I don’t know if this is inappropriate comparison, but the discussion here is making me think of the book The Exvangelicals, about ex-evangelical Christians leaving their church. I grew up evangelical so it all really resonated with me. But something I really appreciated about the book was that it touched on the fact that, for a lot of people leaving a community they grew up in, there is intense hurt about leaving. A lot of people who stay in the community like to think that those who leave are just misguided brainwashed fools rebelling for fun, and maybe some are, but for most people it’s agonizing. You know it’s the right thing for you to leave but it hurts deeply and you kinda even wish you didn’t have to, but you need to do it for your own sanity.
Not that being a fan of a popstar is as insidious as evangelicalism can be, but I think a lot of these “just leave if you’re not having fun!” fans definitely ignore that ex-fans are deeply sad and hurt about the fact that it’s not fun anymore.
that's really insightful. i'm not religious (i'm hindu by birth) and i didn't grow up religious either so i can't relate to this exact experience nor can i say if it's appropriate or not. but i can understand how these things can be similar. it reminds me of this meme that says something along the lines of "i thought i was moved by god because of the worship songs in church but i felt the same way when i went to a one direction concert"... like i do think there's some aspects of fandom and everything revolving around a singular person that's very similar to being in a religion. and i don't mean to be flippant about this but it also reminds me of cult like behaviour... how everyone in the in-group alienate those who have doubts and immediately turn against them if they choose to leave. and when people not in the in-group say anything that's different to the reality that they believe in, they think it's automatically false and they refuse to engage with it any further no matter how accurate it might be. it's why people call the MAGA bunch cultists. because they have a blind loyalty not rooted in reality. a lot of fandoms have this problem tbh. some of my friends in the kpop fandoms also talk about how toxic it is over there so i don't think this is something unique to swifties. but all of this is a very interesting thing to think about and i do want to read up on it before saying anything more. thank you for sharing!
