Every so often, I look at fan capital in the wild so you don’t have to. This roundup gathers the stories that stood out to me and what they say about how fandom actually works.
Throughout the week, I bookmark or make note of podcasts, articles, and books that touch on fandom. It’s fun to read or listen while making notes about patterns or ways these insights can impact my own business or my clients’ businesses.
Earlier this week, I finally got a chance to see The Moment which is a satirical portrayal of Charli xcx’s brat summer. It is so smart and sarcastic and real and fake. I was stressed the entire time and I enjoyed it thoroughly. It’s led me to think a lot about how fandoms feel when the center of the fandom is centering themselves, centering their fans, or doing a good job of balancing both. I hope to write more about this in the near future!
For now, enjoy the following observations:
Superfan, K-pop, and the fandom rabbit hole
Vogue interviewed Jenny Tinghui Zhang who wrote a novel, Superfan. I loved reading this interview and a few things stuck out so I thought I’d share them here in case you don’t have time to read it, narrow down themes, and apply them to your life or business:
Fandom often begins with velocity, not curiosity. A get a sense from a lot of my clients and potential clients that they have to convince someone to become a fan.
Fans don’t just consume stories. They create narratives about the people inside them. Even if they aren’t true.
Shipping, theorizing, and speculation are forms of participation, not distraction.
Fandom communities can function like parallel social lives. Your fans have very distinct lives apart from their fandom.
Fan spaces often double as creative incubators. Writing about fandom helped the author fall back in love with writing itself!
The platforms change (message boards > Discord > group chats), but the emotional mechanics of fandom stay remarkably consistent.
Fandom communities are early-signal discovery channels for new authors
Like I’ve been writing about over the past seven months, publishers and agents are increasingly paying attention to fan communities as places where stories and fans already exist. This article titled, “The Fans Who Made Alchemised A Hit” gave great insights into what drives something to become a best seller. The piece argues that the collaborative relationship between romance authors and their readers (especially in online fandom spaces) is a major force shaping publishing success. Other thoughts:
Built-in fandom can reduce risk for publishers in the same way audience-first creators reduce risk for brands.
Retellings and reinterpretations aren’t new but the internet has accelerated how quickly fan-created stories can move.
A generation of editors and agents grew up reading fan fiction, which is reshaping what counts as “legitimate” storytelling (it always has been)!
IP isn’t the asset - community attachment is.
“What if we forced our fans to collaborate…”
I listened to this episode of the podcast A Bit of Optimism where Adam Met of the band AJR shares all the ways in which they approach their music and career in a “fan first” way. He tells the story about they leaked a bunch of puzzle pieces that their fans had to piece together in order to reveal album details. Some other notes in case you don’t want to listen:
He credits Taylor Swift for pioneering this fan-focused approach
I love the quote “What can we give to the human beings who are going to be consuming our work and how do we make it the most magical experience for them?”
They’ve always offered a $10-$40 ticket available, even in arenas.
Adam references how “insane” Discord groups and Reddit threads are (yes)!
He distinguishes their puzzle approach as “collaboration” and says they didn’t just want to make it a competition or about world building. Forcing their fans to work together was intentional. It ties back to two of my biggest indicators of a complete and strong fandom: THE WORK and THE HANG (see below).
Final fandom takeaways this week:
Fandom is less about convincing people to care and more about creating conditions where caring can deepen.
Participation is the strongest signal of fandom, not awareness. This is why stats around how many people shared a post, commented, or clicked a link are more powerful than follower count or subscribers.
Community attachment is becoming more valuable than intellectual property.
The line between fan, collaborator, and creator keeps getting thinner.
Creative industries are increasingly sourcing talent from fandom ecosystems.
Consistency, ritual, and shared language often matter more than scale.
The internet didn’t invent fandom behavior. It accelerated and documented it.
Fandom is blueprint (not some cultural niche). For creativity, for business, and for belonging. What stands out to you?
