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"That Time I Got Harassed For a Review I Didn’t Write (And What It Might Say About Modern Fandom)"

WrenchNinja

WrenchNinja

Member
Oct 25, 2017
18,751
Canada
So, on Friday night, I was sitting on my couch, watching Taskmaster and screwing around on my phone, when I got a Twitter notification. It was from a Taylor Swift account berating me to "do better" for some reason. Assuming it was related to an old post I'd written or whatever, I clicked on it, and then things got weird
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Taylor Swift released her latest album this week, The Tortured Poets Department. It was an immediate record breaker and creator of Discourse. How could it not be? Swift is one of the biggest musicians on the planet and she has been utterly inescapable for the past year or so. Between her re-records of her back-catalogue, a commercial smash world tour, and a new relationship with a major American football player, Swift had thoroughly cemented her status as a megastar. Also, she won a few more Grammys.
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Reviews for The Tortured Poets Department have been very strong. It has a Metacritic score of 78. An exception to those generally positive reviews is the one from Paste. As the website explained on Twitter, due to the negative nature of this write-up, they had chosen to publish it without a byline. This is because, when they published a bad review for a previous Swift album, Lover, the critic has harassed and threatened for their troubles. For some reason, a bunch of Swifties decided that I was the offending critic and sent some baffling harassing messages my way.

I didn't write the review. I freelance for Paste, yes, but only movies and books coverage. I've been a full-time pop culture critic for about seven years now and I truly cannot remember a time where I was ever hired to write about music. It's not my field of interest. Honestly, I find writing about music to be very difficult. It's not in my skillset.
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Explaining so didn't stop the nonsense. A few avid Swifties doubled down and got mildly conspiratorial with their responses. There was at least one death threat, although, according to Twitter's rules, it's not a "real" one if they write "d-word" in lieu of "die." Funny that, eh?

In the grand scheme of weird harassment and abuse I've received over the course of my career from stans with no hobbies and a mild saviour complex, this experience was admittedly pretty tame. I've survived far scarier death threats for doing the earth-shaking job of offering opinions on films. Mostly, this Swiftie skirmish just confused me. I still have no idea why they focused on me as the probable critic who besmirched their favourite singer. Again, I have never written about music for Paste (and having to repeat that fact made me feel weird because it felt like I was feeding an inexhaustible machine of fantasy and denial.)
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What disheartened me more, to be honest, were the responses and retweets to the original Paste tweets. One person asked if the site would prefer to have one staff member harassed or all of them. I saw people making threats towards the company of multiple occasions. There were threats to dox the writer, as well as bomb threat "jokes." Amid the noise and fury and attempts to add a community note to the tweet to let everyone know that it wasn't a real review because it was just one person's opinion (uh…), everything began to feel a little bit "this is about ethics in music journalism."
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gossipreadingclub.substack.com

That Time I Got Harassed For a Review I Didn’t Write (And What It Might Say About Modern Fandom)

No, I did not write a review for The Tortured Poets Department, okay?
gossipreadingclub.substack.com gossipreadingclub.substack.com

Kayleigh Donaldson is a Writer/critic for Pajiba, EbertVoices, IGN, Vulture, The Daily Beast, and occasionally Paste and somehow got dragged into some weird fan nonsense cause Taylor Swift fans are nuts.
 
404LinkNotFound

404LinkNotFound

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,643
Twitter and youtube really has ruined fan culture. The amount of entitlement and parasocial behavior thats present where fans feel the need to brigade to protect their God emperor is insane
 
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RadzPrower

RadzPrower

One Winged Slayer
Member
Jan 19, 2018
6,054
If they're going to make the byline anonymous anyhow, they should go the extra step and just make a fake pen name that articles they know are gonna generate a lot of negativity like this will carry. Set up the socials and all and just let the idiots yell into the void at nobody in particular rather than playing Russian roulette with their writers instead.
 
Duffking

Duffking

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,724
404LinkNotFound said:
The Twitter and youtube really has ruined fan culture. the amount of entitlement and parasocial behavior thats present where fans feel the need to brigade to protect their God emperor is insane
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no you don't understand, someone publicly stating they didn't like a thing as much as I did is in fact a public and personal attack on me, the main character of the universe who also happens to have no other defining personality characteristics beyond the media I like
 
Panther2103

Panther2103

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,931
It's interesting how rabid fanbases got, even with gaming. If someone writes a negative review and hurts the overall metacritic score by 1 point you see people doxing the reviewers and going over the top with it. Why do people care so much about everyone being 100% in agreeance with how they see entertainment.
 
Beren

Beren

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,552
Fandoms are a mistake. Enjoy the things you like but recognize you don't own any part of it and it's not what your entire personality should revolve around. You should be in a place where if the thing you're a fan of would drop off the face of the earth, you'd be sad for a bit but then move on. IMO it's a mistake to get so emotionally invested that a criticism of the thing feels like a criticism of you.
 
King Alamat

King Alamat

Member
Nov 22, 2017
8,134
RadzPrower said:
If they're going to make the byline anonymous anyhow, they should go the extra step and just make a fake pen name that articles they know are gonna generate a lot of negativity like this will carry. Set up the socials and all and just let the idiots yell into the void at nobody in particular rather than playing Russian roulette with their writers instead.
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Curses, Simone Appolloni strikes again!
 
Dyno

Dyno

AVALANCHE
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
13,374
404LinkNotFound said:
Twitter and youtube really has ruined fan culture. The amount of entitlement and parasocial behavior thats present where fans feel the need to brigade to protect their God emperor is insane
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Pretty much. It basically gave an avenue for all the worst people who should never be in contact with each other to have a direct line between them. Shit got weird when these people managed to egg each other on and normalised their behaviour to each other. Now we're in the real down slope where people who would otherwise likely not act this way have began accepting their behavior as normalised and its becoming large enough that it can't be ignored or even escaped.
 
fifthblight

fifthblight

Member
Apr 8, 2024
86
gave the replies of the original paste magazine tweet a scroll and the swifties are, indeed, seething. not having an acceptable target for their ire except an anonymous social media manager who obviously is not checking their notifications is driving them mad lmao
 
The Albatross

The Albatross

Member
Oct 25, 2017
39,118
When Sports Illustrated started using AI-created personas to publish their AI-generated articles, they were really just protecting workers from this type of harrassment.

joke aside, it's just so fucking bizarre.
 
Glasgow Mega-Snake

Glasgow Mega-Snake

Member
Oct 28, 2017
2,969
404LinkNotFound said:
Twitter and youtube really has ruined fan culture. The amount of entitlement and parasocial behavior thats present where fans feel the need to brigade to protect their God emperor is insane
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I don't know, social media made it worse, but this kind of entitlement was always there in fan circles.

Like I used to be active in the forum of an indie-ish music review site back when internet forums were a bigger thing. And anytime a negative review of some popular band with cultish followers broke containment and was posted on their fan forum or something, the forum was flooded with people shouting at the reviewer
 
Fuchsia

Fuchsia

Member
Oct 28, 2017
6,662
Parasocial behavior is freaky and weird. The false connection people can feel with artists they admire on social media combined with a human need to be a part of a "tribe" leads them to start to deify artists.

If it wasn't so destructive and abusive it would be sort of fascinating.
 
TheRuralJuror

TheRuralJuror

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,504
Don't get this fandom shit. Like yeah, I've got shit I like that not everyone digs but I don't give a shit if I'm enjoying it. Not sure what the hell is wrong with some people.
 
Manu

Manu

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
17,191
Buenos Aires, Argentina
This is not a new phenomenon. Ahmed Best was on the verge of suicide after the backlash to Jar Jar Binks 25 years ago. It's just that social media has made it worse because now EVERY fanbase is like that.
 
shadowman16

shadowman16

Member
Oct 25, 2017
32,172
Manu said:
This is not a new phenomenon. Ahmed Best was on the verge of suicide after the backlash to Jar Jar Binks 25 years ago. It's just that social media has made it worse because now EVERY fanbase is like that.
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Agreed. Social media sucks in this regard, its made it easier to reach out and bully people, but this shit has been going on for decades. Id argue the Internet as a whole has made it worse just because its made it easier to find like minded bullies... Fairly certain you can find examples of forums like these doing similar, heck you can find examples of where usenet newsgroups would have the exact same toxic behavior back in the day... (Babylon 5 is infamous for this - the creator used to interact with fans this way until shit hit the fan...)
 
Feign

Feign

Member
Aug 11, 2020
2,511
<-- Coast
It's fucking wild they're doing this on an album where she calls out this kind of behavior.

But Daddy I Love Him said:
I'll tell you something right now
I'd rather burn my whole life down
Than listen to one more second of all this bitching and moaning
I'll tell you something about my good name
It's mine alone to disgrace
I don't cater to all these vipers dressed in empath's clothing
God save the most judgmental creeps
Who say they want what's best for me
Sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I'll never see
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They don't actually care about her or what she would want.
 
GoodGrief

GoodGrief

Member
Jan 24, 2024
746
I can't understand what drives a person to wish death on someone - or what's worse, threaten it - for their opinions. I can get acting like a child because someone said the thing you like is bad, but that's just a thought process I can't fathom. You didn't like Taylor Swift's new album so I'll kill you? What?
 
Cousin From Boston

Cousin From Boston

Prophet of Regret
Avenger
Nov 21, 2017
3,692
You already give her all of your money, time, and attention. Do you weirdos need to really go to the next step?
 
Enduin

Enduin

You look 40
Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,503
New York
Fandoms, not even once.

Sometimes I think it might be nice to be part of a larger community that's really passionate and invested in something I like, but most of the time I'm just really happy I never did. So much drama and hivemind mentality and just straight up inability to separate themselves from the art they like. I really like a number of things a lot and can talk, critique, and debate about them at length in threads on here, but that's the extent of my interaction and association with them beyond normal consumption. It doesn't bleed into my sense of identity. This relationship so many people seem to have with celebrities and the media they consume is so foreign to me. I fundamentally don't get it the appeal or how someone can be so tied up with someone or something to act like this towards another person. Even politicians and public figures who are literally enacting and advocating terrible things that are actively harming others that I would be giddy over hearing a truck ran them over I've never thought I'd dm or tweet them something hateful or mean, because like why?
 
Kinthey

Kinthey

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
22,406
Feign said:
It's fucking wild they're doing this on an album where she calls out this kind of behavior.



They don't actually care about her or what she would want.
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Honestly I've stopped believing that a creators own morals or positiveness will result in a more positive fandom. Once it reaches a certain size toxicity seems unavoidable
 
subpar spatula

subpar spatula

Refuses to Wash his Ass
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
22,187
The Swifties are slowly creeping up there in terms of crazy.

All over a billionaire who most likely doesn't care about you too.
 

sAbobo

Member
Dec 1, 2018
2,459
Us versus them has always existed. I read a thesis once that tied the decrease of religious fanaticism/religion in general to the rise of fandoms. Same since of belonging to something bigger than them, making it a core fundamental belief. People always gonna find a way to hit that button and Star Wars was a big early avenue people went down that then expanded over time to encompass almost anything now.
 
Speedstersonic

Speedstersonic

Member
Mar 11, 2020
5,134
I think it's really unfair honestly to keep bashing fanbases as a whole when it's always this minority of people that do this. It's absolutely a problem and it's a problem in every fanbase but it is far from a majority.

Just we are so perpetually online that is all we see cause that minority is also part of the perpetually online.

We need to take a hard look at our education cause that is where we need to change things for this to ultimately stop. This all leads back to a lack of critical thinking.
 
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