#parallels between the trump maga movement and fandom

[contemplatingoutlander]

"The narrative predetermines not only what information you receive, but how you interpret it and order it within the larger story. As Duncombe writes, 'We understand our world less through reasoned deliberation of facts, and more through stories and symbols and metaphors.' Received in a community of devotees, such stories and symbols often morph into esoteric codes only true believers can see, from 'Q drops' to signs that Louis Tomlinson’s baby is fake." [color/ emphasis added] --Aja Romero

I've often thought the way that extreme fans (or "stans") form communities centered around celebrity "narratives" and conspiracies is very much a similar phenomenon as what we see with certain Trump voters. Aja Romano does a great job of describing the troubling parallels between celebrity "stans" and Trump's MAGA followers. Below are some excerpts from the article:

It’s a common observation that modern-day politics increasingly resembles fandom: Both feature communities created around and united by passion, and both are often heavily fixated on a single public figure. [...] In both subcultures, the rise of social media echo chambers has fomented toxicity, extremism, and delusional thinking. [...] OUR EMOTIONS INCREASINGLY SHAPE HOW WE VIEW REALITY AND WHAT WE’RE WILLING TO DO TO PRESERVE THAT VIEW Applying the concept of a shared narrative to political activism imbues that activism with all the heady intoxication of a fantasy role-playing game, whether it’s a fantasy of progress or a fantasy of extremism.... [A]uthor Stephen Duncombe observed that Trump won the 2016 election not based on facts — he lied often — but upon his ability to create fantasy masked as truth. “Facts, it seems, are not things that are verifiably true or false, merely components in a story,” Duncombe notes.   [...] This distortion of reality is partly inadvertent slippage. After all, when all your friends are playing the RPG with you, it can be hard to re-enter reality. And when all your friends are creating the narrative with you, it can be hard to remember what parts are real and what parts you constructed together. That communal narrative is crucial connective tissue between politics and fandom; it unites people around not just a shared sense of identity, but a shared story and the idea that they’re building that story together. These narratives aren’t just entertainment. To their proponents, they have a higher moral purpose, whether it’s “draining the swamp,” rooting for your favorite characters in a series to get together, or freeing Taylor Swift from the oppression of the closet. [color emphasis added]

I highly recommend that you read the entire article at the link above.

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