deranged
dɪˈreɪn(d)ʒd/
adjective: deranged
1. mad; insane. “a deranged gunman”
What makes a fan? How is a fan different from the rest of the audience? Once we can define what a fan is, how do we define a deranged fan? What is the ‘step too far’ that is taken that will transform you from a normal fan to a deranged fan? Where is the line not to cross…and is it a fine line?
These are all the questions this session has been about and has pushed us to ask ourselves as the fans we are. The title of my blog post today is the title of an online article posted on theodysseyonline.com in June 2016 following the death of famous youtube star and ”The Voice’s ” Christina Grimmie. On the 10th of June Christina was shot dead on stage at her own concert by a ”fan”. His name is Kevin James Loibl from Florida who apparently travelled all the way to Orlando with the one and only purpose of killing singer Christine Grimmie.
What I find interesting about this article is how in the same paragraph, Kevin is described as a ‘deranged fan’ and just a few words later, as a ‘killer’. It feels to me as the term ‘deranged fan’ doesn’t really have a definite definition if is put under the same as ‘killer’ or ‘murderer’. Surely not all fans that are extreme in their love for their fandoms are killers or murderers, such as those who turn into stalkers and don’t go any further.
So what is that difference, that fine line between a normal fan and a deranged fan? Psychologist John D. Moore in an article for the Washington Post, explains that ”we live in a culture of celebrity worship,” and for super fans that have mental health issues, their worship can turn into a very unhealthy central focus, sometimes a violent one. Moore explains that the situation becomes dangerous and the fan crosses that line when he feels either disrespected, jilted, discounted,etc..
I though we could take a look at the definitions of the term fan and where it comes from;
A fan, or fanatic, sometimes also called aficionado or supporter, is a person who is enthusiastically devoted to something or somebody, such as a band, a sports team, a genre, a book, a movie or an entertainer. Collectively, the fans of a particular object or person constitute its fanbase or fandom. They may show their enthusiasm in a variety of ways, such as by promoting the object of their interest, being members of a fan club, holding or participating in fan conventions, or writing fan mail. They may also engage in creative activities (“fan labor“) such as creating fanzines, writing fan fiction, making memes or drawing fan art.
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a person who has a strong interest in or admiration for a particular person or thing.“football fans”Derived from fanatic.fanaticfəˈnatɪk/
I wanted to look at these definitions to understand how people perceive fans, and how that differentiates from ‘deranged fan’. What I found interesting when searching for these definitions is once I read the definition for ‘fan’, which came across as something harmless, with positive connotations, it then said it derived from the word ‘fanatic’. Nowadays the word ‘fanatic’ doesn’t exactly have positive connotations, quite the opposite and that is what came across from the definition itself too. So how is it that something harmless such as ‘fan’, could come from something that is actually seen as the opposite of this? As something dangerous, that falls under other terms such as ‘extremist’?
I think this is something interesting to think about as it seems we don’t quite know how to explain what it means to be something more than just a ‘normal fan’, or how to use these terms.
https://www.theodysseyonline.com/deranged-fans-the-dark-side-of-the-world
SALOMÉ GAUTIER 