Johnny Depp and the Dark Side of Celebrity Fandom

Modern celebrity fandom encourages fans to look for the narrative they want to see. Little clues are everywhere, and new source material is never-ending. If fandom has become more conspiratorial—and I think it has—that must be due, in part, to the way that social media has created immediate incentives for amateur sleuthing.

Hilde Van den Bulck, a professor of communication at Drexel University, has studied the version of fandom that inverts its practices and creates a community of denigration. Where fandom tends to derive from a positive emotion (I love this actor; I love that character), anti-fandom draws from just the opposite, and nurtures negative feelings toward ... See more

“Anti-fans know as much about their object of anti-fandom as fans do about their object of fandom,” Van den Bulck said. Their relationship with the celebrity they despise is “often very deep, very emotional.”

Some anti-fans are disillusioned former fans (I used to love celebrity X, but now … ). Others’ hatred may be unprovoked (I just can’t stand celebrity X, and resent their place in public life). In many situations, as Van den Bulck explains it, anti-fans and fans are overlapping groups: The anti-fan of celebrity X hates celebrity X because celebrity ... See more