Toxic fandom is terrible. It’s sad to see wonderful works of art that bring so many people joy overrun with fans who spoil it for everyone. Toxic fanbases, for the blissfully uninitiated, are those that openly mock and criticize the people who make the very art that brought them together in the first place. They often act so obnoxiously that the creative property itself is tainted by their love of it.
It’s even worse when you realize your art has one of those infamous fanbases! The sad thing is I didn’t even realize it until I checked the comments on the latest song we released and saw how many people were saying we sucked. Talk about toxic!
When I see the way fans of things like “Rick and Morty” or “Star Wars” behave, I always wonder, “How could the powers that be let this escalate to that level?” Now I’m one of those powers that be and I’m sad to report that I’ve let my hoards of loyal fans become one of those horrific groups. They bring down my art, chiefly by DMing me about how much they hate my band.
Please allow me to apologize. I’m deeply sorry that my art is so influential and has the ability to transcend human expression to the point where I must be channeling God themself. It’s my fault, really. It’s figuratively and literally my cross to bear.
For context, my band, The Jell Bar, just put out a new EP. It’s sort of a noise meets pop meets EDM type thing but with real emotional and poetic lyrics; the kind of stuff people can really connect with. And boy did they! Here are the first few messages in our band page’s DMs:
“Hey, you should quit music entirely, like, there isn’t even potential to improve this garbage.”
“Hi!! I’m almost never on here, but hit me up on kik at xoBabyFuxxxo if you wanna meet up.”
“Is this a joke? If so, it’s hilarious!”
“You’re band sucks”
I’m not sure what the next step is. I suppose we’ll eventually need to figure out a way to discourage this behavior but for now I’m gonna bask in the glow of my brilliance and enjoy the adoration. I only wish all of you reading this could experience, just once, receiving thousands of messages telling you your band sucks.