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[title]I’m walking through Covent Garden on a Wednesday afternoon with Mette Hallman, 23, and Martta Holmberg, 22, both decked out in full Taylor Swift uniform: shirts, bags, pins, and (of course) hand-beaded friendship bracelets.
The girls have just hopped off a flight from their home country of Finland, but aren’t interested in viewing any London sights. Instead, they’re fixed to their phones, bashing their fingers across the screens as if their lives depend on it. After 30 minutes, probably longer, Martta lets out a cry: she’s finally secured tickets to see Taylor Swift in concert on Thursday.
From the intensity of their reaction, you’d be forgiven for thinking this was a once-in-a-lifetime gig – but they’d already been to the Eras Tour in Stockholm (or ‘Swiftholm’, as they refer to it), and were going again on Monday. Yet the girls are so desperate to see their favourite performer again, they’re spending £1,200 each on standing tickets that should have been £227 tops, in addition to the bill for flights, hotels and merchandise.
They’re not the only ones going to extreme lengths to dedicate themselves to a fandom: 24-year-old Paula went to at least 32 Shawn Mendes shows in 2019 and quit her job so she could see Harry Styles 27 times last year. Being part of a fandom is an exhausting job: there are rules to follow, lore you need to know and criteria you must meet. Here, we find out how (and why) they do it.
Reaping rewards
Dr Claire Brash, a 31-year-old doctor based in London, is a massive Charli xcx fan and has listened to her music since her university days. Claire managed to plan her work roster so that she was available to attend the BRAT album rollout in early June, and is the proud owner of a ‘club angel’ card: an exclusive item belonging only to a handful of devoted fans. ‘The day I got my card I was booked for a shift in vascular surgery the same night at 8pm,’ she says. ‘Mine is the 30th card in the world.’
It came in useful when Claire attended Charli’s surprise pop-up DJ set ahead of her Primavera Sound performance earlier this summer. ‘We were standing there with our cards and one of her team said, ‘‘Oh, is that a club angel card?’’ and told us we could stand deckside – right next to Charli, George Daniels, and A.G. [Cook] as they were DJing.’
Paula quit her job so she could see Harry Styles 27 times
Rewarding fans for their dedication to an artist helps to keep a fandom alive. ‘Artists are building a business, but they have to listen to their fans during that journey – essentially treating them like partners in their business,’ says Aaron Bogucki, founder of artist-to-fan marketing company Big Cookie.
In 2014, 2017 and again in 2019, Taylor hosted ‘Secret Sessions’: top-secret events where she handpicked fans to go to her house to hear her perform music before it was officially released. Swifties were picked based on their online and in-person engagement and were contacted through social media direct messages from Taylor’s team. ‘Taylor has put in a lot of work to gain the loyalty of her fan base – that’s how she’s able to switch genres and re-record old music,’ says Martta.
URL to IRL
These days, most fandoms live online as much as they do off. 23-year-old Tyler Wong first saw Sabrina Carpenter on Disney’s Girl Meets World, and 10 years later is one of the most prominent members of the fandom: amassing more than 11,000 followers on X via her posts about real-life meetings with Sabrina, Taylor, and Selena Gomez as well as elaborate tour outfits and concert clips.
‘I love being in fandoms, I can’t imagine my life without them,’ Tyler says. She’s even built a career off of it: when exclusive artist merch was only available in the US, Tyler began designing her own merchandise under ‘Y2K Tees’, which has since been sported by the likes of Addison Rae, Florence Pugh and Matt Bennett. During the Covid-19 pandemic, she quit her job to focus on her business full-time.
The shared interest between fans also allows for real-life friendships to blossom at super-speed. Paula recalls a fond memory from last year. ‘I was in New York working as a production assistant in Brooklyn and this girl kept looking at me, saying she recognised me,’ she says. ‘After a while, she said, ‘‘Oh my god, Shawn Mendes – that’s how I know you.’’
‘She’d recognised me from Twitter. I was desperate for a place to stay because my accommodation had fallen through last minute. This girl let me stay with her in her apartment – I stayed with her for a week.’
In the club
That’s not to say there’s not a dark side of fandom culture, too. Recently, Chappell Roan rushed to her socials to discuss the ‘creepy’ behaviour of fans approaching her in public. She said in an Instagram post: ‘I am specifically talking about predatory behaviour (disguised as ‘superfan behaviour’) that has become normalised because of the way women who are well-known have been treated in the past.’
Martta says: ‘Every fandom has weirdos who take it too far – but because there are so many Swifties, there are more people on average who take it to an extreme. We aren’t unique to that’.
Every fandom has people who take it too far
And then there’s the stigma that comes along with it. ‘I’ve had so much hate for fandoms being a big part of my life – at work, I get referred to as the ‘‘crazy girl’’,’ Paula says. ‘People insult Swifties a lot because it’s one of the top fandoms,’ Mette says. ‘I don’t get offended because they don’t know what they’re talking about. I feel like I’m in an insider club – it doesn’t hurt me because someone doesn’t get it; they’re the ones missing out.’
The art of being part of a fandom may get lost on an outsider – but it’s not necessarily specific to music. ‘In football, you have fans who go to matches every week, dress up in the team colours, drink with friends and memorise songs to chant together,’ says Martta. ‘How is that different from what we do?’