Trust me, they do. For many of them it’s kind of like a heist. I know of a few who set up whole personas to get into every goddamn corner, discord servers, an actual ao3 account, you name it. You have no idea how fascinating it is to them but simultaneously so petrifying. Don’t freak out, a lot of them don’t give a fuck. Majority, actually. Right after they go look once to kill their curiosity. But all of this only really happens when their media or advertising is really tied into this culture, ie: ‘willmack’ being used frequently in main posts by the sharks to refer to Will and Mack. One google and plane hits the second tower, when it would usually be far more difficult. This also happens if said person is young enough to be a part of the beautiful internet, this type of culture is kind of hard to avoid no matter how much anyone hides this. It’s astonishing that all of you think you’re a small chunk of fan base that can be ignored. Absolutely not. You’re all at least a third of whatever stat we’re going by here. Fan culture is also the 60 year old fathers who scream at the TV when his favorite team scores, etc etc etc. You’re what I call ‘the fandom’ and the fathers (,etc etc etc, all the smaller fan culture phenotypes that contribute less but still have their defined lines) are the ‘fans,’ I know fandom is technically both, but only the people who know the word fandom are apart of ‘the fandom,’ if you know what I mean. You have to be well educated in this particular sub genre of culture to know that the word fandom exists. Then, when you think about this, not many ‘fans’ post on the internet, do they? But oh boy does the fandom, that’s basically all it is. There’s no escaping, the famous ones are always condemned to it if they’re chronically online like 99% of the population. Usually have to be, because it’s a critical part of marketing to be modern, and modern is tied in a bow on their phone.
No because you’re so right, and I really should’ve been more specific—I was talking about that deeply online, AO3-lurking, trope-fluent little slice of fandom. The ones who will write 40k based on one slightly-too-long look. Not the full range of fans, just the unhinged gremlins (said with love) I orbit.
What I was mostly wondering about is how much the players actually know vs how much their media teams do. Like, I have zero doubt Max Verstappen’s PR team is well-versed in Lestappen and has a whole strategy doc somewhere. But Max himself? I fully believe someone once told him “maybe don’t Google that” and he just nodded and never thought about it again. Meanwhile, some of these guys are probably ten pages deep on AO3 in private. I find that whole unknown so weirdly fascinating.
And honestly, you put it perfectly—there’s no separating fandom culture from modern visibility anymore. It’s loud, it’s everywhere, and the fourth wall is basically vibes now.
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