Chappell Roan on T-Mobile stage at Lollapalooza Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune/TNS
Fan culture has been around as long as celebrities have. Naturally, it has changed over time, especially with advancements in technology and social media.
Celebrities used to be elusive and unreachable to most. Now fans have access to their favorite celebrities with just the touch of a screen.
On the surface, fan culture is relatively innocent. Fans support their favorite celebrities by purchasing whatever product they sell (music, movies, merchandise, etc) and/or creating content such as video edits.
When viewed on a deeper level, it becomes something far more predatory. Due to the transactional nature of the relationship between fans and celebrities, certain fans feel a sense of entitlement.
It creates a mindset that celebrities are not human, but rather a product that people should always have access to.
This leads to behavior such as stalking and seeking out sensitive information not meant for the public. A recent example of this is Chappell Roan, who made headlines for speaking out against this type of behavior.
For those unaware, Chappell Roan’s popularity skyrocketed in recent months, as did the number of people recognizing her.
Roan spoke on this newfound fame on Drew Afualo’s podcast, “The Comment Section” in July, detailing how it affected her.
In the first half of the episode, Roan describes how fans began to invade her privacy, “People have started to be freaks, like follow me…and know where my parents live and where my sister works.”
She would go on to emphasize how this behavior made her deeply uncomfortable, to the point of purposely avoiding anything that would further increase her fame.
On Aug. 19, Roan took to TikTok to further address the influx of harassment from fans, “If you saw a random woman on the street, would you yell at her from your car window, would you harass her in public?”
She went on to state in another TikTok that this type of behavior should not be tolerated, “I don’t care that abuse and harassment, stalking, whatever, is a normal thing to do to people who are famous…that does not make it okay.”
Roan’s statements resulted in massive debate online on whether or not celebrities have a right to privacy.
While many of Roan’s fans understood her sentiments, there was a great divide in public opinion. Some believe that this type of invasive “attention” is a consequence of fame, while others believe that it is time for change.
From a broader perspective, Roan isn’t the first celebrity to speak out against poor behavior from fans, nor will she be the last. Just recently, Hozier spoke out on instagram due to fan speculation over his private relationships.
Interestingly, as more and more celebrities discuss how certain interactions make them uncomfortable, there is a slight but noticeable change in fan interaction.
Mainly, this change is in online communities such as X or TikTok. The general consensus from fans on these platforms is that celebrities do in fact deserve a right to privacy.
From observing these fan spaces in the past and now after Chappel Roan’s statement, it seems that the future points to a change in celebrity/fan relationships.
Whether that means firmer boundaries, changes in how fans view celebrities, or something else entirely.
There is no telling what this future will look like exactly, but considering how fan culture has changed up until now, I firmly believe that celebrity/fan culture will become entirely different in the next 10–20 years.
As mentioned earlier, just some decades ago celebrities used to seem like otherworldly people different from the general public. Now, many top celebrities try to be “relatable” or completely throw away the classic “media trained” attitude, like Renee Rapp.
Perhaps in the future there will be no “celebrities.” Maybe we’ll all view and treat them as they are—fellow humans.
It’s worth taking a moment to consider why we as a society place more value on certain people.
Why worship someone we do not truly know?
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