written in green ink!

i have met soooooo many crazy and obsessive fans, its unreal - and they even think they are just "normal" fans
- one of the girls i met years ago made holiday on a small island just about the same time her fave actor made holiday
there, and it was all just lucky timing, yeah of course )
- some "fans" followed an actor after SD-ing back home to see where he lived (he has a small son living there) and then
came back and told others still waiting at SD proudly "i know where he lives"
- or some weeks back one girl met her fave actor in a shopping mal where he spent some time with his husband and she had
nothing better to do than watch what they eat in the restaurant and then disturb them in their free time and tell me
off because i said she should have left them there time alone that they don't normally have because they work miles apart

and the worst is that they think this is all normal fan behaviour and all i get is a mouth full of insults when i tried to tell them its not