Why You Can’t Help But Love Your ‘Problematic Fave’

Appreciating artwork or artists who offend can complicate the concept of cancel tradition, particularly when others use that as a weapon in opposition to your private values.

By Ruth Etiesit Samuel | Printed Nov. 7, 2023

This story is part of our weeklong collection on cancel tradition. Learn the opposite tales right here.

“Wait, they have been accused of doing what?”

Few issues evaluate to the sharp pang of betrayal after studying questionable details about your favourite musician, actor or athlete. The preliminary shock, denial and confusion sends followers careening down a rabbit gap, googling to seek out credible sources to substantiate the allegations.

As soon as the explosive claims are substantiated, emotions of disappointment and harm shortly floor, then guilt on your personal naivete. What’s subsequent? Do you solemnly swear to by no means assist their artwork once more? Erase their songs out of your music library? Delete their movies out of your Letterboxd account? Publicly surrender your assist of them with one last TikTok fan cam?

Or, do you reserve a particular spot for them as your “problematic fave,” rationalizing your neglect of their poor conduct? A problematic fave could possibly be any celeb, public determine or fictional character that you just proceed to carry expensive, despite their ethically or morally questionable stances, actions or accusations leveled in opposition to them.

Ariana Grande has earned two Grammys, regardless of the donut-licking incident that shocked America. Beyoncé’s “Renaissance World Tour” has turn out to be the highest-grossing tour by a feminine artist, regardless of that blood diamond collaboration following her Afro-pop soundtrack album, “The Reward.” Taylor Swift’s live performance film broke a gap weekend report, regardless of her romantic fling with an alleged racist earlier this yr.

Gina Rodriguez will proceed to be a working actor on Season 2 of ABC’s “Not Useless But,” regardless of rapping the n-word in a extensively circulated video. Shoppers nonetheless purchased Yeezy slides and listened to “Ye” after Kanye West mentioned 400 years of slavery was a alternative. Shonda Rhimes’ “Scandal” and Dan Harmon’s “Neighborhood” are nonetheless usually streamed collection with robust fandoms, regardless of the presence of alleged abuser Columbus Brief and the “horrific” Chevy Chase.

Whether or not systemic or interpersonal, every of those “strikes” in opposition to celebs enact various levels of hurt, but none of those artists have been barred from work or the general public eye. In its distorted kind, cancel tradition doesn’t actually exist for celebrities and public figures. Furthermore, each single celeb, present or piece of media has some stain or impurity. Fact be instructed, all of our faves are most likely problematic, so what does that make us?

At first look, the notion of a “problematic fave” might appear to be an excuse to miss celebrities’ actions or the implications of a chunk of media (i.e., movie, TV present, and many others.) merely due to your individual private causes: nostalgia, attraction, or plain enjoyment of their product. In excessive circumstances of fandom, “stans” — a phrase fashioned by combining the phrases “stalkers” and “followers” — will doggedly marketing campaign for the innocence and sovereignty of their chosen fave.

However under the floor, the “problematic fave” moniker is usually a fan’s try to carry area for nuance, dually acknowledging a public determine’s legacy of expertise and the potential to hurt. Recognizing human fallibility and the unrealistic expectation of ethical purity from celebrities could possibly be seen as a extra mature method to participating with leisure. Nobody is ideal, and everyone makes errors.

Nonetheless, the requirements for what offenses represent as too egregious to miss range from particular person to particular person. To at least one particular person, home violence allegations could possibly be seen as worse than fatphobic or colorist feedback; to a different, they every perpetuate systemic violence in several methods.

These conversations increase questions in regards to the methods we recognize artwork: When did the media we eat turn out to be emblematic of who we’re, or has it all the time been? Is it cheap to tether your individual morality to leisure, and what does it counsel about your values? How does having a problematic fave complicate the idea of cancel tradition?

The time period “problematic fave” originated from a then-anonymous Tumblr weblog by the identical identify, “Your Fave Is Problematic.” Boasting over 50,000 followers at its peak, the weblog was created in 2013 and “contained lengthy lists of celebrities’ regrettable (racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, ethnophobic, ableist and so forth) statements and actions.”

There’s a extensive spectrum of grievances that some individuals are keen to disregard to take pleasure in their favourite artwork or artist — whether or not it’s Black girls supporting Chris Brown, who has been accused of assaulting a number of Black feminine celebrities, or the “nightmare” that was “America’s Subsequent Prime Mannequin,” which is stuffed with racist, fatphobic and misogynistic moments.

Based on Elizabeth Nordenholt, co-creator of the now-defunct “Your Fave Is Problematic” podcast, that protection can usually be chalked as much as one’s emotional connection to leisure. (The podcast shouldn’t be linked to the Tumblr weblog of the identical identify.)

“All of us join with media as a result of it evokes one thing in us, proper? And there’s, finally, a value evaluation that you just make with a problematic fave,” Nordenholt mentioned. “Are the issues it’s evoking in me essential sufficient that I can look previous the problems? What am I getting, and what am I dropping for this? And I believe individuals are gonna have completely different strains.”

She continued, “I take into consideration the issues the place there’s nonetheless one thing within the story, within the music or no matter that issues. I believe it speaks to a extremely essential reflection of the human situation.”

“Your Fave Is Problematic” was created by former roommates Nordenholt, 34, and Kristen Bennett, 40, in 2016. “She was like, ‘I simply sort of wish to have a podcast that’s just like the conversations that we’ve across the kitchen desk,’” mentioned Bennett, recalling Nordenholt’s preliminary pitch to her for the podcast.

YFIP’s tagline grew to become “a podcast the place we take your favourite factor and spoil it.” In actuality, it’s two mates making an attempt to stroll the tightrope of participating in fandom whereas being socially acutely aware shoppers. The duo’s first episode was launched in July 2017; it analyzed depictions of sexual assault on display screen, feminine archetypes and white saviorism on America’s favourite present on the time: “Recreation of Thrones.” The podcast, and its corresponding Fb neighborhood, served as a medium for Nordenholt and Bennett to facilitate nuanced and considerate conversations that different on-line areas didn’t depart room for.

The podcast’s launch coincided with the throes of Trumpism and the impression of the #MeToo motion; the ultimate episode aired January 2021. In that point, there was a groundswell of frustration that modified the best way we have interaction with males in energy but additionally celeb tradition at giant. Individuals felt empowered to name out, determine and identify the abuse they endured by the hands of highly effective figures. Their listing of topics to deal with grew to become lengthier and lengthier.

Bennett, who lived in Los Angeles on the time, denoted a landmark shift within the idea of a problematic fave since they launched their podcast.

Right now, you will be considered a Unhealthy Individual™ for persevering with to interact with a problematic celeb’s music, movies, and many others. It’s a dynamic that usually performs out on-line and IRL. Bennett says it’s a mirrored image of how the definition of “cancellation” has been co-opted and divorced from its unique context. Within the final a number of years, to “cancel” somebody has meant a variety of issues: a private reckoning, or public shows of self-righteousness and even, a rubric for judging the values of individuals round you.

“I grew up in a time the place somebody saying, ‘That’s canceled,’ was a Black factor, and it wasn’t ending any person’s life. They have been identical to, ‘Lady that’s over. Nobody’s enthusiastic about that. No matter,’” Bennett mentioned. “In case you used to go to a restaurant for brunch they usually stopped serving your favourite meal, you’d be like, ‘Oh, we will’t go there. That’s canceled.’ It might vary from one thing as innocuous as that to having a homegirl who was mendacity about you. Like, ‘She’s canceled. We don’t even fuck together with her anymore.’”

Notably, Wesley Snipes’ character, Nino Brown, used the phrase, “Cancel that bitch” in reference to dismissing his girlfriend Selina (Michael Michele) within the 1991 movie “New Jack Metropolis.”

Bennett’s principle behind the evolution of the phrase is that “primarily conservative white individuals who don’t know any individuals of coloration” have turned expressions comparable to “woke” and “canceled” right into a looming, proverbial Boogeyman.

Nordenholt echoed her sentiments and expressed that cancellation has turn out to be a badge of honor for America’s conservative activists — and one more means for white individuals, usually rich, seen and highly effective white individuals, to understand for faux-marginalization and oppression. And naturally, there are the Black male celebrities who additionally feed into this, notably Kanye West and comic Dave Chappelle.

After being referred to as out for transphobic jokes, Chappelle mentioned, “If that is what being canceled is like, I like it,” amid a standing ovation. After Balenciaga ended their relationship with Ye over his antisemitic feedback, he boasted, “I ain’t dropping no cash.” When a member of the paparazzi requested West, “What have you ever bought to say to people who find themselves making an attempt to cancel you?” surrounding followers interjected: “You possibly can’t cancel him, man!” West retorted. “I’m right here! What we talkin’ about? We ain’t goin’ nowhere…If I ever went wherever, we all know why.”

“The precise has this actually unusual and engaging energy to co-opt language and mould it to themselves. They’re like, ‘Oh, the left woke mob is making an attempt to cancel me.’ And that’s clout for them,” Nordenholt mentioned. “It’s not even about what it meant, even once we have been speaking about it 5 years in the past. Louis C.Ok. didn’t work for a yr in any case that shit got here out about him. Does that make him ‘canceled’? Properly, he’s nonetheless working, so I don’t suppose so.” (Louis C.Ok. even admitted that the allegations of sexual misconduct, which included him masturbating in entrance of girls, have been true.)

Nonetheless, the #MeToo period ushered in a tradition of accountability that was beforehand absent. That accountability started to trickle all the way down to followers, too, and audiences started to judge their very own relationships with artists and their artwork. The thought of a “problematic fave” served as a approach to hold that emotional connection to that work or its creator, even when a fan didn’t have the language to articulate it.

“Quite a lot of occasions what has occurred is it turns into this projection that we do. ‘I like this factor and it’s so unhealthy, I should be unhealthy too.’ That sort of provides you two choices once you’re pondering of it in that body,” Nordenholt mentioned. “I can both disavow that factor, or I’ve to defend it as a result of by proxy I’m defending myself.”

Navigating this cognitive dissonance, the incongruence of motion and beliefs is an enormous a part of understanding how parasocial relationships play out.

Parasocial relationships consult with the media customers’ imaginary relationships with media figures or media characters, mentioned Dr. Mu Hu, an affiliate professor within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Texas A&M College-San Antonio. Hu has spent over a decade conducting analysis on parasocial interplay and relationships, particularly their deterioration and dissolution.

The idea of parasocial relationships shouldn’t be new — the time period was coined in 1956 by Donald Horton and R. Richard Wohl, however Hu famous that as a result of media shifts over time, so do parasocial relationships. When broadcast TV was thought-about “new media” within the ’50s and ’60s, media customers have been known as audiences and viewers. With the proliferation of recent social media — and a wider definition of “media determine” (e.g., influencers) — parasocial relationships have reworked.

Doja Cat referenced parasocial relationships as the explanation why followers are overfamiliar together with her on-line. (Whereas which may be true, she’s additionally utilizing that as license to evade criticism for relationship a person who has been accused of emotional abuse, grooming and sexual misconduct.) Your imaginary relationship together with your “problematic fave” is all the time there for you. One of many largest accelerants of parasocial relationships is the frequent accessibility and 24/7 availability they supply.

“Harry Potter would by no means reject you. Harry Potter won’t ever choose you,” Hu mentioned. “Parasocial relationships with a star or with a media determine haven’t any such drawback. Let’s say, at 3 a.m., you can not fall asleep. You open your laptop, they usually’re there. They’re all the time out there.”

When that piece of media or particular person affords one thing on your spirit, you place significance on it. Within the case of Harry Potter, audiences noticed themselves in Harry and sought reprieve within the world Pottermore neighborhood, all of which have been conceived by J.Ok. Rowling in 1997. But Rowling has managed to tarnish her legacy, and arguably, that of the collection, by doubling down on her transphobic feedback. Now, dejected and upset followers are left questioning if they need to even watch the forthcoming “Harry Potter” TV collection on Max, as earnings would line Rowling’s pockets.

Most lately, Lizzo was accused by three former backup dancers of bodily threatening, weight-shaming and sexually harassing them. Lizzo has denied the allegations.

The “Juice” singer, who preaches radical self-love, has been lauded as a bastion of physique positivity, and been the goal of loaded fatphobic misogynoir, has allegedly lived lengthy sufficient to see herself turn out to be a villain. The sheer disappointment that such claims could possibly be introduced in opposition to somebody who sought to be a task mannequin for younger women nonetheless stings for therefore many followers.

In Hu’s analysis, he discovered that the stronger the parasocial relationship that individuals had with a star or a media determine, the extra intense or impacted they felt by the erosion of that relationship when a scandal took place.

“A parasocial breakup refers principally to the termination of a relationship on account of some incidents, for example, the demise of a determine like Kobe Bryant, Robin Williams, or the finale of ‘Associates,’” Hu mentioned. “There’s some turbulence, or an incident occurs which can doubtlessly pose some risk to the parasocial relationship. The depth or the intimacy of a parasocial relationship might decline, so I name that parasocial deterioration.”

Hu discovered that the extra an individual appreciated a star, the extra impacted they have been by their conduct, but additionally, they have been additionally extra keen to forgive than the typical media consumer.

“When individuals actually like a sure celeb and when one thing like that occurs, individuals who love them extra are likely to attribute the reason for the scandal to exterior components,” mentioned Hu. “‘He was drunk. He was beneath a sure affect. He was in a foul temper. He isn’t that sort of particular person.’ However in the case of somebody that they don’t like that a lot, they have an inclination to attribute the issue or the trigger to inside components. Like, ‘Oh, I knew all of it alongside. He’s all the time been that sort of particular person. I knew it.’”

Whereas these relationships are totally imaginary, they’ve tangible, social penalties, dictating your capability to kind a neighborhood. Fandoms is usually a stunning place, however there’s a darkish, eerie facet. Crazed “stans” who resort to doxxing, dogpiling, and unleashing demise threats on anybody who criticizes their “problematic fave” are part of that world.

In September 2022, YouTuber Kimberly Nicole Foster took authorized motion in opposition to Nicki Minaj stans, known as “Barbz,” after they posted her private data on-line. Author Wanna Thompson additionally spoke out about violent messages she acquired from some Barbz in 2018.

“The destructive incidents you simply talked about,” mentioned Hu, “it’s nothing completely different from a riot on the street, isn’t it? Riots normally take the type of a gaggle. That particular person is in firm with lots of and even hundreds of different individuals, and hastily, she or he feels empowered as a gaggle and feels an urge to hitch. In fact, there shall be some erratic, irrational conduct.”

Now, not each one that considers themselves a “stan” of a specific artist reveals violent conduct. “Stan” is commonly attributed to rapper Eminem and his tune from the 2000s referred to as “Stan.” (The music video depicts an Eminem-obsessed fan named “Stan,” who finally transforms right into a bleach blonde Slim Shady and drives himself off of a cliff.)

Most individuals who think about themselves “stans” have a really completely different, extra regular method to participating with celeb tradition, in keeping with media scholar Sew.

“Stanning shouldn’t be seen as a destructive by stans,” Sew mentioned. “However not in the identical means that Stan within the tune didn’t see that as a destructive. His parasocial attachment to Eminem is completely different. I really feel like most followers who determine themselves as stans aren’t going to behave that excessive.”

Sew, who identifies as a nonbinary Black femme, is a millennial freelance journalist and popular culture scholar with bylines in Teen Vogue, i-D, The Verge, Polygon and different publications. As founding father of the web site, “Sew’s Media Combine,” they’ve been finding out fan behaviors and Black girls in fandom for nearly a decade. With levels in historical past and English, they first utilized their schooling to investigate fandom when racist criticism arose in 2016 following information that Zendaya can be taking part in Mary Jane in “Spider-Man.’

In Sew’s phrases, “fandom” has all the time been a neighborhood of followers, but it surely’s greater than somebody merely liking one thing. It implies a deeper stage of devotion and extra energetic, fixed engagement with the topic, in addition to different individuals who might admire — and even share “an antagonistic dislike” for — mentioned media determine, celeb, online game, and many others.

However there’s an “excessive 10% of fandom,” Sew mentioned.

“The common Yuzuru Hanyu fan is like, ‘He bought married? Oh, that’s nice for him,’” Sew mentioned, referring to the Olympic champion determine skater. “Then a stan is like, ‘He’s secretly homosexual. He has a beard. I’m gonna fake this doesn’t exist. I want this was me. I believed this could possibly be me.’”

Sew continued, “Have you ever ever seen the iceberg meme the place it has layers? And beneath, normally, the darker the water, the extra tousled the factor is? For stans, the iceberg is fandom. The farther down you go, the extra excessive the conduct is, and the extra apparent it’s ‘stanning.’”

In 2016, Sew observed a shift in how literary fandoms would weaponize “cancel tradition” to make judgments about different on-line customers. If a reader “shipped” two characters, that means they needed two characters to enter a romantic or sexual relationship, and somebody disagreed? All hell would break free.

“If different individuals determined that pairing was a destructive factor, you have been held accountable for it,” they mentioned. “Individuals would make blogs devoted to calling out individuals who have the ‘unsuitable’ most popular pairing.”

They continued, “Though that began with non-celebrity fandoms, it appears to bleed into how stans speak about their object of affection. I like BTS. I am keen on BTS. However one of many issues I discovered actually irritating in regards to the followers a few years in the past, is that in case you ever mentioned something essential — in case you talked about J-Hope’s hair or identified a difficulty of anti-Blackness — it was framed as racist in opposition to these Korean idols. That’s not what that’s. That may be a new fan discovering out that their new fave is problematic.”

Sew has had direct expertise with how violent fandoms will be; they’ve been the goal of on-line and offline threats on account of criticizing and analyzing significantly risky fandoms, they mentioned. Through the “racial reckoning” in the summertime of 2020, they wrote about how activism from Ok-pop idols made headlines, however Black followers nonetheless should wade via racism throughout the neighborhood — be it when a member of Enhyphen mentioned the n-word or the truth that Ok-pop extrapolates closely from Blackness. Furthermore, they’ve been cited in reported items urging for the need of Black protected areas in Ok-pop fandom.

Sew’s nieces performed them a full video compilation of problematic issues BTS has been accused of, in an try to open their eyes and show they shouldn’t be a fan. Regardless of every little thing, Sew remains to be a self-proclaimed Ok-pop and BTS fan, with a photograph wall of lead singer Kim Namjoon of their room. Deciding who will get to set the barometer for what conduct is simply too problematic — particularly after they’re not part of the neighborhood that has been transgressed — is more and more troublesome.

“Even when we’re locally, it’s so gross as a Black particular person to see one other Black particular person react to a star’s anti-Blackness with, ‘Properly, I’m Black and I’m not offended,’ or, ‘Properly, I’m Black and I forgive them,’” Sew mentioned. “You don’t communicate for all of us. That’s your forgiveness and also you’re welcome to dole it out, however you don’t get to resolve that anyone else has to love that celeb or must be good to that celeb afterwards.”

Sew argues that it isn’t the artwork itself that’s problematic, however somewhat, how we as audiences, viewers and shoppers have interaction with and speak about mentioned artwork. What makes stans unhealthy, mentioned Sew, shouldn’t be their affinity for one thing. It’s the doxxing, the demise threats, and violent harassment that they generally take part in to guard the artwork or the artist.

“Liking a problematic piece of media or celeb in and of itself isn’t a foul factor, proper? Lots of people suppose that consumption alone is the issue, which is sort of not true. What you want isn’t the issue, how you want it’s,” Sew mentioned.

In a New York Occasions op-ed revealed February 2021, Liat Kaplan claimed credit score for the “Problematic” Tumblr weblog in 2013, and unveiled the scrutiny they endured whereas operating the account and shared regrets they’ve because the creator.

“Who was I to lump collectively identified misogynists with individuals who bought tattoos in languages they didn’t communicate? I simply needed to see somebody face penalties…Wanting again, I used to be extra of a cop than a social justice warrior, as individuals on Tumblr had come to think about me,” Kaplan wrote. “For years, I’ve regretted the highlight I placed on different individuals’s errors, as if someday I wouldn’t make loads of my very own. My mind wasn’t prepared for nuance.”

Upon reflection about beforehand aired episodes of “Your Fave Is Problematic,” Nordenholt and Bennett agree that in the event that they listened at present, their opinions and takes on numerous matters might, actually, have modified.

“And it’s both as a result of extra stuff has since come to mild or simply as a result of I’ve performed my very own development,” Nordenholt mentioned. “Quite a lot of occasions, it’s most likely each.”

However we can’t predict when our fave will inevitably mess up, nor can we be the arbiters of forgiveness when it’s not our belief that has been violated. Nonetheless, what audiences can do is be extra trustworthy. Whether or not the idea of a “problematic fave” is reflective of our ethical shortcomings may very well be secondary to easily understanding that we should always acknowledge a star’s mentioned problematic conduct, as an alternative of giving them a particular designation to assuage our conscience.

“Your Fave Is Problematic” weblog creator Kaplan wrote in The New York Occasions that they considered deleting their weblog, however they in the end gained’t — as a result of that will “erase the errors” of their judgment and somebody would later retrieve it anyway.

“I’m not saying that I ought to be canceled for my teenage weblog. (Please don’t!),” Kaplan wrote. “I simply know what all of us ought to know by now: that nobody who has lived publicly, on-line or off, has a spotless report. The web, in any case, by no means forgets.”

See the complete Cancel Tradition Unraveled collection right here.