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When Fan Culture Becomes Toxic: Where Do We Draw the Line?
With each passing day, the line between admiration and obsession with these celebrities just keeps blurring. Back in the days when social media was yet to bloom, people maintained healthy fan-celebrity relationships from far distances.
Tell me the reason why I would give my opinion about which song I prefer to listen to most, and the next thing a fan claiming to be the same would know to do is online harassment.
I get it's human right and blah blah blah, but there has to be a moral limit to it all.
And to be honest, the media and abuse of the Internet are all to blame for this.
The fan culture has changed drastically over the years, especially with social media.
As a fact, it's all thanks to social media we got here.
The toxicity of the fan culture is so outrageous these days. I understand that without fans, these celebrities wouldn't have a career, but still, we need to understand the difference between admiration and entitlement. Many fans exhibit extreme behaviors like stalking, leaking information, and even online harassment and threats.
I watched the movie Swarm 2023, and I fear that if the fan culture isn't regulated, it will come to that in real life.
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Do celebrities play a role in this?
When it comes to celebrities, while some celebrities suffer from extreme fan obsession and online harassment without provoking some of them are to blame for the length that these fan obsessions have reached.
In my opinion, the more you engage and put your life out there for easy access to over a thousand people, of course, they would have opinions and even scrutinize every tiny detail they feel like.
Cardi B, for example, most times you see her engaging in arguments on Twitter with people who don't know her and people who she doesn't even know what they look like.
I know it is good to stand up for yourself and draw a line but I believe that there are better ways to do it.
Megan the Stallion engaged in rap beef with Nicki Minaj last year, and Nicki Minaj's fan base is widely known for how aggressive they are online. They even went to the length of leaking the grave location of Megan's dead mom to the public.
But Megan thee stallion never once engaged with any of the fan pages because that is what they need. And when they saw they weren't getting anything they stopped. That’s the power of disengagement—sometimes, silence is the best response. Unlike Cardi B, whom these fans jump on her post just one second after uploading to harass her because they know they will get what they want from her.
I understand celebrities are humans, too, and have emotions. But that is just what you have to give for the fame.
While some have no idea or have a hand in building this toxicity. Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift have been victims of stalking by fans who believed they had relationships with them. It's just crazy. What I would say to those fans is simply— “put the phone down, get something to do in real life, drop those devices, and touch some grass! Return to reality!!!. The Internet and social media are not reality!"
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Where should the boundary be?
Fans should recognize that even though they support these celebrities with finance, they still have no right to their life; they deserve respect, privacy, and choice on how they live their life.
Celebrities, too, have much work to do. They should handle these conflicts both online and offline with wisdom and less hostility.
Admiration should inspire and not harm; celebrities owe their fans their success, not their life.