From Amitabh Bachchan to anime, from Virat Kohli to K-Pop: How fandoms shape, unite and sometimes divide us

A little over four decades ago, Hindi cinema’s superstar Amitabh Bachchan was seriously injured while on shoot for Manmohan Desai’s directorial Coolie (1983). An entire nation prayed for his recovery, and once the film was released, cinema lovers thronged the theatres — the fight sequence in which Amitabh was injured was frozen — and that led to even greater frenzy among fans to watch the film. The original script, which had the hero dying, was changed to show him surviving. Needless to add, the film was a roaring box-office hit of the time. 

Intense adulation is hardly a new phenomenon, be it cinema, cricket or politics, and is true not just for India, but across the world. When Arthur Conan Doyle ‘killed’ the world’s most beloved detective, Sherlock Holmes, the magazine, Strand, that published the story, ‘The Final Problem’, is said to have seen many subscription cancellations. Following pressure to bring back Holmes, Doyle revived the detective in a subsequent story. 

A sense of belonging

In the pre-Internet era, fans organised themselves into clubs, held events and even wrote fan fiction versions of their favourite characters in fanzines that were circulated. In the early Internet era, fans created mailing lists and websites on hosting services like Geocities. Later, they formed communities on spaces like LiveJournal, Tumblr, Discord, and, more recently, Archive of Our Own (AO3). Social media platforms like X and Reddit have also birthed many a fandom. 

At its core, every fandom is meant to give its members a sense of community and belonging, driven by a shared love for a character, book, film or personality. And so, there are fandoms for cricketers, anime, film stars, Korean dramas, Korean pop aka K-pop (including the hugely popular BTS, the South Korean boy band) and so on. 

Are anime fandoms toxic?

When this writer asked Reddit users on an Indian anime community what the fandom meant to them, one user felt that “people are a lot ruder and more opinionated online” because of the anonymity that comes with it. The user said that they have formed some great friendships offline, thanks to a shared love for anime. Another Reddit user observed that “older fandoms” were welcoming while the recent anime fans were “toxic” and “immature”. Go down online anime fandom rabbit holes, and you will find intense rivalry among different anime fans. 

Some of the most vocal fans can be found around communities dedicated to Japanese anime and manga like One Piece, Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, Demon Slayer and Jujutsu Kaizen. According to reports, the September release of ‘Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle’ in Indian theatres was met with such craze that there were 5 am shows. The film has become the highest-grossing anime film in India. 

Shift in fandom culture

Not everyone is an active part of a fandom; some follow fandom hashtags for similar perspectives. Pratishtha Gupta, 30, a working professional in Mumbai, explains, “I am not an active part of any fandom but follow hashtags for particular shows religiously when I am watching them on-air, trying to explore perspectives similar or distinct to mine.”

She remembers watching a Pakistani drama called Zindagi Gulzar Hai, which had left a huge imprint on her back in 2015. Did her admiration for a celebrity take her to an event or concert? She says, although she didn’t attend any such event, her love for the drama sent her into a spiral where she started watching all things Pakistani, “for our shared love of culture and their style of storytelling.”

However, she says that as much as she loved Sanam Saeed or Fawad Khan (the lead actors), there was no attempt at forming any one-sided, parasocial relationship with the stars. “In fact, I made a splendid co-incidental connection with a hotshot director of the show — to whom I conveyed my heartiest regards — but there was always an implicit maturity to know that the characters I adore are just…characters,” Pratishtha recalls. The 30-year-old, who has been watching web-based content since 2014, observes that there has been a definite shift in fandom culture, from a sense of belonging, wanting to be seen and heard, to a more negative and extreme form of engagement. 

“Some people in fandoms are incredibly sharp and observant, picking up nuances from scenes and episodes that one might miss on their own; a truly beautiful way to learn,” she says, adding that blind adulation has risen among these fandoms today, which cuts chances of meaningful conversations.

Rivalries, on and off the pitch

All talk of online fandoms and no mention of cricket? Just a cursory scroll through any social media platform will throw up hundreds of posts of one cricketer’s fandom sparring with another’s, and sometimes coming together to troll a third cricketer and his fans. 

Soumitra Kulkarni, 28, a working professional from Pune, is a huge fan of Indian cricketer Rohit Sharma and runs an online fan club called @rohitions45 on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Threads and YouTube. Having participated in many public events and watched some leading cricketers live, his dream of meeting his favourite Rohit Sharma one-on-one is still pending, he says.

On Instagram, his fan club has crossed over one lakh followers — on the question of toxicity among online fan clubs, he says, “as ‘Rohitions45’ we support all cricketing legends with major focus on #RohiRat (Rohit Sharma-Virat Kohli) pair.” Do fans feel the pressure of defending their favourites through the not-so-great phases? “We enjoy and share the good and the bad phases with each other,” he says. 

Every Indian Premier League season brings extreme fandom wars to the forefront — news reports show how fandoms of Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) have clashed in the past, leading to ugliness both online and offline (see second story).

Fans taking their club slogans a little too seriously, turning ‘creators’ with a lot of brand-related memes and other content, have often whipped up hysteria. “Fans who abuse fans of other cricketers or players themselves are hardly lovers of cricket or Team India,” says Pintu Behera, 37. “Many of them are still teenagers and aren’t here for the love of the game,” says Pintu. The Odisha man calls himself a Virat Kohli superfan, and the 20 tattoos he has, of Virat and his records, are a testament to his craze. Pintu took to following the journey of ace batter Virat Kohli from 2012. He has even met the cricketer and shown him his tattoos. The Virat ‘super fan’ has a huge fan following with his Instagram handle (@virat18superfan) fetching him followers of nearly 300k, last checked. 

Superfans as ‘creators’

The superfan culture seems to be taking over the celebrity-fandom ecosystem, with brands also tapping into the trend. According to a 2024 YouTube report on fandoms, 87 per cent of Gen Z describe themselves as a fan of someone or something, while 26 per cent of the fandoms call themselves ‘super fans’. “Casual fans may just consume media, but super fans routinely create media about the object of their fandom,” the report observes. Further, the report notes that “creators are often objects of fandom and fans at the same time.” 

But what happens when obsessive fan behaviour goes too far? Can constant hype in online fandoms around stars and extreme adulation lead to unhealthy behaviour? Bengaluru-based counselling psychologist Sindhura Aiyappa explains, “constant online engagement and presence may bring a small sense of belonging, but that is largely virtual. There is no actual investment in real people.”

In that sense, engaging online acts like a ‘filler’ in youngsters’ lives, and they probably get a kick out of that, she notes. Sindhura warns that constant content consumption can give too much information and lead to overwhelm, emotionally as well. “You are absorbing somebody else’s emotions all the time, be it via movies or shows, and then, when these emotions begin to pile up, it can lead to fatigue, lethargy and brain fog,” she explains. High emotions need a vent somewhere, which explains irrational or impulsive behaviours, she adds. 

A re-acquaintance with one’s immediate environments may be the much-needed balm for those grappling with a world where the real and virtual meld. 

Help your kid snap out of it!

Here are some simple strategies that parents/adults can use to help youngsters overcome obsessive behavioural patterns:

1. Ask specific questions to understand the youngster’s interests and reasons for staying online all the time.

2. Get the child to take up some form of physical activity that helps dopamine release.

3. Get them to take an interest in some short creative exercise: these could be small bursts to break monotony or routine. It could be as simple as folding a tissue in a different pattern.

4. Encourage your young adult to socialise in small ways.

(Inputs from counselling psychologist Sindhura Aiyappa)