Anisa Khalifa 00:01
I fell into fandom for the first time in high school. Before that, I'd roll my eyes at the boyband fever that had swallowed my generation. It wasn't until my junior year that a friend finally convinced me to start reading Harry Potter and I jumped headlong into fan obsession.
That first taste of fandom coincided with the beginning of a devastating illness that would derail my life for over a decade. These books, and even more so the community I found through them, became my window to a world outside my pain. It was that electric moment in the early aughts, when internet fandom was exploding. You could log on to your favorite forums any time of day or night and find your people. We started as fellow fans, but we became each other's late night chat buddies, meme procures, anchors in times of darkness, friends. For me, confined to four walls and a prisoner in my own body, these connections felt genuinely life saving.
This is Embodied. I'm an Anisa Khalifa, the host of WUNC's new podcast Broadside, sitting in for Anita Rao.
Fandoms can form over a love of anything from comic books to movie franchises to sports teams. But at its core, a fandom is a community of like minded folks all invested in the same thing.
Lynn Zubernis 01:32
If you look at it in an evolutionary sense, back in the day, if you were not part of a group you literally — probably — did not survive. So we are very strongly motivated. We really feel like we need to belong to a group.
Anisa Khalifa 01:49
That's psychologist Lynn Zubernis. She's a professor at West Chester University who researches human development, group dynamics, and fan psychology. Her 15 year academic fascination with fandom has a very personal origin. Namely her love for the TV show Supernatural, which launched its first season in 2005.
Supernatural Promo Commercial 02:08
My name is Dean Winchester. That's my brother Sam. We kill monsters.
Lynn Zubernis 02:17
It really can be traced to a moment, which I think is actually a really common thing for fans to report. That it does feel like one second, you are not a fan and then the next second, you have just fallen down the rabbit hole of being absolutely head over heels in love with something. And for me it happened — I started watching the show in its first season. But in that first season, I was mostly watching it so that I could talk about it with a friend of mine who had fallen in with it. So it didn't grab me instantly.
And then early in season two, I was sitting there watching it dutifully while I was grading papers. This is back in the day when I was grading them with an actual red pen. And I suddenly realized that I had become so drawn into the show that the papers had slid off my lap, the red pen was just sort of poised in the air, and I said to my daughter who was in the room, "Oh my god, this is the most amazing show ever." To which she said "Mom, you've been watching it for a year. Are you okay?"
But it was at that moment that something coalesced for me and it just hit all the right spots for me, and I became totally fascinated with it. I dove down the rabbit hole to explore everything that there was to know about supernatural. I joined the fandom and I haven't looked back since.
Anisa Khalifa 03:43
Yeah, as someone who's also been deep into fandoms, I can relate to that, "Are you okay?" question from family members. As you say, you described it, you know, as so many fans do is just falling down the rabbit hole and completely immersing yourself in this fan experience. But not everyone experiences that type of passion, right? There are more casual fans who aren't the totally engrossed detail obsessed kind. So what factors influence why and how somebody experiences fandom?
Lynn Zubernis 04:13
I think two things have an impact. One is kind of the reason why somebody is ripe to fall into a fandom. Especially during transition times in our lives which are very stressful for people. Whether they're good, positive, wanted transitions or transitions that we really don't want, we often need something to kind of anchor ourselves and that can be a time when we feel really drawn into a fandom. The other thing are more stable personality characteristics. You know, some of us are wired to be really strongly attached to things and when we get fascinated by something, we get extremely absorbed in it and need to know everything about it or collect everything about it and just sort of know all the statistics about it. So those are two things that separate fans out and there is definitely a continuum.
Anisa Khalifa 05:16
For Lynn, the moment that she found supernatural coincided with a time of her life when her kids were growing older. That changing relationship coupled with a recent job change was a transition that poised her to fall in love with the series. But there are also things about the way we're designed as humans that encouraged us towards being a part of a big group like fandom.
Lynn Zubernis 05:37
We are really wired to be attracted to familiar human faces. And of course, in an evolutionary sense, that developed so that you became attached to your caregivers and the people who are physically right near you. But our brains, you know, evolution happens very slowly. And our brains don't really distinguish between people who you are seeing all the time in your face to face life, and people who are characters that you're seeing all the time on a screen. So we actually become attached to the fictional characters or the real people that are familiar to us.
And then we crave proximity to them, so we seek out more proximity. Whether that's finding photos of them on Instagram, following them on social media, rewatching something like a Harry Potter film again, and again, again, immersing ourselves in the books and sort of imagining the characters again and again. And that gives us kind of a sense of felt security, which is what attachment is all about. So it goes back to those evolutionary reasons and the way our brain works to attach us to the people or characters that we actually fan.
Anisa Khalifa 06:53
We'll definitely talk about toxic fandom later. But I wanted to first ask, your work highlights the mental health benefits of fandom. What are some benefits that being a fan can bring to someone's life?
Lynn Zubernis 07:06
Yeah, both from the benefits that we get in an individual sense from exploring identity within a group and adopting your fannish identity as a healthy part of your identity development. A lot of the benefits, psychological benefits, that we get are from that sense of belonging. So there's research that shows that fans in general have higher self esteem, they are less lonely, they feel less alienated, they even have lower levels of depression. So being a fan does tend to improve well being. As you said, we'll talk about the flip side, and there certainly can be a flip side. But in general, being a fan is good for us.
Shawn Taylor 07:54
Fandom has given me some of my most enduring friendships. And it's not just the fandom that we recognize today as fandom. I've met friends I've had for decades at the record store, when we had record stores. We'd meet in the aisles, and they'd show me something that I haven't heard and then I'd show them something that they haven't heard and then we'd buy the recommendation. And then we come back and meet the next week [on] a new release day and talk about our experience listening to those albums. Or we disagree on a particular album and have heated discussions. And those heated discussions honned a lot of my critical eye, my persuasive and argumentative skills. I think that's what fandom does at the best because fandom is about community, and the best part about community is that you can learn from people who are smarter and better than you in certain things. And people can learn from you if you are better and smarter in certain things.
I've been a fan for a very long time in various things. And if it's not the record stores, Dungeons and Dragons. Bringing people together to tell a collective story to actually argue and solve problems without insults. I can't think of anything more valuable than that. And I truly believe that's what certain types of fandoms provide. And I'll always be thankful for that.
Anisa Khalifa 09:39
That was Shawn Taylor, a self proclaimed nerd and founder of the Nerds of Color fan community online. The internet is a huge resource for community building for fandoms. And each site and social media platform forms a unique gathering space, as journalist Candice Lim is well aware.
Candice Lim 09:55
Kind of like in Dungeons and Dragons, there's kind of this alignment chart, you know, of, like, platforms that are, like, neutral evil, platforms that are lawful good.
Anisa Khalifa 10:05
Candice is the co-host of In Case You Missed It, Slate's podcast about internet culture. I love ICYMI, I listen to it regularly. And I often hear Candice and her co-host Rachelle Hampton start conversations by asking guests about their first interaction with the Internet. So I wanted to know, what was Candice's is first interaction with fandom.
Candice Lim 10:25
For me, I definitely can point to a few things. First is that my co-host Rachelle and I were both very in the one direction fandom and that— that seemed so hard to escape at the time, you know? They were the biggest boy band, and they also had good music. And then I remember in middle school, I was really into Twilight for some reason. Not the books, but the movies. I think I watched the first one, maybe, like, 76 times, and I just found this universe so fascinating. I wanted to know everything about it.
And so what I would do is I would go to school, and then I would come back and I would go on to Yahoo Answers. Yahoo answers, which is kind of like the Reddit of its time. And I would search out for people asking questions about Twilight and just, like, the fan lore around it, the details the, like, "Have you guys caught this?" And I would both answer and ask questions about Twilight. I was their publicist. And so it was just a moment for me, at my age of 12, to feel like I was an expert in something.
And yes, you know, it was futile, it was pop culture. But I do feel like those little seeds grew into something that I guess I would call my job now. And so it's just funny the way things kind of come back around, you know?
Anisa Khalifa 11:41
Wow. Yeah, that's amazing. I love 12 year old Candice on her journey of finding all the facts. So, I mean, as you've noted, the internet is such a huge place for fans to gather. But different platforms can offer different types of interactions and content. So do you have a favorite platform for fandom?
Candice Lim 12:03
I would say Tumblr and AO3 are kind of, like, great, wonderful, wholesome fandom sites. So Tumblr, I would say is very much a visual medium. You know, it's where the artists go. It's where the GIFs and the visuals and the reblogs and people recommending each other's work happens. And I love, I love them. And I think on that same end of the spectrum is AO3 — Archive of Our Own. Which is mainly just a writer's medium, because you can only really post, like, fanfiction there. But something that I find commonly great about Tumblr and AO3 is that one, they have this expectation of anonymity. Meaning, like, you don't need to tell us who you are. You don't need to tell us where you're from how old you are, doesn't matter. What matters is like your base love for the fandom and just the work you put out, which I think is very helpful for some people seeking that safe space.
And I think the last platform I'll highlight is TikTok because these TikTok girlies. The fan cams, the fan edits, these people are the Thelma Schoonmakers of our era. And I sort of, god, I hope they all become Oscar nominated editors one day.
Anisa Khalifa 13:10
Love it. Yes. Lynn, you got into the supernatural fandom at a time when the internet was just taking off. How have you seen the growth of the internet and social media change fandom communities over time.
Lynn Zubernis 13:22
They have changed it tremendously over time. And I only got into fandom 20 years ago. So we're not even going back to truly ancient history here. But it strikes me listening to Candice talk about the platforms. I think there are certain things, especially about something like AO3, that, you know, people can go and find what they want and interact with the content that they want. And I think that's wonderful, because that's the thing that has been lost in sort of a negative way in the evolution of fandom platforms.
When I got into fandom, you spent most of your time inside your sort of fandom in group. And you mostly interacted with people who were in that same fandom in group and shared either the ship that you liked, or the character that you liked, or wanted to read the story in the way that you did. And that was lovely. Now when fandom plays out on platforms — especially the platforms that sort of mix everyone together in a wild west of online space like Twitter or Facebook or Instagram — fans are mixing not just with like minded people who like the thing they like in the same way, but with other fans who liked that same thing or person but maybe like it in a very different way.
So there is a lot more contention and a lot more intra-fandom aggression than there seemed to be in the days when people stuck more to their own group instead of all being thrown together.
Anisa Khalifa 15:00
Yeah, I want to pick back up on that thread of conflict. But before we get to it I just want to say I think what I love about AO3 as well and how, like, you know things have moved, right? Fanfic has traveled from Live Journal blog type spaces to fandom specific servers like theonering.net to massive websites like fanfiction.net, and now AO3. And, like, it seems that what has changed is also accessibility, which you touched on.
Candice, you did an episode on ICYMI this summer about AO3. Tell me what you learned about how AO3 went from just an open source repository of fanworks to a community space.
Candice Lim 15:42
Yeah, so this summer AO3 was the victim of a cyber attack. And it was allegedly orchestrated by an organization that targets websites that they claimed to be quote against all forms of degeneracy. And, you know, AO3 is a nonprofit. It is run by volunteers. And so when they held the site for ransom, what they did was they, you know, sought out cybersecurity experts. And they are thankfully back up and running. But, you know, this event happened for a few days. And there was so much reaction on Twitter on Tumblr.
It was that same question of like, when Elon Musk bought Twitter and people were like, "Do I need to jump to a different platform? Where do I go?" and I think AO3 writers and readers were asking the same thing. Because AO3 means Archive of Our Own and the archive was made to keep digital copies of fandoms, and just the history, the literature, the evolution of each fandom. On the flip side of it, I think that there are definitely people who seek AO3 and see it as part of their daily internet diet. And when your routine is kind of put under attack like that, no matter how small, there is this kind of sense of like, "Oh my god, like, not only how do I replace this, but also, like, what has been my loyalty to this site? Because I'm feeling so sad and so threatened in this way."
I think what we learned from doing an episode about that on ICYMI is just kind of the importance of spaces like this and containers like this to not only congregate fandoms, but also just to hold history and space. I think AO3, which a lot of people joked it was like the Library of Alexandria. Like, there is something about that community that felt under threat. And I think it was very heartwarming to see the way people reacted. And we're like, "You know, AO3 actually is a very important part of my life, and I would hate to see it go.
Anisa Khalifa 17:48
I was definitely one of those people whose diet was interrupted by the AO3 shutdown. And it did make me appreciate the many ways that fandom has fed me. But it would be short sighted not to recognize the time when fandoms go too far.
2023 saw an uptick in fans throwing things at performers on stage and causing injuries.
Lynn says that the group mindset that can lead to toxic behavior in a fandom is not always preventable. But there are things fans can actively be aware of to minimize it.
Lynn Zubernis 18:24
When you put humans together into groups, people craft their identity within a group and that group identity becomes very, very important to them. And one of the ways that people increase the cohesion is by identifying an out group and then banding together to fight against the outgroup.
I think there's a lot of really helpful discourse going on. And some of it did start with the AO3 crisis that Candice mentioned. Having that discourse that reminds us that we all joined a fandom and became a fan for the same reasons, that we have a lot more similarities than differences. You know, fandom used to sort of coalesce around the idea of, "Well I always felt a little different than other people anyway, and I never really found, like — I found my people until I found my fandom." That's something that everybody in every fandom can come together around. The three of us are having conversations, we all have different things that we fan, but our experiences in fandom are strikingly similar.
So I think the discourse that reminds fans that we have a lot more in common than we do differences can help to minimize that intra fandom conflict.
Anisa Khalifa 19:43
Candice, with the rise of internet fandoms and this phenomenon that we just discussed about fans being creators, the separation of fans and their passion seems like it's getting more and more blurry. What do you think this means for the future of fandom?
Candice Lim 19:58
I love what it you said Lynn about this idea of fandoms having kind of, like, an in group and an out group. Because something that I feel is that fandoms have recently, especially this year, have been kind of getting a bad rap. So I think that fandoms as kind of posited by this conversation in this episode are good. I think, in general, they're good. And sometimes there's one or two fans who kind of go to the spectrum of like, "Ooh, a little too far a little too passionate," that kind of perpetuates this stereotype that all fans are like that.
And so when I think about the future of fandom, I think fandoms will continue to be, like, prominent parts of our daily diets. Like whatever you're a fan of, there's just going to be more platforms for you to access and engage and be with those who are like minded in search of those topics. And I think it's kind of funny how the things that I was a fan of as a kid. You know, at the time I wouldn't say I was an expert in but I would say it kind of led me down this path of, you know, I cover internet culture for Slate. And I think it's funny the way that our fandoms are bleeding more and more into our regular lives. You know, those of us who see fandom as a side hustle one day, they could be your full time hustle, and you could host a podcast about internet culture.
And I think that is kind of validating for this community that is often seen as, you know, this time waster, this energy succulent, and it's, like, no, I actually think there's something valid here. And a lot of these skills are transferable. And honestly, some of you guys are better writers than these Pulitzers, okay? I think you guys are great. And I think we're going to head that direction.
Anisa Khalifa 21:49
Lynn, I'd love to close with you. Many fans talk about fandom being therapeutic during tough times. I talked about it in my intro essay, either as an escape or a way to process difficult feelings. Can fandom be therapy?
Lynn Zubernis 22:07
Fandom can be therapeutic. As a psychologist, I don't want to say that fandom can be therapy because sometimes you need therapy that is actually therapy. But fandom can absolutely be therapeutic and multiple ways. You know, we tend to see the world in a narrative way we are wired to connect to stories. And it's really good for us and healthy for us to connect to stories, and then to use that connection to stories to kind of feel a sense of belongingness, and to work through a lot of our own stuff. Whether you do that by investing in watching Supernatural and really thinking deeply about the characters and investing in their journey. And seeing yourself in that journey. Or seeing the way you don't want to go in that journey because it can be either, that can be really good for us.
The other thing that can be really good for us about fandom is that because we all want more and more and more that relates to our fandom, there's never enough out there from the official creator. So fans need to create their own content. So there's an explicit encouragement of creativity that doesn't happen anywhere else. I know people who got back into art, people who absolutely started writing and continued writing and are now published best selling authors. So that encouragement of creativity, also a really healthy really positive thing about fandom.
Alex Kormann 23:38
My biggest fandom is definitely the Star Wars universe. I first became interested in it when my father showed me the original trilogy when I was just a young boy probably like five or six years old. And our fandom really grew and connected me with many friends over the years who I'm now inseparable with. Being a fan of Star Wars and my connection with that franchise, that universe, actually helped me through the most difficult period of my life, which is when my father passed away from cancer when I was just 17. Being able to watch Star Wars and — and connect with people who understood that feeling of when you feel really small, and you feel like the odds are against you and you feel alone. You're not. You're never alone. And when you, you know, when you stick together with others who you know love the same things as you, who have that passion and drive, then you can overcome anything.
Other people who I connect with through that fandom also really helped me overcome that difficult period of my life. And to this day, I look to people like Obi Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano, even a bit of Anakin to, you know, learn how to process my own emotions and — and also just how to, you know, how to be a good person.
Anisa Khalifa 25:05
That was Alex Kormann sharing that story. He also told us that he now has a podcast with two friends he met through the Star Wars fandom. It's yet unnamed, but they talk about all the different facets of that universe. So much of Alex's story resonates with me, including the part about making friends and starting a podcast.
Saya 25:24
You're listening to Dramas Over Flowers with Saya, Anisa and Paroma. Hi, I'm Saya.
Anisa Khalifa 25:32
I'm Anisa.
Paroma Chakravarty 25:34
And I'm Paroma. Welcome back to another yak!
Anisa Khalifa 25:40
On Dramas Over Flowers, we talk all about South Korean TV series, or K-dramas.
Paroma Chakravarty 25:45
Let us know if you are enjoying all of our really emotional drama rants.
Anisa Khalifa 25:52
But you'll have to check out our podcast another time, because this time Paroma and Saya came to Embodied.
By day, Paroma is a professional audio engineer and a student of storytelling based in India. And Saya, that's her fandom alias, is a bookseller in the UK. They first met in 2012, when Paroma found Saya in the comment section of Amazon reviews.
Paroma Chakravarty 26:14
And she had written this amazing review for the book and it made me instantly want to read it. And so I commented under it and we started chatting and we realized this far too public space to keep the conversation going. Then she pulled me into this email thread that then went on for the next, I don't know, 10 years.
Anisa Khalifa 26:36
Then, in 2017, I got pulled into the friend group, when the three of us were all writing for the same Korean drama review outlet. Even though we live on three different continents, having a shared love of K-dramas and a place to talk on and on about it has really solidified our relationship together.
Saya 26:53
Oh, my love for things increases the more that I test it, and the more that it stands up to that testing. And I think we managed to meet on that bandwidth where all three of us love to tear things apart, and chew on the pieces and spit them out and pound things until they've lost all shape and meaning, and then find new meaning in them. And that's not for everyone, right? That's something that is a very specific way of enjoying the thing that you do.
Anisa Khalifa 27:25
That's so true. So in the first part of this show, we've been touching on themes of community and relationships. So I wanted to ask for the two of you what's been a moment that you've turned to the fandom community for support with something?
Saya 27:39
Yeah, fandoms are big and the K-drama fandom is quite big. It's quite amorphousness to people who have different ways of engaging with that fandom. But I think for us, the tests come when bad things happen in the fandom. When your faves turn out to be, you know, not so great. And also when big things are happening in the world, like, for, I think one of the big moments for us as a podcast was the Black Lives Matter movement.
It was at a time where we were already confronting certain racially problematic aspects in dramas that we were watching and it had all sort of come together in a moment. And, you know, people reveal themselves in these moments. So there was a great gathering of the people whose values did match us. And we were able to support each other through that crises and all of those things that happened where you need to look to other people to find, you know, "This is really happening, right? This is true, right? I'm not making this up, righ?," all of that. And you get that from from the, you know, the community that you've built of people who share your values.
Anisa Khalifa 27:40
Paroma, would you add anything to that about how you've been supported and observed networks of support in this community?
Paroma Chakravarty 29:11
As a child, I used to be very much a loner, I was very introverted. And it was the world of fiction that helped me open up. It helped me form and unform my character. And so my first fandom, by the way, was based in romance. And in that fandom, it was often concepts like what is wrong behavior in relationship? What does a woman storytelling, like, how should that be centered? These concepts used to get discussed not in the actual text, but outside the text. In the discussions that we found ourselves we found our moral centers. We found out who we were and who our friends were within the fandom.
And when I came into the K-drama fandom, I found something very similar. So I found myself forming and unforming myself. Bettering myself through the conversations that were happening, through the conversations with you guys. Because we spoke about these instances as they were happening through chats in our podcast through, like, sad length emails. So all of those things are my refuge, but also they are what are still helping me be a better version of me.
Anisa Khalifa 30:31
Saya, is there any type of responsibility that you feel as a fan toward the community or towards the subject of your fandom?
Saya 30:41
I think whenever you engage with something that you're a fan of, or with other people, you do always need to be mindful of what your own beliefs are. And, for example, for myself, I always have like hard lines with whatever I love. No matter how much I love it, once it crosses, if it crosses that line, I'm — I'm okay to let that go. And I do think that we have — we do have a responsibility to call out what's wrong in it because you love it. Because you respect and admire a certain person or thing you hold it to a higher standard. And if people, you know, the people who are your friends within that fandom, you hold them to that standard too. You would like them to demonstrate, you know, moral strength and conviction in — in beliefs that are beyond the scope of fandom itself.
Because fandom doesn't exist in a vacuum, it does exist in the real world. And, you know, there's this line that people always use about, like, not making things political. And we have agreed and we've spoken about this, that all art is political, like, by its nature its political work. And the only question is whether you agree with this politics or you don't.
Anisa Khalifa 32:06
Saya, there's often a perception that being a fan means that you're missing something in your life. That you're in a fandom trying to fill some void. What do you think about that?
Saya 32:17
I would say if you're not a fan of something and you're not in a fandom, you're missing something.
Anisa Khalifa 32:23
Paroma, do you have some final thoughts? Let's close on you.
Paroma Chakravarty 32:27
So that accusation of escapism has not gone anywhere in the past few decades that I have been in fandoms. And, yeah, yes, I do escape into fiction when I am stressed. When something is not working out. When I'm deeply, deeply sad about something, it's fiction that helps me pull out of it.
Often people who are not into reading or watching fiction, they draw the same inspiration from real life idols. The person that you're drawing inspiration from does not really matter. It's the characters that you perceive in them, the good deeds that they did, the great actions that they did. Those are the things that you're drawing inspiration from. And in my own case, like I said, fiction helped build up my character. I am like a Lego set filled with different kinds of fiction.
Anisa Khalifa 33:29
For me, fandom has built me up and pulled me out of tough situations in equal measure. In 2009, during one of my worst periods of illness, K-dramas has provided me with stories written by and about Asian women, complete in one season, leaning fully into vulnerability and emotion. They fed me in a way the White media I grew up with never had, and provided me an outlet to process the grief and loneliness that was too much for me to face in real life.
And they gave me the two best friends I've ever had. At a certain point Saya and Paroma became more than two like minded fans I could overanalyze dramas to death with. They became soul friends that I go to for comfort, venting, and learning. We live in three time zones, but they're often the first and last people I text in a day. Fandom brought us together but we say now that the podcast is really a monument to our friendship. One that has changed my life.
Embodied is a production of North Carolina public radio wunc, a listener supported station. If you want to lend your support to this podcast consider a contribution at wunc.org now. You can find out more about all the guests we talked to today in the show notes of this episode.
I want to also give a special thanks to Shawn and Alex for sharing their stories with us.
This episode was produced by Kaia Findlay and edited by Amanda Magnus. Paige Miranda and Gabriela Glueck also produce for our show. Skylar Chadwick is our intern and Jenni Lawson is our sound engineer. Quilla wrote our theme music.
Thanks for listening to Embodied and if you like this show, please spread the word and your own networks. Word of mouth recommendations are the best way to support our podcast and we'd so appreciate your support.
I'll be back on Embodied in the future. In the meantime, if you're interested in hearing more from me, check out the Broadside. We're WUNC's new podcast about stories from the American South.
Until next time, I'm Anisa Khalifa.