Lindsay Crouse, Fandom Is Out of Control, NYTimes, 5 June 2022.
Whatever you think of this week's verdict in Mr. Depp's defamation case against Ms. Heard and her countersuit - the jury awarded him more than $10 million in damages and her $2 million - that moment last month leaves one of the big questions of this six-week public spectacle unanswered: What drives a grown person to travel to a courthouse in Virginia to hurl insults at someone she has never met, about behavior she didn't witness and money she is not owed?
Besotted and enraged fans are not a new phenomenon, but in the past those who violated boundaries to accost celebrities were generally seen as unhinged stalkers. Now the phenomenon has gone mainstream. The impulse of that woman yelling "gold digger" outside the courthouse - and the many others similarly incensed on behalf of Mr. Depp, online and in person - is a result of what psychologists have called "celebrity worship syndrome," in which preoccupation with a public figure veers into obsession.
So:
Social media and the massive volume of celebrity coverage has a lot to do with this. Now that we have watched the rich and famous working out or baking in their kitchens, now that we know the most intimate details of their love lives, our expectations of them have shifted, becoming more personal. [...]
Another factor in this phenomenon is the increasingly transactional nature of our relationship with celebrities on social media: We invest our attention in them, and they cash in on the business of attracting it.
Moreover:
It's also worth noting that we're in an era in which fans exert unprecedented influence over our popular cultural narratives - bringing back canceled TV shows and even shifting plotlines based on fan theories.
Yikes!
Ms. Heard spoke on the stand in court about the trauma of the harsh public attention she has received: "I am harassed, humiliated, threatened every single day," Ms. Heard told the court during the trial. "People want to kill me, and they tell me so every day. People want to put my baby in the microwave, and they tell me that."
Boundaries are crumbling all over the damn place. We live in mythic times. See my analysis of Osamu Tezuka's so-called science fiction trilogy for some insight into what happens when the state crumbles: Dr. Tezuka's Ontology Laboratory and the Discovery of Japan.
