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I recently watched a documentary about Harry Potter fans called "We Are Wizards." I'm afraid I can't recommend the film, it's pretty incoherent. But it was also fascinating in a disturbing sort of way, because it depicted a type of behavior I've never really noticed before: fans of fans. There are some people, actually lots of them, who are so besotted with the Harry Potter books that they come to idolize people whose only accomplishment is that they are public and visible Harry Potter fans.
Maybe you already know about this, and I'm just behind the curve (it's happened before). Here's an example: Most of the film focuses on "wizard rock," a genre of music that is about the Harry Potter series. ("Harry, I love you but you don't love me; let's get together and live in a tree.") (I made that up). And the wizard rock musicians depicted in the movie are, for the most part, utterly incompetent. Most of them cannot sing and seem to have been playing their instruments for a few weeks at best. All this sounds very appealing, right? But here's the fascinating part: People flock to wizard rock concerts, idolize the bands, etc. If I were an 18 year old not very talented musician (which, come to think of it, I once was) I would swallow my pride and get into wizard rock, because I would notice that there were lots of girls in the audience.
The part that I just can't wrap my mind around is that the fans of wizard rock are willing to endure hours of listening to bands that should never get out of the basement simply because they are singing about Harry Potter. Any reference to the stories and characters is so exciting that the musical part doesn't matter. In other words, a person can become a celebrity simply by getting up on a stage and referring to the series, he or she needs have no other talent whatsoever.
What does this tell us about fans? It hints at a little secret that we all already sort of know: Presumably we admire celebrities for their talent, but there are many celebrities who don't actually have any talent. (Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton, etc.) The one thing that underlies all fan behavior is popularity. We get excited about something because other people are excited about it. Usually, something becomes popular because it is appealing in some way—catchy music, an attractive face, a dominant sports performance—but sometimes there is no apparent reason for popularity. However, once something starts to catch on, more people want to join in. An important part of the appeal of wizard rock, like anything else, is that others are getting excited by it; that excitement is itself exciting. The music doesn't have to be any good.
Although I'm baffled by the bad music part, I don't think that wizard rock is a bad thing. For the most part, wizard rock fans (like other fans) just want to have some fun. There's nothing wrong with that. But at the base of fandom is something very powerful, something that can occasionally be turned in ugly directions. If bad music can be exciting, so can bad ideas. As we know from our history, even evil ideas can be exciting. That's probably the most important reason to try and understand fan behavior—it can offer insight into the strange and powerful collective mind.
For more information, please visit Peter G. Stromberg's website. Photo by Melinda Stahl.
