Are haters fans on a bad day?

Earlier this week I saw a trailer for a new movie. In it, a character says, “Haters are fans on a bad day.” I paused and took a screenshot. Then I started thinking about whether that might actually be true.

The internet has made it easy to be both things at once. You can adore something publicly and mock it in a text. You can write a think piece about a celebrity and call it critique, driving their search traffic through the roof. You can spend hours talking about someone you claim not to care about at all.

So where does that leave the “fan”? If fandom is typically defined by attention, then hate might count as a kind of warped devotion?

In my model of fandom, The Center is the thing fans orbit. The Lore is the storytelling and source material. The Channel is where it all comes to life. It might include the platforms, the spaces, the publishers. But none of that matters without the orbit itself. It circles with force.

I split that orbit into two halves. The first is Identity - the pull that keeps fans coming back, and the signs they show to prove it. The second is Connection - the hangouts, the memes, the fan work that happens together.

Nowhere in my map does it say a fan has to be positive. The orbit doesn’t only run on joy. It runs on attention, repetition, participation. It feeds on talk.

So maybe a hater isn’t outside the system. Maybe they’re on the far edge of the same circle, still orbiting but in opposition. The pull is still there! It’s just that they have it reversed. At this point I’m thinking…damn a hater works hard.

What fascinates me about haters is how much they behave like fans. They track releases, memorize details, make edits, collect receipts, and find each other online. They share jokes and inside language. They build little communities around disapproval.

The rituals are familiar. A hater refreshes a feed to see what their least favorite artist posted, the same way a fan does. They screen-grab, react, remix. It’s a mirror image of devotion.

Sometimes hate even begins as love. A fan feels betrayed when the story changes, when the artist grows up, when the thing that once felt special goes mainstream. The disappointment lingers. The passion goes a little sour but doesn’t disappear.

That’s why the quote sticks with me. “Haters are fans on a bad day” implies that dislike is temporary, that deep down, the hater still cares. After all, the opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s indifference. Plus, bad days don’t last forever.

Taylor Swift said recently (like…this week), “If you’re talking about me or my album on release week, you’re helping me.” She’s right. In a world where attention is currency, even negative attention is good. And we live in the attention economy.

But that usefulness has limits. Hate doesn’t build, it actually erodes. It’s loud and it keeps things in motion, but that motion can turn destructive.

A fandom that becomes all critique and no care eventually collapses. The gravitational pull weakens. People stop creating. The hangouts dry up.

When I think about it visually, haters sit on the edge of the green fan orbit I mapped above. They’re still within the field, but they bend the shape. They tug. They create turbulence.

Maybe they’re best described as negative orbiters. They’re still tethered, still watching, but unable to contribute to the shared (majority) energy that makes fandom thrive. They are a necessary part of the ecosystem in small doses. But too much of it and the system destabilizes.

I think that true fandom is generative. It’s creative. It makes things. Fans design merch, organize events, write essays, build archives, and fill the world with evidence of affection. The orbit of connection is powered by care.

That doesn’t mean it’s naïve. The best fans can also be the sharpest critics. They know the lore well enough to call for better writing, more depth, more justice. Their criticism comes from wanting the story to survive.

In this case, I’ve decided to define a hater as someone who wants the story to end. They engage not to sustain the orbit but to see it burn out forever. And that, in my opinion, is the opposite of being a fan.

Thanks for reading my ramblings! I’m glad to be back after getting the flu. See you next week!