Fan communities fused devotion with identity politics, recruiting queer zealotry

Evidence

Like other subcultures, these groups provided a positive refuge for marginalized or bored teens, priding themselves on inclusivity as long as members expressed undying devotion to their idols and joined various support missions. With inclusivity at its core, the ideology of fan culture overlapped with the identity politics of what author Angela Nagle labeled the “Tumblr left.” Fan pages on social media sites, as academic Alexander Cho wrote, cultivated “an explicitly anti-heteronormative, anti–white supremacist politics.” Amanda Montell, a writer on cults, observed that “pop idols’ queer stans are sometimes their most zealous.” Even when an artist like Taylor Swift played in explicit heteronormative tropes, queer fans projected hopes and dreams for sapphic desires. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 533

Categorization

• XREF: Ties to the reader’s own frame: if fan identity subcultures persisted and even sharpened in the 21st century, they complicate Marx’s claim of subcultural collapse into blankness. — connects to: Media-created reputations attract members who join a fictional version of a movement — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 74