How Do We Address Digital Media Manipulation Of Fandoms?

In the wake of a young pop star's death last week, I read an article that gave me pause for thought. It honed in on our grim fascination with celebrity deaths, and I immediately felt uncomfortable. The manipulation of a person’s untimely passing to drive reach, clicks and views is one thing, but to comment on it without a hint of the ironic commodification of a tragedy is another.

I took to the comments, questioning whether to further fuel engagement on a post looking for a macabre slice of the current media cycle. I needn’t have worried. Already, the fandom had gathered, calling out the media’s long-established role in perpetuating and profiting off the demise of yet another celebrity. Frustrated with the manipulation at play, they had started clawing back the narrative being spun around their idol too.

The care and respect these people show - with a deep, long-held love of a reality star gone stratospheric - is why I won’t mention names in this article. Not of the person who has sadly passed or the band in which they rose to fame. There’ll be no coining of the fandom in question’s moniker nor the famous friends connected to their life. Search engine optimisation, algorithm gaming or clickbait, this is not.

Yet, groundswells of humanity are emerging amongst the dirt digging, widespread misinformation and deeply unethical sharing of imagery at play. Not from the mainstream media, of course. Instead, the fans, which not only adored this person’s talent and appreciated their good looks but formed communities around their art and the message it held for them. It’s nothing new, but our digital age has rendered this situation slightly different.

Having found fame on a televised talent show, a whole generation of young people grew up alongside the then-teenager who found fame there. Capitalising on the failsafe nineties’ formula for promoting boy/girl bands and forming deep-rooted relationships through our TV screens, social media took our parasocial relationships with this new talent to such dizzying new heights back in the late 2010s.

MORE FOR YOU
NYT ‘Strands’ Today: Hints, Spangram And Answers For Tuesday, October 22nd
Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Clues And Answers For Tuesday, October 22
WWE Raw Results, Winners And Grades As Samantha Irvin Departs

Through production companies, record labels, and (in some instances) famous people’s own drive for popular and commercial success, social media became a direct window into the lives of people whose gifts spoke to us. For the first time, however, fans could talk right back. Casually organised fans from your local area morphed into global content accounts, connecting the millions who saw and understood your icon in the same way you did.

You only need to look at Swifties to see the power such parasocial relationships can give rise to. In the face of ongoing media feuds, sexual harassment lawsuits and the loss of her masters, it’s Taylor Swift’s devoted fans alone that have seen her succeed. No amount of deeply patriarchal cultural denigration or music industry backlash can overcome what Time astutely flagged as the emotional validation she brings to the scores of girls and gays who revere her.

It’s been interesting to see the shift in media narrative around Swift in the last few years, as the digital media machine has cottoned on to the fact that Taylor content pays. No matter how obscure the source or abhorrent the story, incendiary headlines, rigged algorithms and planted comments are standard. In an age where youth loneliness is an epidemic, digital media profits off our drive for meaningful connections

With extensive use of digital devices and a lack of connection to real-life communities at the core of over 70% of 18-24 year-olds feeling lonely in the U.K., in that context, the outpouring of grief witnessed makes sense. For those who came of age before Facebook defined our social lives and Twitter (now X) forever shifted how we interact with celebrities, seemingly misdirected relationships will be hard to understand.

Yet, in targeting, manipulating and capitalising on young people’s attention through content connected to people they feel understand them, digital media is as complicit as the entertainment industry is in grooming young people for stardom. Demi Lovato’s recent documentary, Child Star, shone a brutal light on how the film and television industry have long commodified young people’s identities for profit.

Support and aftercare (beyond how to pitch your personal brand) for these kids are non-existent. Though protections are in place to build financial safeguards around the young and famous, the consideration of cultural narratives and personal well-being is nowhere to be seen. Flagging the lack of legal infrastructure to protect children working in other industries - online content creation using children as a pertinent and pressing example - the documentary holds important lessons for us all.

You only need to follow Britney Spears on Instagram to see the havoc early fame can wreak on a young person’s life, and the lessons to be learned around the circumstances leading to the latest celebrity death are still to be reckoned with. Fellow reality TV stars are speaking out, leveraging the moment to hold the TV show, production company and media moguls who played a part in their meteoric rise and resultant troubles to account.

While artist like Taylor Swift, Demi Lovato and, more recently, Chappell Roan, are challenging their respective industries, media culture and extreme fan behaviour, there’s yet to be a meaningful conversation around tech ethics and the responsible use of digital media on young artist’s and their fans alike. While the E.U’s Digital Services Act aims to hold platforms accountable for harmful content, there’s limited action, and the UK’s Online Safety Act is a work in progress,

As for how to address the behaviour of digital media in the here and now, fandom is way ahead of us. Since the news broke, there’s been much more than simply calling out opportunistic articles on Instagram. The deep-seated need to come together - in a wildly disconnected world - has seen them protect the grieving family from media intrusion while holding in-person vigils and creating shrined in major cities across the globe.

All while flooding social media with celebratory messages about their life, character and artistic achievements, people already know what to do. In the face of media misinformation and digital manipulation of the people, which have played a significant part in helping them feel seen and understood, joining forces to share love supersedes even the most extractive technology. Perhaps we’re not so easy to manipulate after all?