In 2024, pop stars told invasive fans to back off. How did we get here?

In 2024, one of pop’s biggest breakout stars has also been one of fame’s most notable critics. Chappell Roan dominated the charts with her frank, funny songwriting – and shaped discourse about the difficulties of sudden notoriety. From telling off a “disrespectful” photographer and chastising “weird” and “creepy” fans to cancelling shows for mental health reasons, the singer-songwriter has been in the headlines for her decision to self-advocate.

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“It’s come to the point that I need to draw lines and set boundaries,” she wrote in an Instagram post. “I embrace the success of the project, the love I feel, and the gratitude I have. What I do not accept are creepy people, being touched, and being followed.” Backed up by everyone from Lorde and MUNA to Paramore’s Hayley Williams and Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks, Roan struck a timely nerve.

For artists today, especially women, calling out fans who cross the line – even if they are in the minority – risks puncturing one’s all-important brand of gratitude and relatability. But in 2024, a whole wave of artists clapped back, arguing that being a popular musician shouldn’t render their entire personhood up for grabs.

Reneé Rapp, another pop artist who broke out this year, has singled out crude sexual banners at her concerts that make her feel like “a piece of meat”. Madison Beer asked her fans to stop requesting photos in her hotel, lest they reveal her location, while Charli XCX took a strong stance against fans who shouted “Taylor Swift is dead” at her shows, in line with a ‘beef’ that they had speculated from her ‘Brat’ track, ‘Sympathy Is A Knife’.

Even Swift herself, who has grown her billionaire empire through a carefully curated brand of lyrical intimacy and fan interaction, drew a stark line on ‘But Daddy I Love Him’, clapping back against “the most judgemental creeps” who seemed to think they had power over her personal life: “Sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I’ll never see / Thinking it can change the beat of my heart when he touches me.”

Toxic fandoms might have become a notable talking point in 2024, but for as long as there have been musicians, there have been fevered fans who want to get closer. The ‘hysterical’ 19th-century stans of Hungarian composer Franz Liszt gave rise to the phenomenon of Lisztomania, and over a hundred years later there was of course the Fab Four and Beatlemania.

Overzealous fandom is often unfairly stereotyped as the domain of immature, pop-loving teen girls (or the mentally unwell), but passionate fandom is everywhere and in all gender and age demographics – the Grateful Dead’s cult following of Deadheads’ often commit to a lifetime of multiple-concert attendance, and you only need to look at sports fandom to get a sense of the tears, excitement and tribalism that grown men get swept up in when talking about their favourite teams.

Fandom has certainly developed throughout the 21st century, but it seems as if the coronavirus pandemic might have marked a particular watershed. With use of musical streaming services up by 51 percent in 2021, the loneliness and isolation of social distancing potentially accelerated fans’ collective search for art that stirred feelings of personal resonance and belonging, drawing us to stars whose lyrical worlds seemed richly detailed or ‘real’. Bored and stuck indoors, there was plenty of time to go digging for easter eggs or to get sucked into the fast-moving, fan-theory-meets-conspiracy-content that was helping to build the popularity of TikTok, transforming casual interest into serious ‘parasocial’ obsession via its addictive qualities of savvy recommendation algorithms and infinite scroll.

When the world got a little bigger again, the music industry seized the opportunity to monetise that intense fandom, especially as it played out in live music, which boomed after the long drought of the pandemic. Despite significant criticism over dynamic pricing, Live Nation reported 144million tickets sold for 2024 concerts (through October), highlighting its “most active summer concert season ever”. Fans have channelled their long-suppressed desires for connection into activities such as concert queuing, collecting merchandise variants or attending multiple dates of a tour (sometimes across continents) – a boon for an industry looking to recoup pandemic losses.

Tailored setlists, fan interaction during concerts, meet-and-greets and ticket upgrades do offer fans additional value at a time when concert experiences are only getting more expensive. Within the rabid attention economy of social media, these kinds of curated interactions or changeable offerings can fuel feelings of online competitiveness and the urge to ‘go viral’, pushing fans to do (or spend) more in the quest to get closer or be ‘remembered’ by their idol. From asking artists to autograph strange objects to throwing things onstage or filming yourself scream-singing at an artist (à la American influencer Harry Daniels), fans seemingly think less of putting their faves in awkward or invasive situations if it means generating unique or edgy content for their own personal brand.

Besides breeding viral influencers and turning nobodies into somebodies at lightning speed, social media has also allowed fanbases to amass and mobilise more quickly and efficiently than ever before – and to wield real influence in a data-driven, streaming-reliant industry. As fans get savvier to their ability to define the public perception and commercial trajectory of an artist, it’s perhaps no wonder that some feel emboldened to grasp at the reins of full creative control. Online, discussions of favourite singles or aesthetic eras can quickly turn into vicious organised campaigns to doxx critics for ‘wrong’ opinions. Unverified rumours and imagined rivalries can spread under the pretense of supposed loyalty and care.

The kind of gossip and over-familiar analysis that once took place in relatively closed-off fan communities like fan-fiction sites, messageboards and blogs has now spilled over into far more mainstream platforms where artists are more likely to see it – whether it’s because they grew up on those platforms themselves, or because they’re encouraged to engage for the sake of their careers. It can be difficult even for musicians who claim that they do not ‘do’ social media to resist the urge to see what people are saying about you, putting an awful lot of emotional control back into their hands.

To see how obsession can not only devolve a fandom but also tear down its stars, one need look no further than the K-pop industry, which has long primed its audience to foster parasocial relationships with its idols. Beyond the typical outrage from fans when they discover an idol has a dating life – this year, it was Karina of Aespa who had to apologise for doing so – 2024 also saw fans wanting (and wielding) much more of a say over the idols’ lives.

One particularly alarming situation was the departure of Seunghan from rookie boyband RIIZE. After a year-long hiatus from the group (itself a response to fan criticism of him being pictured smoking and in bed with a former girlfriend), his label announced in October that he would finally return to RIIZE – only to face even more intense backlash. In a particularly sinister move that is becoming a go-to for outraged K-pop fans, some ordered funeral wreaths sent to his record label, essentially declaring the 21-year-old’s career dead. Just days later, Seunghan would leave the group for good, saying that he did not want to “cause any more hurt or confusion”.

A heartfelt open letter penned by Seungkwan from SEVENTEEN later that month summed up this general mood of cruel judgement in the K-pop industry. He reflected on the emotional toll of this career with a frankness that is relatively unheard of within Korean idol culture, writing: “As I’ve chosen the job of an idol, and [being someone] who receives a lot of love, there are things that I need to endure. However, I don’t believe this is a job where one needs to get hurt and gnaw at oneself trying to endure it until you die.”

Often, this gnawing parasociality starts from a genuinely well-intended place, a desire to feel close to artists who represent identities that fans can relate to (and may not have witnessed so viscerally in pop culture before). For long-term fans of Chappell Roan, who came up through the grassroots as a proud ambassador of LGBTQIA+ culture, it might feel difficult to accept that the artist who once felt like your personal underdog is suddenly a mainstream darling, turning down autograph requests or having to cancel small-room shows so that they might perform on a huge industry platform like the MTV VMAs.

While some forms of playful gatekeeping or celebrity critique might feel harmless enough between fans (and indeed, some artists do enjoy the jokes), we should be cognisant of the serious and sometimes scary situations that some performers are reporting: Tegan & Sara’s documentary about a stalker who managed to successfully steal Tegan’s identity and catfish fellow fans for over 15 years; SZA’s attempts to reason via DMs with a listener who insisted that making cruel memes was an act of love; or Shawn Mendes’ polite onstage request for some grace from fan theories while he privately navigates his own identity, something that nobody should have to ask for in 2024.

Expecting celebrities to be perfect, perpetually available role models who adhere to your every preference and clue you in on their every innermost thought is bound to lead to disappointment. It can easily lead to artists deciding that the joy of sharing their music with the world simply isn’t worth the scrutiny it invites. As Twitter dies and fan culture finds new online platforms on which to thrive, some artists may find the currency of constant fan interaction too lucrative to give up and seek new ways to pull the close ones even closer. But elsewhere, don’t be surprised if 2025 brings about a new slew of artists pulling back from public presence – or simply being much more vocal about what they will and will not endure in the name of fame.

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