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‘We have an instinct to go find our people’

“Twenty years ago there was still a lot of stigma around being a fan,” says clinical psychologist Dr Lynn Zubernis. “I think it's much less stigmatised now.”

Part of the reason for this is the growth of fan groups online. “People have always been fannish about things long before we were even using that term,” says Dr Zubernis, “but what I think is different is that fans are much more likely to cluster into communities now.

Dr Zubernis thinks this is partly because of the number of platforms on which people can gather: “We have an instinct to go find our people – this is just a different way of doing it.”

She also believes these groups serve an important function as a place for people to explore their identities, sometimes inside subcategories within these groups. “Any fandom ends up being a whole bunch of subgroups,” says Dr Zubernis.

‘The BTS ARMY community embraces all of us with disabilities’

Since childhood, music has always been a refuge for Dr Colette Balmain, a senior lecturer at Kingston University specialising in K-Pop fandom and an avid follower of South Korean boyband BTS.

The importance of this connection grew after Colette developed the digestive illness Crohn’s disease. Crohn’s causes significant physical discomfort and depression, and the restricted diet and medication regime followed by Colette means that she misses out on the social element of academic life, compounding the effect on her mental state.

Salvation came in the form of online interaction with the BTS ARMY, as the band’s fans call themselves, which stands for Adorable Representative MC for Youth. Colete says that BTS are strong advocates of non-discrimination, acceptance of all genders, community and care, and of self-love, which she believes is so important for the younger generation.

“I feel the BTS ARMY community embraces all of us with disabilities,” she says. “It's never an issue, it never stops you being part of the community.” Meanwhile the band’s vulnerability makes them, she believes, “a very powerful role model for men.”

‘It's like a collaboration between artist and fan community’

Colette’s journey into the world of BTS gathered momentum thanks to the way the band create their own universe, revealing their mysterious back story through music, videos and books.

“Whenever a new video is going to drop there is huge anticipation,” says Collette, “fans start deciphering it, reading it, and then what happens is the things that the fans talk about become part of the story world. It's like a collaboration between artist and fan community.”

‘The show provided an escape from reality for lots of people’

In 1981, over a decade before any of the members of BTS was alive, My Little Pony was born. The toys spawned cartoons, and a relaunch in 2010, of both toys and a cartoon, gained a surprise adult audience.

Music producer and engineer Wootmaster, aka Blake Henry, has been one of those adult fans (or ‘bronies’ as they are known), for a decade now. He cites escapism as the major draw. “The show provided an escape from reality for lots of people,” he says.

As a black man in a white male-dominated fan universe, Wootmaster is in the minority but his devotion to the bronie fan forums is unbridled.

The bronies stable was built on hostile online territory

One of the main places for bronies was the controversial, anonymous open access message board 4Chan, described by Wootmaster as “the sewage of the internet”. This hostile environment, however, initially engendered a real sense of community.

“We developed a defence mechanism to fight against people we perceived as trolls and haters,” explains Wootmaster. “There were fandom specific terms such as ‘bronies’ and ‘pegasisters’, and we had our own little hand thing we did called a ‘bro hoof’ where you make your fist and bump it, which is a gesture they did on the show.”

Neo-Nazis hitched a ride on the bronies

Despite the issues with 4Chan, it’s difficult to imagine that neo-Nazis would target fans of My Little Pony for their purposes. But this is exactly what happened. The bronies, in Wootmaster’s words, were not the most socially and politically aware group, and so were susceptible to infiltration.

“So, you can slide into this community and say, ‘Hey, yeah, I'm down with the pony stuff, but, you know, these SJW [Social Justice Warriors], these woke people, they're trying to take these ponies away from you!’ And from there it gets into radicalising people who, by all means, should be more on the progressive side of things.”

Bronies stood divided

Neo-Nazi activity even spilt over into fan art sites such as Derpibooru, where white supremacist imagery was posted. The initial inaction in the face of this frustrated Wootmaster and exposed differences between online communities, some of which were more resolute in their purge of this unwanted attention.

When the infiltration of Derpibooru was picked up by the media, the site’s owner laid down an ultimatum to users. However, there was pushback and it became a freedom of speech issue. The Nazi imagery remained.

‘I'm not going to give up my home’

In the face of the Derpibooru stalemate, a disillusioned Wootmaster has considered leaving the site.

It’s a tough decision for him.

“This community means so much to me,” he says. “It has changed the lives of so many people… and brought so many people together who would have never ever been in contact with each other to gain the skills and experiences that they have today.”

‘It was my lifeline’

Like Wootmaster, Colette is in no doubt of the impact of the BTS community on her life and the lives of others.

“Connecting with the community, watching videos or watching [the band’s web series] Run BTS – without all those kinds of things, I probably would have spiralled.”

“This group and this community had made our lives more meaningful,” says Colette, “and have enabled us to negotiate very dark times in our lives. I think that's what people don't understand when they talk about fans.”

Listen to Paris’s conversation about the positive power and pitfalls of fandom in full by listening here.