A Tipping Point: Chappell Roan and Other Stars Confront Toxic Fan Culture

It’s such an interesting world we live in where everyone wants to see who you really are on social media. But there’s this delusion that they know you and that they can tell you anything, she  told glamour magazine last year. At meet-and-greets, LGBT fans dump their difficult coming-out experiences on her. My music has helped a lot of people through that trauma, and I love that, she added. But personally, as Kayleigh, I can’t handle that responsibility.

Roan’s attempts to set boundaries and redefine modern-day fan-artist relationships have, unsurprisingly, led to a backlash. On their podcast, Perez Hilton and Chris Booker supported Roan’s calls for more healthy fan relationships, but warned that her repetitive criticisms of fame – all while courting media attention – left her open to accusations of being a “sourpuss”.

Online critics see Roan’s remarks as entitled, saying any negative sides to the attention are part and parcel of fame and fortune.

However, most fans support Roan. Lily Waite, a trans woman aged 29, tells BBC News she found the star’s openness groundbreaking and empowering, but understands her request for more considerate reactions.

The majority of fans are wonderful and earnest and respectful, but those aren’t the fans she’s addressing or referring to in her videos asserting boundaries, says Waite, who feels misogyny lies behind much of the backlash.

Rebecca Clark, 35, who identifies as queer, suggests Roan’s background in the drag/queer scene – which Clark argues is more understanding of mental health – has left her more exposed on the worldwide stage.

Still, Clark backs her, particularly as she challenges the superficiality of those only supporting star authenticity when it is positive. She is self-aware enough to have seen what’s happened in the past to other pop stars and actively set a boundary for her fans. As the first massively out female pop star since Lady Gaga, she’s amazing. But again, that doesn’t mean she’s owes fans a personal one-on-one. She’s just a person too. If Roan is making the most high-profile and perhaps intense attempt to impose boundaries, she is certainly not alone in speaking up.

Paramore singer Hayley Williams publicly backed the remarks. This happens to every woman I know from this business, myself included, she wrote. Social media has made this worse. I’m really thankful Chappell is willing to address it in a real way, in real time. It’s brave and unfortunately necessary.

Mitski welcomed her to the club where strangers think you belong to them and they find and harass your family members. Indie band Muna also chastised toxic elements of their own fanbase, and Billie Eilish’s song The Diner similarly discussed being stalked. For Sarah Ditum, author of Toxic, a book exploring female superstardom over recent decades, this year has marked a tipping point in celebs openly saying fans are crossing a line.

She believes it’s easier for this generation of stars to talk about because they’ve grown up with the language of mental health and boundaries as pop culture has been reassessing the treatment of stars in the noughties  in particular Britney Spears.

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