Is Pop Culture Messing With Your Love Life?

How fandom culture could be messing with your real-life relationships.

- Chandra Pepino

It was January 2013, and the Twitter community was in uproar—positioned at the top of the Worldwide Trends list was an alarming three-word hashtag. One click and you were assaulted by the sight of forearms sliced open, posted online as proof of some kind of demented blood pact. Why were teenagers in nearly every major city in the world cutting themselves? It was a bid to get their hero, Justin Bieber, to stop smoking marijuana. The hashtag #CutForBieber started out as a cruel prank by trolls, but by the time they tried to explain, blood had already been shed. This isn’t the first time celebrity obsession has driven fans to psychotic lengths—from Beatlemania in the 1960s to Kim Kardashian and Kanye West getting tackled to the ground at Paris Fashion Week in 2014, diehards will stop at nothing to bask in the presence of their idols. The thing is, fan relationships always start out innocuously. You notice the hype and want to understand it, embark on a quick Google search, and before you know it, you’re neck-deep into what’s referred to as a ‘fandom’— a dedicated group of people who devote the same kind of time, money, and energy one would on an actual significant other. Fans shell out thousands on tickets, merchandise, and collaborations, camp out on the streets to be first in line for exclusive events, and manage separate social media accounts to post updates about their idols and interact with fellow fans. When the integrity of their beloved is challenged by rival fandoms, they don’t hesitate to declare war. There’s a word for this typically female-normative excitement: