Since the dawn of the Internet we’ve had rabid fans online. Often their misbehavior is annoying as well as amusing. What is rabid fan behavior? I can make a quick list for you but it’s not a complete list nor will it ever be a complete list but let me refresh your memory on a few of the traits of this disturbing behavior and/or trend:
- Defending the work of authors on review message boards that receive low grades
- Attacking other reader’s whose opinion differs from your own (same as above)
- They may even write fanfic of their author’s favorite series or characters
- Feel a kinship to the author that goes beyond normal behavior (we are all strangers)
- Join about a million author online message boards, Yahoo groups and events
- Post their favorite author’s newsletters all over the online community
- Have tunnel vision and an intolerance for varied opinions (similar to above)
- Here’s a new one: tattoo themselves with their favorite character or series
You have to ask yourself: who is responsible for allowing these readers to be rabid? Is anyone culpable besides the reader in question? I know authors are usually not responsible for their fan’s behavior but there are thousands of fans that hang out at some of these author’s online Yahoo groups and message boards. This is where most of them live most of the time. Like a beehive, 
they nest there (see pic). They live there and this is where they hone their argumentative skills and other annoying behaviors.  Author’s who sponsor or lend their name to these Yahoo groups, publisher sponsored or author sponsored message boards are responsible to some degree, I would think in making sure all reader’s opinion are welcome there at their message board and not just the majority rule. You have to wonder if the author is even present in most of these online communities that they’ve started for their fans. Are they all moderated? Most forums are started by a fan. Check out this LKH forum that has rules for user conduct based on a point scale. If a user accumulates enough  infractions and warnings (up to 10 points) their account is reviewed. The account at this point gets suspended or the user is banned. Whose to say that they can’t get another user name?
It’s been awhile since I’ve been apart of a Yahoo group. Don’t care to join one either so no invitations please. There are maybe a few groups that I am still member of but I’m a non-active member.  There was a year where I went through a cleansing period. Where I discarded almost all of my Yahoo groups including the ones that I had started myself. Most were just newsletters or author promotional material. I wanted to be free of all of that superfluous stuff that I found frivolous and very time consuming. I felt that I wasn’t being served anything useful. Most times I was able to obtain this info from another third party source.  As a reader I choose to admire my favorite authors from afar and feel no necessity to congregate with other fans to discuss books ad nauseum. That is what my blog is for, hee. Especially in a author Yahoo group, message board that is publisher sponsored or author sponsored. I’ll buy the books new to support the author’s career but hang out with them online in Yahoo groups, message boards and the like: no thanks. I don’t mind such discussion between readers and authors in a reader’s forum. Yes, there’s a difference. Nothing against authors but it’s to protect my sanity and barricade myself from other rapid, over crazy, over zealous fans. People can write and think of the stupidest stuff to say online on a public message board that can raise your blood pressure.
In life everything is relative. People tend to feel some sort of kinship with the movies they watch, or the actors they enjoy watching on the big screen and what not. An unhealthy attachment to people who are technically strangers to them. I mean you have fans who go to these Star Trek conventions dressed up like Mr. Spock and speaking Kling-On.  Imagine a reader tattooing themselves to show their devotion to your work? As an author how do you react to something that extreme? That’s a first for me concerning readers tattooing themselves. What next? Can’t wait. Isn’t your buying their books new considered reader devotion? How about going to all their signings? Isn’t that enough? I would think that would fulfill that need to support the author. Guess it’s not enough. Most readers feel that they must take it a step further and tattoo themselves (still can’t get over that one). Or tearing up the work of the author-who- shall-not-be-named books because she plagiarized another author (of course I don’t endorse fraud). I’d heard about that incident and thought it interesting and extreme. However, I’ve been on the receiving end of over zealous fans who wanted to correct me or school me on my choice of reading material. It was a bit frightful and amusing. Alas, I don’t want to get into that here.
I know not all author Yahoo groups are bad. Some probably offer up interesting discussions on or off-topic. As a reader do you enjoy being a member of an author Yahoo group, publisher sponsored message board? How are your needs as a reader being served in these types of communities? Are you an active or non-active member? Are these online communities usually moderated or unmoderated? Does it matter to you if these groups are supervised? Are most readers’ opinions welcome? How is the reader author relationship in these communities? How much author input is there in these Yahoo groups? What are some of your favorite author Yahoo groups? Which forums should readers stay away from?
In conclusion and if you’ve made it this far, AAR did a interesting interview with JR Ward about her wildly popular series that you can read here. Enjoy. Any and all comments are welcome especially if your a rabid fan and would like to enlighten the rest of us.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Siouxsie Sue Rocks! In fact I just tracked down the 1986 US tour poster for my partner.
He is gonna be jazzed this Easter.
Oh sorry, but I am with ya a tattoo should be more relevant.
So did you get a Social Distortion instead? heh
The BDB message boards almost remind me of a role-playing game, what with all the “appearances” by the vampires, JRW’s interaction, and how seriously some of the members seem to take it. I’m really fascinated that the character interaction on the message board is ahead of her books; characters exist there that haven’t been introduced to non-board members yet, and action takes place ahead of a book that isn’t being released until this fall.
The tattoo thing just makes me SO glad I didn’t get that Siouxsie and the Banshees tattoo when I was 16…. (I’m not a tattoo snob; I have two, but nothing pop-trendy)
As far as authors controlling their fans’ behavior, other than monitoring their boards, I don’t really see how they could. Sometimes people need to validate themselves by feeling a part of something, and if that’s a group of intense book fans, then that’s what it is. The greater their emotional investment, and the value of belonging is to them, the more they are willing to commit to the group. That’s my guess, anyway.
[quote comment=”7480”]I don’t care to read about anybody’s politics. Topics like that should be banned unless the topic is politics. There are people online who I talk to and get along with and consider online pals. Sure. However, I will never understand that kind of “reader devotion” to tattoo myself up. However, message boards for authors and the Yahoo groups and such - not for me. Thanks for sharing your thoughts as always, Marianne McA. Appreciate it![/quote]
I don’t think it is about ‘reader devotion’. Well not alllll the time. I don’t know Marianne and have been to the Brockmann boards… twice? maybe…
But I see it more as, well these are people you spend time chatting with. They are your online friends. They are people who you may talk to on the phone, have met in person and all sorts of other things. Maybe a book brought you together but the books (tv :alien: shows, movie, comic character, name your thang here) aren’t always why you stay.
Of course that is also how break off groups get formed and such…
As for the ink… I don’t get that in the first place. But if you are going to let someone put INK in your body with NEEDLES - that stays there FOREVER… well who is to say a butterfly is better over a knife?
Of course it is sometimes because the person is insane and needs help… but I can’t say that is for the author to control.
[quote comment=”7450”]I tend to think the internet is a vehicle for people obsessed with many things. I don’t understand the thinking of a fangirl because I am not that kind of reader. I read a book, like it or dislike it, put it down and move on. Being obsessed with an author or a character in a book seems ridiculous to me. I tend to think some people have very little in their life outside of the internet and sad, but true…some live their life through their keyboard. The fangirl seems to be the perfect example of that sort of person.[/quote]
Couldn’t agree more. That’s all I should have said. Sigh.
I have limited my time online compared to what it used to be. Well work kinda did that for me, LOL.
I don’t care to read about anybody’s politics. Topics like that should be banned unless the topic is politics. There are people online who I talk to and get along with and consider online pals. Sure. However, I will never understand that kind of “reader devotion” to tattoo myself up. However, message boards for authors and the Yahoo groups and such - not for me. Thanks for sharing your thoughts as always, Marianne McA. Appreciate it!
Well, yes - I posted on Brockmann’s message board for several years, during the time when she seemed to be the romance author most likely to be accused of having rabid fangirls.
(I did once post on AAR about just how annoying I find the word ‘fangirl’. Seems to allow the poster to be snide, sexist, and superior all in a single word. Rabid fan I can live with.)
As far as the board went, it was moderated - informally at first, and more formally as it became apparent that was needed. Reader’s opinions… Well, it was an article of faith that all opinions should be welcolmed, and people were really rarely flamed for not liking the books, but equally, you do have to wonder about the people who come on to a fan board and say ‘This is the worst book I ever read.’ I mean they did, and weren’t flamed, but it’s a foum where people who like the books have congregated, so those threads tended not to go anywhere.
The times when it was problematic to express views tended to be unbook related - there were very polarised views about the war in Iraq, for example - but I think those would have been difficult discussions in any on-line forum.
Suz Brockmann has always had very close relationships with her fanbase, and certainly a lot of people on the board would have gone to signings, and weekend events. That’s where the ‘we are all strangers’ thing stops being true - you eventually get a core community who know each other off-line too.
I came to the board because I liked the books, but I stayed there because I liked the group that posted there: we shared interests, and a sense of humour. Whether there were so many blogs at that time I don’t know: but I wasn’t aware of them. Wouldn’t see that posting to a MB is more strange & obsessive than blog-hopping. In a lot of ways it’s exactly the same thing - talking to people (who you may not actually know) about the sort of books you enjoy, and other day-to-day trivia.
Just as a general thought, most of the things that annoy you about rabid fans would annoy me too. I’m not sure about the fanfic though. If it’s well written, it can be fun. And it can go places - the first stuff I read by Stephanie Vaughan was a sort of fanfic on the Brockmann board.
Sorry about the long post. You did ask.
Marianne McA
I tend to think the internet is a vehicle for people obsessed with many things. I don’t understand the thinking of a fangirl because I am not that kind of reader. I read a book, like it or dislike it, put it down and move on. Being obsessed with an author or a character in a book seems ridiculous to me. I tend to think some people have very little in their life outside of the internet and sad, but true…some live their life through their keyboard. The fangirl seems to be the perfect example of that sort of person.
OMG!!!!
I was just about to do the top ten… for rabid fangrrls!
toooooooo funny :shocked:
I almost wrote something very similar for my RTB post tomorrow (you did a better job), but decided to not to as I figure people are sick to death of hearing me complain about fangirls.
Honestly, If I were an author I’d be really afraid if I were generating this type of “enthusiasm”. Unless of course I was Teddy Pig, the hostage idea’s a good one. :devil:
I think it has PLENTY of potential for you Teddy. Go for it. LOL.
I am considering creating these series characters that readers fall in love with and then holding them hostage threatening to kill them off one by one unless I receive money.
I think it’s got potential.
[quote comment=”7432”]I think that Jacqueline Carey’s books where the first where I started seeing people tattooing themselves, inspired by the book. I also think that fandom behavior can be viral (ie., one person says, I’m going to get a BDB tatt and then another thinks, Oh, I am just as big a fan).[/quote]
Interesting. It just goes to show how impressionable people are regardless of their behavior online or off. I’m always fascinated by readers who take it to this extreme. What is the point in all of this? I can love a book like say Sarah Monette’s work but I feel no need to rush out and tattoo myself. Maybe there is something wrong with ME. Hee. :cool:
I think that Jacqueline Carey’s books where the first where I started seeing people tattooing themselves, inspired by the book. I also think that fandom behavior can be viral (ie., one person says, I’m going to get a BDB tatt and then another thinks, Oh, I am just as big a fan).