Extreme fanaticism: parasocial relations in the 21st century | The daily

The new technologies that led to new consumption dynamics and online habits in the last decade saw, in the hands of the explosion of social networks, the “fandom” in all its forms. These groups of fans have a dark countercara and there is talk of the violence exerted by “toxic fandoms” towards various people, whether famous or foot citizens.

The obsessive consumption of what all kinds of celebrities do reach dangerous limits when the lines of reality and virtuality are blurred; For example, when online and offline violence is exercised from the Beyhive (nucleated around the singer Beyoncé), the BACZ (Fans of the Nicki Minaj rapper), or, to locate ourselves in our region, for the Lalitos and the calves (followers of Lali Espósito and María Becerra, who last year had to leave the networks for harassment). These are groups capable of organizing concrete campaigns and actions to “defend” their idols.

A few months ago, the magazine Vulture He reported how part of the singer Nicki Minaj’s fans environment, via her Barbz, had taken reprisals (in real life) against another singer for sayings of her husband. “Lately, attention around Stardom In general it has reached a new high point. Donald Glover made a series about this, Swarmwhile some artists are trying to legally mediate their relationships with their fans (Britney Spears has had to tell her Instagram followers to relax and let her live, and Doja Cat was reluctant to the idea of ​​an organized fans base), ”they explained in an article about the growing online virulence of the fandom, in which they also noticed the way in which figures as a minx And how dangerous this can become.

These types of relationships, also called “parasocial”, are not only given in the musical or artistic field. As the author and artist Alan Moore said in an opinion column in The Guardianthere is a link between those toxic relationships that are the basis of many fandoms and the wave of violence and intolerance in today’s society, which also operates as a crop broth for what was the growth of radicalized movements that today come to power.

“I think that the Fandom is a wonderful and vital organ of contemporary culture, without which this culture ends up stagnating, stuns and dying. At the same time, I am sure that the Fandom is sometimes a grotesque plague that pools the society that surrounds it with its petty obsessions and its ridiculous and undeserved feeling of the right to everything,” he said, he said, he said not only referred to the comics, since this behavior (generally by white, medium -age and conservative men) is now observed in all kinds of communities.

Parasocial relationships: a culture broth for political extremism

Parasocial relationships could be defined as a relationship that a person imagines having with another person who does not really know. It enables them, in large part, the new closeness and intimacy – or their illusion – that provide social networks. Apply to Celebritiespublic and even politicians. Moore goes further and states that the reason why some voted for Donald Trump or Boris Johnson has less to do with politics and more with the cult of their personalities. It is not a detail that, for some like the journalist and author Scott Galloway, “parasocial” is the word of the year.

In this sense, there are many political analysts who attribute Trump’s electoral triumph in 2024 to his ability to uncheck from the Republican party to directly link with the public, showing himself before his group. “Call it narcissism or monopolize the discussion with noise, but what attracts the most attention is Trump’s determination to broadcast his character to his followers. They think of the millions of lonely people who look at TV, craving their comments live, perhaps because they share their policy, but almost certainly because they want their friendship,” Galloway continues.

The rapid comparison with his opponent Kamala Harris, who had a thorough and cured strategy, in which he was weighing each speech and each public appearance, can explain the preference for Trump’s spontaneous and direct style for being perceived as more “authentic”, a value that lies high these days. Nor would it be exaggerated to make a parallelism with what happens in Argentina with President Javier Milei – “Javo” for his followers in X–, whose communicational style without filter, without script and at times Iracundo (nobody handles social networks and interacts regularly with his followers, whom he answers and retweet) is far from the expected institutional protocol for the investiture of a president. As Trump, Milei conquered voters with that particular approach. Of course, they also beat their detractors and produced more than a short circuit within the government.

Despite the geographical distances, the transversality of the phenomenon tells us about similar social and cultural contexts, places where the ideological, economic and vital projects between men and women widen more and more and in which traditional roles of masculinity are rethink in the face of the progress of movements and activisms that have conquered rights for themselves and improved some living conditions.

An interesting fact: in the United States, the insularization of society is a problem that both social sciences and traditional media already speak: “12% of Americans say they do not have close friends, compared to 3% in 1990. Meanwhile, half of the country says that it fights loneliness. In our country there is an epidemic of solitude that extends much beyond the lives of the Z. we have underestimated its impact: Soledad affects everything, from the means we consume and the products we buy to the relationships we form (or not), ”Galloway suggests.

Although technology is responsible, loneliness and difficulty forming links, or following traditional adulthood milestones, is an issue that exceeds we spend stuck to screens.

Why talk about loneliness? It happens that in a society in which people feel alone and alienated, or are in search of a company, it is easier for this type of parasocial relationships to develop or that there is excessive fanaticism by certain figures. And there are those who can capitalize as a result of this and know how to use it in their favor.

The antifandom

“One of the first conclusions to which the active presence of huge Fandoms groups in social networks is taken is that it no longer makes sense to talk about virtuality as opposed to reality. The groups of fans that four decades streets, that cannot be committed alkaneously, we need safe places on the Internet, ”says Ana Correa, Lawyer and Communicator, Postgraduate Coordinator on Digital Gender Violence and Answers from the Law of the Law Faculty of the University of Buenos Aires.

Gone are the times when fans worshiped their idols from afar, and in which even a halo of mystery or ignorance was welcome; Today the culture of fans has mutated in a much more complex and dangerous game in which fans feel an intense sense of property about the lives of public people and experience deep resistance to anything that contradicts the narrative or the idea that they have built on that figure, whether we talk about the love lives of those people, their health problems or even their political opinions or others.

Person and character become the same, so they are also created “antifandoms” that enable someone to hate “your full -time fandom hobb, along with legions composed of other hatemors.

Everything raises an opinion today by fans or Stans (More intense fans; the term comes from the English “I stand for x”, “I identify with guy”), which consume the narratives of their idols or public figures from what the sensationalist media and social networks generate. Sometimes it is the figures themselves that feed or “filter” those narratives. In Latin America we could take the penultimate scandals of the local entertainment such as Wanda Nara-China Suárez-Colapinto and Icardi to understand the passions that raise foreign issues, the level of intensity of the discussions and the “sides” that are formed.

According to the Roman Aja Culture reporter, the change began to be seen in the late 2000s in the K-Pop Fandom and within the followers of YouTube channels and later on Twitch, in which the amateur players and streamers who triumphed had no media training or preparation to deal with their fame and interact with their followers as if they were their friends. “Then, the arrival of the networks caused the celebrities to be even more accessible and gave fans with extreme trends even more ways to connect and mobilize in mass. The result of this interdependence is an increase in fans who feel entitled to parts of their idols, and sometimes with physical right, either through harass Researcher

Due to the impunity that many toxic fans handle, many figures have begun to speak publicly of the problem and appeal to social networks to raise awareness about the consequences of their actions.

New idols and a changing media landscape

The violent behavior of the Fandoms not only affects the ways of covering political activity, but also the way of doing politics. Nothing is more strange but eloquent of the bizarre times distorted by the algorithm in which we are living that observing the microfandom that occurred around the figure of Luigi Mangione, the man who on December 4, 2024 murdered Brian Thompson, executive director of United Healthcare, because he was considered to be scammed by the medical insurance company.

As he met and filtered information to the public, the Internet went crazy with memes and conspiracy stories, but also with speeches that idolized and claimed the figure of Mangione. They were enough for a couple of hours to begin to appear t -shirts, cups and Christmas ornaments with the image of Mangione and legends of the “Free Luigi” style, in a country that, as the magazine suggests Wired“He has made support for the murderers one of their favorite hobbies.”

“Today digital environments are not safe for girls, boys and adolescents, and they are not for women either. In the case of boys, because networks have become places of capture, exploitation and dissemination of child sexual abuse material. LGBT women and people receive a disproportionate impact of online violence, and everything supposes that it will increase with the statements and new goal policies, announced by Mark Zuckerberg, who He claims more male energy for companies.

These are times of parasocial relationships, in which influencers and creators can help win elections, and everything indicates that their incidence will continue to grow. Today referents are created in the strangest forms (in Argentina, a tarotist and cake saleswoman becomes a political figure, while in the United States a shooter is an idol of crowds), so it is possible to wonder about the forms that fanaticism has adopted and for how it enables violence circuits inside and outside the web.