English Version | Dear stranger, I'm your biggest fan

When I was a pre-teen, my passion was Britney Spears. I had DVDs, CDs, magazines and posters in my room. Then I discovered punk rock and that passion disappeared like Britney's hair in 2007. Between pop, punk rock and many other musical genres, I never again had posters of anyone hanging on my walls. I stopped knowing celebrities' birthdays and favourite foods and concentrated on their work. The truth is that I became less and less interested in celebrities and more interested in living my life. However, the “cult of celebrities” is strong and still manages to attract me.

The other day I re-watched one of my favourite series of recent times: Swarm. Created by Donald Glover, it personifies the extreme of our fascination with the celebrities we admire and follow so much and all the limits that can, but must not, be crossed. Basically, it has everything that makes a nightmare what we want it to be: frightening because it seems so real. Sordid, provocative and sharp, it's a story about Dre's (Dominique Fishback) dangerous obsession with his favourite pop artist and the dark actions he takes over the course of seven addictive episodes. It's impossible not to see a huge resemblance to Beyoncé's fan club, the famous Beyhive (which even SNL parodied a few years ago), but which, in truth, can be seen as any other sect of pop idols. And there's plenty to choose from. Swap the Beyhive for the Swifties (Taylor Swift), the Beliebers (Justin Bieber) or A.R.M.Y. (BTS) and the formula is the same: serious fans willing to defend their idols with closed fists and the strength of an army on the biggest battlefield of the 21st century - social media.

The truth is that this unbridled fanaticism has been around for a long time, especially in entertainment - among singers, musicians, actors, TV personalities and even professional athletes. Groups like the ultras or hooligans, which are used to identify the most hardcore sports fans, often adopt violent behaviour when intensely supporting their favourite team. Fans of musicians sleep for days or weeks outside the venue where they are going to perform. The almost suffocating emotion palpable in videos from the 50s and 60s, when fans cried and fainted just for being in the presence of deities like Elvis Presley or The Beatles (parenthesis to remind you that John Lennon was murdered at the hands of a fan of the English band who envied him and condemned his new lifestyle). And let's not forget a “new” fandom: politics.

There is a term for this obsessive fanaticism: Celebrity Worship Syndrome, which describes an intense fascination and preoccupation with a celebrity and is characterised by a series of behaviours that in 2002 led to the creation of the Celebrity Worship Scale. This scale, or metre, serves to define the level of fanaticism that exists and the impact it has on our mental health. According to an article by Randy Sansone and Lori Sansone, available on the National Library of Medicine website, this is not the only form of measurement, with two other forms identified by the authors. One evolution of the latter is called the Celebrity Attitudes Scale (a kind of questionnaire that assesses our level of adoration); another is the Public Figure and Preoccupation Inventory (also a gauge that separates adoration considered normal from unhealthy preoccupation).

But how do we separate a fan from an obsessed fan? There are four aspects to consider: the emotional connection, the behaviour, the perspective or vision and the impact it has on our lives. Let anyone cast the first stone who has never felt pride in the achievements of their heroes. But when our lives become theirs, then it's really best to put the stones aside. All we have to do is log on to X (formerly Twitter), Reddit or Instagram and browse news or posts that call into question any of these human beings who have been elevated to gods. Or even the fan pages, which are of unreasonable proportions.

I work in digital marketing. Around 80 per cent of my daily time is spent on social media, which means I know how laborious social media management is. Now imagine that, in addition to your own personal page, whose current standards are high and almost unrealistic and, in themselves, require thoughtful and labour-intensive curation, you also have to plan your fan profiles. In addition to all the energy we use to defend them - just search through the comments on a less-than-friendly piece of news about Taylor Swift and you'll see the combined force of an army capable of overthrowing governments - we have to feed them with the latest news or updates from our idol. It's exhausting, believe me. However, the question must be asked: what does all this tell us about our mental health in the context of this idolatry, assuming that we all have a healthy dose of idol worship? A lot. Like so many other boundaries discussed in this text, the line between our perspective on who we put on the pedestal and how this impacts our own view of ourselves is very thin.

When the P. Diddy scandal broke, I was horrified by the morbid details. However, this horror was addictive and before I knew it I was scrolling endlessly on Twitter wanting to know more about people who mean nothing to me, nor will they ever mean anything to me. I was hooked, almost as if I was watching trash TV. I know it's bad, uninteresting and ridiculous, and yet I can't switch it off. Perhaps this is because of the proximity and ease of access to their lives via social media, which makes us feel a mixture of admiration, obsession and envy, in a parasocial relationship (a term developed by Horton and Wohl in 1956 that defines a type of non-reciprocal relationship between a viewer and a media person). This envy is one of the biggest problems. How many of us have not been depressed by a basic scroll through Instagram to see someone we may or may not admire living a "better life than me"? While it's true that we can be influenced for the good, unfortunately we also become permeable to the bad: surreal beauty standards, unattainable lifestyles such as access to clothes, nightclubs and a panoply of services that we only dream of, all this has a bearing on our mental health and how we perceive ourselves, causing frustration, depression, dissociation, low self-esteem and even risk behaviours such as eating disorders or obsessive-compulsive syndromes. People who become bulimic in order to keep up with the demanding body standards of which these celebrities are also victims, for example. Others who undergo dozens of aesthetic operations to look more like their idol. All of this has a performative nature, in which we try to follow certain styles and standards that are completely disassociated from reality. However, we do it because we believe it represents us and becomes desirable.

But when the desirable is no longer desired, the other side of the coin happens and the pedestal comes crashing down. There are many examples of this today. Celebrities like Beyoncé who lost more than 5 million followers on Instagram for allegedly being linked to the P. Diddy affair, the fruit of her relationship with Jay-Z. Lizzo, whose banner was the body positivity movement and who allegedly body-shamed her plus-sized dancers. These situations are enough to give us feelings of disappointment or betrayal. Deep down, we trusted these people who we assumed we knew well and whose values we shared, only to be confronted with the opposite in the end. It's almost as if the veil of fame that protects these celebrities from evil disappears and they become the normal people they are. With mistakes, flaws and often wrong decisions. I'm not defending the allegations mentioned above, nor the need for Taylor Swift to have been considered one of the people who most contributed to the carbon footprint with her journeys in private jets. But it's interesting to see that this psychological phenomenon of fans, and even non-fans, places a weight on these personalities by attributing them immunity statuses with fervent defences in online debates and in real life, and that nevertheless, in the light of scandals, the allure of idealisation is lifted.

And we enter another field. Cancel Culture. One of the first times we hear this terminology is in a Chic song, "Your Love Is Cancelled", from 1981, pointed out by Clyde McGrady in an article in the Washington Post. At the time, Niles Rodgers was singing about what became a cultural movement, starting in the black communities of Twitter. There are many examples of this term being used, alongside movements such as #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter. Celebrities have been cancelled in the public square, aka online, for mistakes they've made, as have brands (how can we forget the infamous Pepsi ad that appropriates a Black Lives Matter protest with Kendall Jenner?), organisations, and even countries or nations (glaring examples such as Russia or Israel). But to cancel is not to hide or stop these people or organisations from being talked about. On the contrary, it's about highlighting and bringing to light the mistakes they've made and why they've let us down. And although it can have the purpose of moulding us and making us review our actions and attitudes, it also has an impact on our mental health. Whether it's for the person who has been let down, who may feel alienated and socially excluded, or for the person who is cancelling, who places a feeling of hope and redemption that may not come to pass, adding to the sense of disillusionment.

Fortunately, where there is darkness, there is light. And I want to end this article on a positive note. It's important to have idols, role models, people we admire. It's important to be inspired by someone who shares your values, who has more or less courage than you, more or less ambition than you or more or less visibility than you. Motivation is a great fuel for our evolution and it is in motivation that we find the reasons and strength to become better versions of ourselves. Don't forget the sense of community that comes from this, from feeling like you're among friends with strangers who admire the same people. Just look at the strong bond and sense of friendship that Swifties all over the world have with each other. So when you feel your fan level getting too intense, stop. Breathe. And make a friendship bracelet.

Originally translated from The Icons Issue, published November 2024. Full credits and stories are in the print issue.