A Deep Dive Into the World of Fandoms
Fandom. A word that you may not have heard since you were 13, while searching the Super-Who-Lock or Merthur tags, and scrolling endlessly on Tumblr. However, for others, fandom culture is still a central focus in their lives.
For those unfamiliar with the term, “fandoms” are groups of people with a shared interest in one topic, like books, movies, musicians, artists, or TV shows. Within fandoms, there are creatives who take inspiration from these pieces of media. This has led to the creation of fanfictions over 500,000 words long, fan art that has been developed into official promotional material, and even entire albums dedicated to a particular piece of media.
With the rise of platforms like TikTok which are largely centered around music, the fandom music phenomenon has grown exponentially. Artists like Charlie Bennett, Elena:, J. Maya and The Whomping Willows all make music inspired by books, mythology and films. Chloe Ament and SAPPHIRE, who have written music about Stranger Things, the “Marauders Era” and the Spider-Man franchise, are two of the most notable names in the fandom music scene.
Chloe Ament is a 19-year-old singer-songwriter who writes about her favorite pieces of fiction. Her sophomore EP Broken Bodies, Broken Hearts, was written about the “Marauders Era,” an offshoot of mainstream Harry Potter fans who focus on the main characters’ parents’ generation. The EP has become a staple amongst “Marauders Era” fans, amassing 2.7 million streams on Spotify. Ament describes her process as “Reading books and watching movies, finding the parts in it that resonate most with the people around me, and [writing] music inspired by it. In the same way that you can have a movie adaptation of a book… I try to provide a musical adaptation of the book.”
Art by Aleks Carney
SAPPHIRE is a 19-year-old singer-songwriter who “turns [her] overthinking into songs.” The artist’s Stranger Things inspired singles “Eddie’s Song” and “Dear, Billy” have gained a lot of attention on TikTok, amassing 1.7 million views. The singer explains that she created these songs because she wanted to share her love for the media, but also in the hopes that, “[the songs] could connect on a deeper level, to even non-Stranger Things fans, because it's about loss, really, and grief, and a sense of guilt, and that conflict between the two.”
Some artists not only participate in fan bases, but are placed into these spaces by their own fans. Charlie Bennett is a 22-year-old bedroom pop artist whose Instagram bio reads: “Peter Parker’s clone.” Bennett and Ament recorded the song “Stay Right Here” about Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy’s love story in The Amazing Spider-Man duology. What is most notable about this release, is that Bennett is a “fan cast” for the character. “Fan casting” refers to members of a fandom assigning a public figure as their ideal person to portray a fictional character. Not only did Bennett create the song with the Spider-Man franchise in mind, but his fan base pictures him as Spider-Man. Bennett says of himself that, “Honestly, there are too many [fan casts] to count at this point. In the Harry Potter fandom I’m either cast as James Potter or Remus, because Remus is the one that people compare Andrew Garfield with. Then Spider-Man's another very big one that people say I should be. Also Milo from Atlantis. Those are the big three.”
While fandoms are generally viewed as supportive spaces, they are heavily criticized by others. Both SAPPHIRE and Ament have received backlash from the wider audiences that their music has reached. SAPPHIRE notes that, “[Fan media] is always going to be teetering on the edge of whether people are going to take it well or not. But I think if people are enjoying what they're doing, they don't need to stop showing the world that because someone doesn't like it.” In Ament’s opinion, “If I'm getting hate, I've made it. But I think that it's just a matter of letting people enjoy themselves. Life is so short and content is made to be enjoyed.”
There has always been a stigma surrounding fan media; cosplaying, fan expos, fan fiction, and fan art have rarely been taken seriously by the general public due to the stigmatization of the “fangirl” stereotype. Fan-made content is female-dominated, and receives a tremendous amount of scrutiny, which stems from deep-rooted misogyny. “It's no different to dressing up at Halloween as the Ghostbusters because you're a Ghostbusters fan,” SAPPHIRE explains. Artists like SAPPHIRE and Ament are breaking through this stigma, and calling out the double standards they face.
There is a rich history of art inspired by other art, and fandom music is no different. This is merely a new age of art inspired by art.