Fandom culture has changed a lot throughout the years, from friends discussing favorite plot twists and characters in books or movies, to now some especially obsessed fans stalking streamers and YouTubers.
This of course wasn’t the original idea of fandoms. They began as a way for fans of a piece of media or pop culture to come together to discuss and enjoy them together with other people who like the same thing, according to The Times. Fandoms have formed around many books and movies like Marvel or Harry Potter. They have become easier to join as the internet becomes bigger through Reddit groups and even dedicated sites like Fandom Wiki. Now, however, the internet has given a new form of entertainment a piece of the pie, that being streaming sites like Twitch and Youtube. Streamers like Caseoh and KaiCenat spend a lot of time on camera for their viewers to watch. They can be playing games, sports, making art and a million other things for the entertainment of their viewers. A small portion of their revenue comes from their viewers themselves, in the form of donations in exchange for a shoutout on the stream or a response from the streamer to a message they attach to their donation.
In itself, this is not a bad thing. It increases income for the streamer who is trying to make money and gives their viewers a way to interact with the person they’re watching. Where it becomes negative is when viewers watch the streamer and begin to believe they are connecting with them in a personal way and not a monetary way. As the fan donates more and gets more responses and recognition from the streamer, it can give them a sense of connection that is not real to anyone but them. In very extreme cases it can even lead to stalking of the person doing the stream both online and offline in the real world in the cases of streamer JinnyTTY.
In these extreme cases the consequences can be severe. There have been instances of streamers being followed and caught in their everyday life by these kinds of stalkers, in cases such as Imjasmine and Jadeyanh, who have spoken out about their experiences on their streams in the past. This can go even further to their home addresses being leaked and stalkers coming to their doors to meet the streamer or breaking into their homes, such as streamers Amouranth and Brookeab, who have both also spoken on these situations on their streams. In the most extreme case that I have seen, a stalker not only tracked a streamer by the name of Justfoxii but also lit her car on fire in her own driveway with her mother and dogs inside the house, according to Justfoxii on her stream speaking on the topic. This kind of behavior is only becoming more common with streamers because of the internet giving these kinds of fans a place to form their own bubble of reality as well as the tools to be anonymous and track every move the streamer does, according to Rolling Out.
The bubbles these fans put themselves in falsely confirming their own delusions of friendship and remove the parasocial aspect of the streaming industry itself, pushing them to go further in their downward spiral. It can be hard to get out of these to the point of events recurring after they have even received legal punishment like jail time or restraining orders. The kind of parasocial relationships streamers have with their fans is mostly transactional and is in no way a method to build a close relationship with them.
Ultimately, these kinds of parasocial relationships are a dangerous part of streaming and fandom culture as a whole. When a fan becomes obsessed the fandom of that person is an entryway to that bubble of confirmation of delusions and furthers the fan’s obsessive tendencies.
