Taylor Swift fans bombarding Netflix stars are the standard of Twitter

On March 1, Taylor Swift posted a tweet criticizing a joke in an episode of Netflix Ginny & Georgia, made a joke at the expense of her. Twelve hours and a half million likes later, the general sentiment was about the remark that Swift had the right to shout a tired and misogynistic joke. And that may have been the end of it, except that Taylor Swift’s fans live on Twitter, and are part of a rising trend to use social media to protect the favorites of celebrities and to attack someone who puts down the stars .

In this case, the anger of Swifties was not so Ginny & Georgia creator Sarah Lampert or one of the executive producers of the program. Even the writers did not feel the smoke of Swift’s righteous anger. Instead of chasing after someone with meaningful power over the future of the show, Swifties turned most of their anger against 24-year-old Antonia Gentry, who plays Ginny. They responded hundreds of times on Netflix’s Instagram and Twitter posts, as well as on Gentry’s personal accounts and apologized to her (and sometimes, bizarrely, the actual character). The theme in the commentary is the same: Taylor Swift was harmed, and it’s Gentry’s fault. While Gentry is partly responsible for the widespread “Oppression Olympics” clip that went viral on social media last month, she is not responsible for the words her character says in the rest of the series.

I’ve come across people posting the comments of her social media posts, and Gentry should “respect Taylor Swift.” People directly accuse Gentry of misogyny and tell others not to look Ginny & Georgia. Some openly delivered racist tweets. Even though Gentry is not recognized as a writer, hundreds of people are demanding that he take responsibility for the single ‘joke’ in the program with which they disagree. Driven by the public outrage of Taylor Swift, these fans – and trolls pretending to be fans – feel empowered to act aggressively to protect Swift’s reputation. This is a normal day on Twitter, where anything is used to protect the object of fans’ parasocial relationships.

Parasocial relationships are emotional fans of media figures, from bloggers and journalists to YouTubers and politicians, who are formed over a long period of time and who are repeatedly involved in the figure or their work. We tend to think of parasocial relationships in terms of how fans behave towards the celebrity they are fixated on – in the case of Real Person Fic (RPF), border crossings on social media, and even in the extreme cases of fans watching them famous favorite. The assumption is that the show is an expression of hardcore love of celebrities. And while it may start from a positive place, the fandom can and does go far in the opposite direction.

In Swifties’ directed response to Gentry, as well as their response to this tweet on Ashley Reese’s Jezebel Essay (to say nothing of their harassment of a reviewer last July thereafter Folkorerelease), we see the other side of the stan coin: the fixation that drives fans to cross borders with a celebrity they claim to love can also be aimed at opponents as an armed vitriol.

Stan Twitter may come together to express concern – as you can see in the responses to Azealia Banks on social media messages last year – but so often today we see fans choosing aggression in response to any perceived threat to their favorite. Use “cleaning up searches”, a common practice on Twitter, to prevent certain topics from trending when people search for famous names during a scandal. Fans, however, do not just scatter topics on their own. If a celebrity’s mental health is in a fragile state due to a reviewer or producer, fans will name the “offender” with fixed phrases (e.g. “Doja Cat funny”, “Han best rapper”) along with aggressive memes insults, or even threats. One of the motives behind it all is the fear that if the searches are not cleared up, the celebrity will see themselves tending to with negative words (e.g. ‘Bully’, ‘racist’).

Reporting accounts are social media accounts created by fans to reach people who may be harmful to a celebrity, to Twitter and to the celebrities via a dedicated email. These accounts can be for an entire group, for individual artists or members of a group, or for an actor in a show or movie. The number of fans can range from just 300 followers to over 30,000. All seven members of the K-pop group BTS have several report accounts in their lane – and that is to say nothing of those dedicated to the group as a whole. Striking report accounts have sprung up for everyone, from GOT7 rapper Jackson Wang to the young women of Blackpink and Twice.

Fans who follow report accounts get detailed explanations, or even templates, of what emails they should write to the idolaters. They are also told how to report tweets effectively so that users can be suspended. If the case deals with a public figure (as we have seen with the racism that German radio host Matthias Matuschik directed at BTS at the end of February), fans are moving in the direction of their management. Fans play a great internet connection with contact information for radio station managers. They notice journalists’ editors. They email other professional contacts. (And yes, it can count as a form of doxxing, since some information these fans find is not easily public information.)

Some of these accounts are targeted at people who spread malicious rumors or attack a celebrity with insults, but a large amount of these accounts are targeted at other fans. Despite fandom that offers people a community to connect their interest in an artist, fans can instantly seduce each other. They come to people who write RPF, who draw fan art, who have criticized an aspect of the celeb’s artwork, or who have made a joke about a famous person being wrongly approached. The ‘crimes’ that an outsider can get for mass reporting are no less forgivable when it comes from inside supporters.

Stan Twitter is a form of fandom fueled by intense emotions (usually love or hate), and if there are no outsiders to set up their frustration – a journalist, a DJ, an outspoken anti-fan – all energy going somewhere. It is increasingly being directed in the direction of other fans, or as we have seen with Swifties coming for Antonia Gentry, another person has been caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.