Episode 178: Kaitlyn Tiffany
In Episode 178, Flourish and Elizabeth sit down with Kaitlyn Tiffany, an internet culture reporter at The Atlantic and the author of the book Everything I Need I Get from You: How Fangirls Created the Internet as We Know It. They talk about One Direction—the source of the book’s title and one of its central subjects—and Kaitlyn’s journey from 1D fan to covering fandom in the mainstream press, touching on ideas about writing for different audiences, personal versus collective perceptions of fannish conversations, and the dangers of credulity when writing about online subcultures.
Show notes
[00:00:00] As always, our intro music is “Awel” by stefsax, used under a CC BY 3.0 license.
[00:00:34] That’s Everything I Need I Get from You: How Fangirls Created the Internet as We Know It
[00:00:42]
[00:01:40] Kaitlyn on Twitter and Instagram, and her writing at The Atlantic, Vox, and The Verge.
[00:03:23] Our interstitial music throughout is “Keeping stuff together” by Lee Rosevere, also used under a CC BY 3.0 license.
[00:04:56] The big-deal 1D documentary was “One Direction: This Is Us,” which came out in 2013:
[00:08:52]
[00:13:14] You can go find Kait’s self-described cringey babygate article if you really want to read it, but for basic info about the Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson (“Larry Stylinson”) conspiracy theory surrounding Louis’s very real baby, Fanlore’s got you covered.
[00:19:02] Surely if you actually care about Harry Styles’s hair you don’t need a guide, but if you do, Billboard has documented his ~hair evolution~.
[00:33:12] Kait wrote about her fannish newsletter in a piece entitled, appropriately, “I Love You, Jake Gyllenhaal”
[00:35:26]
[00:36:23] “Why the Internet Hates Amber Heard”
[00:38:20] If you missed this component of the internet’s response to the Depp/Heard trial, Ben Shapiro’s The Daily Wire ran Facebook and Instagram ads to try and help turn public opinion against Amber Heard.
[00:38:44] We talked about some of the [very bad!!] BLM/K-pop fandom media coverage with Keidra Chaney in episode 128, “The K-pop Narratives.”
[00:41:19] “A Bored Chinese Housewife Spent Years Falsifying Russian History on Wikipedia”
[00:42:50] “A Taxonomy of TikTok Panics” from On the Media
[00:44:08] Senior senator from New York Chuck Schumer did, in fact, say of detergent pods, “I saw one on my staffer’s desk and I wanted to eat it.”
[00:44:50] Elizabeth in fact uses the “free and gentle” kind that are a pearly cream color. Wouldn’t you hold one like a little gem?
[00:55:56]
Transcript
[Intro music]
Flourish Klink: Hi, Elizabeth!
Elizabeth Minkel: Hi, Flourish!
FK: And welcome to Fansplaining, the podcast by, for, and about fandom!
ELM: This is Episode #178, “Kaitlyn Tiffany.”
FK: Author of the book Everything I Need I Get From You, which is also about fandom.
ELM: [laughs] That is a One Direction lyric, yes?
FK: It is. It is from a [laughs] song creatively entitled, “I Want to Write You a Song.”
ELM: That’s very recursive. [laughs]
FK: [laughing] I know! I am going to—I—you know, I mean, I—I’m gonna make a vow, which is that I’m not gonna get too One Direction-y. I’m not gonna do it.
ELM: Uh, yeah—
FK: I’m teetering on the edge.
ELM: Um, just FYI, Flourish had to make this vow before we ever embarked on this journey, but I’m glad that they’re saying it out loud right now.
FK: [laughs] Yeah, you know, it’s always a danger when we have somebody on the podcast who, like, shares a fandom with—admittedly me, mostly. Um, you know—
ELM: Yeah, I’m glad you have that self-awareness. So—
FK: I mean, I think that could be hard for you, but we haven’t really—
ELM: No.
FK: —had that happen yet.
ELM: I don’t think this is an issue for me in that way.
OK, anyway, Kaitlyn Tiffany, ah, is a journalist. She is a staff writer at The Atlantic. Previously, she was at The Verge and Vox Media, more broadly. She wrote for The Goods for a while, and she writes about internet culture more broadly, but she is one of the few mainstream journalists who does kind of regular in-depth reporting on fandom. So I’ve been an admirer of her journalism for a long time—if you subscribe to The Rec Center, you’ve almost definitely encountered her work. And so I was excited when she published her first book about her time in One Direction fandom, One Direction fandom more broadly, boy band fandom, et cetera, et cetera. Ah…wanted to have her on.
FK: Yeah. I’m really excited to have her on, too. I mean, among other things, just because, like, when I talk to random people about fan culture stuff, I feel like a lot of times their reference is an article that she wrote, you know?
ELM: Hmm.
FK: I mean, not always, obviously, but, like, whatever. I’m going about the world, talking to adults who read the New York Times or whatever, like, you know, and just are sort of—[ELM snorts] I mean, you know, like, use that as a stand-in for, like, you know, your normie kind of—
ELM: [in a fancy voice] Flourish Klink wakes up on a Saturday morning, goes about the world, and encounters many people who read the New York Times.
FK: Oh, come on. But you know what I mean. Like, you know, they’re just going about and reading articles, sometimes, and, you know, like—
ELM: People who are not in fandom, who read the large mainstream American publications, yes.
FK: Exactly! You know, like—
ELM: Yes.
FK: And so anyway, I’m really excited, because I think that—you know this deeply, right? Journalists who cover fandom have an inordinate impact on what the average person thinks about fans or knows about fans.
ELM: All right, I think “inordinate” is overselling the power of any journalist, but sure. [FK laughs] More than your average fan writing a meta on Tumblr.
FK: Accept it. Accept it.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: Accept it. OK. Shall we call her up?
ELM: Let’s do it.
[Interstitial music]
FK: All right, let’s welcome Kait Tiffany to the podcast! Welcome!
Kaitlyn Tiffany: Hi, thanks for having me!
ELM: Thank you so much for coming on. Congratulations about the book!
KT: Oh, thank you. I’m honestly so honored to be here.
FK: [laughs] Honored! That’s a big—
KT: Yeah!
ELM: We’re honored too. That’s very exciting. [laughs]
KT: Yeah!
ELM: OK, well, let’s start—this is where we always start with guests. Can you tell us your fandom origin story?
KT: Yeah.
ELM: And also how that led to, like, engagement with fandom in your professional career.
KT: Right, right. OK, so, me as a fan, my origin story…basically, I had a very offline teenage existence. It was very all-American. Soccer team, work in the mall food court, [FK laughs] no spare time. Doing my history homework. Reading the textbook. [FK laughs] So, I truly wasn’t, like, an online person until I went to college and realized that I was totally out of my depth. It was like, there were too many people, I didn’t understand…I was a true Goody Two-shoes in high school, so—
FK: Aww.
KT: —no alcohol experience, no kissing experience.
FK: Aww! [ELM laughs]
KT: Um, [laughs] so I got to college and I was just like, “What the eff am I doing here? I hate it.” And I was really bored. I had a lot of free time because I wasn’t doing anything.
FK: Mmm.
KT: I wasn’t, like, participating. So, I went home for the summer after that first year of college, which happened to be when the One Direction documentary came out. The one that, uh, the second one, I guess. But the one that was a big deal, that was in movie theaters and had the “Best Song Ever” music video in it, or whatever.
So I went to see that with my little—my younger sisters, just kind of for something to do, and it was kind of like a gradual fandom awakening, I guess. Because it wasn’t like they came on the screen and I was like, “Wow, I love these boys.” [FK laughs] It was more like I was—[laughs] I was, like, gradually kind of charmed by them throughout the movie, and I think maybe sort of looking for an opportunity to maybe regress a little bit. And I don’t say that to be disparaging, because I think, like, you don’t have to be regressing in order to be a fan of a boy band, but I think that is what I was doing, a little bit.
FK: Mmm.
KT: And I just kind of wanted to have this, like, simple type of childish joy. So, then I went back to school, and One Direction fandom on Tumblr was, like, in its heyday at that time, and I had just started using Tumblr because I was, like, an alt-lit girl. [laughs]
FK: Yeah, that was the time when Tumblr was, like, a thing that was happening there.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Yeah.
KT: Yeah, so—[laughs]
FK: You came for classy reasons and then…[FK & ELM laugh]
KT: I don’t know. I don’t know if it was classy. Um, I was, like, a Tao Lin fangirl, which, like—
FK: Ahh!
KT: I wish I could—I’m gonna redact.
ELM: Yeah, not really classy—
KT: Redacted. [laughs]
ELM: Yeah.
KT: Um, but, like, One Direction just kind of came across the dashboard, and it was, like, so—the energy was so contagious. So I was really into it, and then I guess, like, from there, it just became something that I did when I was bored in class or, I had a friend in high school who was into One Direction, too, so on breaks we would do fangirl stuff and it was just really fun.
And then, as far as, like, how I ended up writing about fandom professionally…sort of an accident, I guess. My first job after college was at The Verge, which is a tech website, and I sort of rolled in the door at age 21 and was like, “I don’t know what Android is. [all laugh] What can I contribute to this technology website?” [laughs] And they were sort of like, “Well, do you know about Tumblr?” [FK laughs] And I was like, “Sure. I actually know everything about Tumblr.” [FK & ELM laugh] Which was not true at all. I only knew about One Direction—
FK: But a classic experience at age 21 is, like—
ELM: Yeah.
KT: Lying through your teeth—
FK: Yeah!
KT: —to get that health insurance.
FK: About things you sort of think you do know about, but you don’t at all.
KT: [laughs] Yeah. So, that’s how I ended up there, and then they had a really—that was still kind of the tail end of I guess, like, the blogging era. So, there was a blog section of the website, where I did a lot of fandom-related posts, and then when I became a full-time reporter, I was supposed to come up with my beat, and I vividly remember, like, emailing my editor from a Tinder date being like, “I don’t know. I don’t know what I care about.” And he was like, “Kaitlyn, duh-doy, you should write about fandom.” And that’s not the only thing I wrote about then, or the only thing I write about now, either. But I feel like it did—like, my beat I say now is, like, online community, or internet platforms. So, it’s still pretty related, even though I haven’t done a straight, like, fandom piece in a while.
ELM: That’s really interesting that—when you were in your busy analog childhood, did you ever get obsessed with anything? Or did you just, like, not have time to focus on stuff like that?
KT: I don’t know. I mean, I had, like, a SanDisk mp3 player, and I did have, like, um—I was a really big Hayley Williams/Paramore [FK laughs] person for a while. But it wasn’t, like, an internet-based thing.
FK: Mmm.
ELM: Mmm.
KT: I just listened to the music and then, you know, dyed my hair with Manic Panic [laughter]...
ELM: Yeah, yeah.
KT: And went to Warped Tour. [laughs]
FK: Yeah, I mean, like, and you never had anything sort—I mean, one of the classic things within fanfic fandom, right—
KT: Yeah.
FK: That goes back to, like, forever, is, “I sat down, and I wrote stories about these people I was obsessed with, like, even before there was internet.” Right?
KT: Right.
FK: But that wasn’t, like, the arena you were engaging in?
KT: No, no. I mean, I definitely—I guess, like, I didn’t—I’ve never written any fanfic. I guess I would kind of do, like, imagine stuff in my mind—
FK: Sure, yeah yeah yeah! [ELM laughs]
KT: —but, like, I didn’t—
FK: Who doesn’t?
ELM: [affecting menacing voice] What were your thoughts? [laughs]
KT: I was never putting pen to paper, and I was also—like, it didn’t occur to me that that would be a thing that would exist.
FK: Mmm.
KT: You know? I wasn’t like, “Oh, I bet if I went on the internet I would be able to talk to other people who love Paramore.” I don’t think that would have crossed my mind, because it was like, we had one desktop computer that I shared with my three sisters, and you would kind of, like—we basically just took turns playing, like, “Neopets.”
FK: Right!
KT: Like, that was [KT & ELM laugh] our experience of the internet.
ELM: The timing is so specific on all these references, I love it. [KT laughs]
FK: No, I mean, it also makes me think—you know, I mean, at the same time, Paramore was also, like, a very much of-the-moment thing, and they were on Warped Tour, and you could find out things about them from, like, your local radio station.
KT: Yeah.
FK: It’s like, what were the gaps that you needed to fill? I don’t know that there were gaps, right? Like, it feels like it was a pretty all-encompassing experience already. You know? Like, I don’t know. The way that I got into fandom was I was like, “I need to find out what happened in the X-Files episodes I haven’t seen.”
KT: Right. Oh, interesting.
FK: But if you don’t have that, like, if that doesn’t spur you to need to seek the information [laughs] that then leads you to it, then why would you? Right? Like, it’s a complete experience without the internet.
KT: Right. I mean, for a journalist, I think I have a shocking lack of curiosity. [all laugh]
ELM: All right, pull quote for the episode. [laughter] Imma put that right on top. [laughter] That’s fascinating. No, but I feel like what you’re talking about really resonates with—we’ve heard from—we’ve had other guests, and also I’ve heard from a lot of fans who came into fandom in the last 10 years that they wouldn’t have even known what to—
FK: Mmm.
ELM: Like, they needed to see what was there—
KT: Yeah.
ELM: —to even know that it sparked something for them, right? Whether that was, “I didn’t know fanfiction existed, and then I found out there was this whole archive.” Or even just not understanding that—not being aware, and I think that you having such an analog childhood meant that it wouldn’t have even crossed your—you know what I mean? Like…
KT: Yeah, I think you do have to see it to understand what’s fun about it, too. Because I wouldn’t, like—if I was getting into One Direction and someone was like, “You know you can go on the internet and see a lot of pictures of them, and, like, written stuff.” [FK & ELM laugh] I’d be like, “Kay…cool.” [laughs] Like, that doesn’t sound interesting.
FK: Yeah.
KT: But…but it was. [laughs]
FK: [laughs] “That doesn’t sound interesting but then it was: The story of the internet.” [all laugh]
KT: Yeah. [laughs]
ELM: So going back to the development in your professional career, was One Direction the first fandom that you wrote about?
KT: Um…
ELM: Sorry, I’m like, “Go look up your archives.” [laughter] But, like, I guess my question there is, did you have hesitation, because you have written about One Direction, right? And you’ve written, I think some bravely critical things, right? You know, like—
FK: Critical is a strong word.
ELM: I’m not willing to write an article about conspiracy theories.
FK: Yeah.
KT: Yeah.
ELM: Like, when I see your work, right? And I see you and Aja Romano being like—I will DM with people until the cows come home about certain conspiracy theories. I don’t know why I just said that folksy thing, like I’m from—
FK: Yeah! [laughter] One of us, one of us!
ELM: [laughs] It’s a real mare’s nest. Uh, but, you know, I will definitely talk about it in veiled terms on this podcast, or, like, DM with people. But I don’t feel brave enough to, like, write an article about a fandom conspiracy theory, and so, that’s my framing there, right?
KT: Yeah.
ELM: And so I’m just curious, like, before you started writing about One Direction in particular, did you have any hesitation because that was your fandom?
KT: Yeah, no, so, I feel like in hindsight, the first few years that I was writing on the internet, I had, like, almost zero impulse control [FK laughs] and, like, no—
ELM: Wow. Wow.
KT: Like, if I read the story that I originally wrote on The Verge about babygate now, it’s kind of cringey to me. [FK laughs] Because I’m trying to, like, be playful about it for, like, a general readership, and it’s really just, like, an explainer of what the theory is and kind of poking fun at how obviously silly it is, and now that’s just, like, not the approach I would take at all.
FK: Mmm.
ELM: Mm-hmm.
KT: And that was, like, not the approach I wanted to take in my book at all. I think, like, for me, when I started writing about fandom, I didn’t think about—I wasn’t as conscientious as I could have been about the difference in context between, like, shitposting on Tumblr, versus shitposting on a website owned by Vox Media that gets 30 million page views a month, or whatever. [ELM laughs] I thought of it as the same thing, basically.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: Yeah.
KT: It was just like, “Oh, I’m gonna write a quick blog post about this wild thing happening on Tumblr right now.” Whereas now, I think—I hope that it comes off in the book that I thought more carefully about, like, why does it matter that fandoms sometimes end up going down this conspiratorial route? And what does it do to the relationships within fandom, and how people relate to fandom afterwards? Versus just like, “Ah, yeah, this is wild! Like, clack clack clack.” You know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Yeah.
KT: But yeah, I didn’t have any reservations. I was, like, 22 and just a loose canon. [all laugh]
FK: Yeah, I mean, I guess I wonder too, sometimes—it was interesting for me—I mean, reading your articles in general, and also reading the book and thinking about how you imagine your audience for each of these things, because that, to me, seems—I mean, I’m not a journalist, and I don’t generally have to do that, right? It seems like a real challenge to try and think of, “Well, this is going to be read mostly by people who have no idea about any of this, but also it’s going to be read by people who care the most about this—”
KT: Yeah.
FK: “—and will personally be angry with me.” I wonder if that’s sort of putting my finger on some of your feelings, Elizabeth, about this. Right? Like, “I don’t wanna get into that.” Like, that is splitting too much of a difference between these audiences. That feels, like, really a big load to carry.
KT: Yeah, I think—well, I dunno. I do have some regrets about the way that I had written about Larry Stylinson, and such, like, in the past, just because of—you know, I don’t think I said anything off-base, but I maybe would have done it differently. But, like, kind of because I’d already had that experience of…people were very mad when I wrote those articles in the past. I was already sort of this figure in certain parts of One Direction fandom that was somewhat reviled, I guess that allowed me to, like, take in, “Which criticisms of what I wrote are valid?”
FK: Mmm.
KT: “And which ones are not? And which ones do I need to disregard in order to, like, do my job of writing for a general reader?” And I do hope that fans read the book and get something out of it, but the fact is, like, fandom is such a specific and personal experience, that in order to write anything, I was gonna have to write some generalizations that aren’t gonna ring true to everyone, you know? Um, and I could both-sides everything all day long, but at some point, you have to pick a point of view. So, my opinion of what Larry Stylinson eventually turned into is clear. [laughter] And I hope that it’s also clear that I thought what it started out as was great and a normal part of fandom.
FK: Yeah.
KT: I hope that that is clear. But, yeah, I think kind of having that—already having that brush with fandom sort of, like, immunized me a little bit. [laughs]
ELM: Yeah. Are you willing to talk about that a little bit more? So, like—
KT: Yeah.
ELM: —one question I have, too, framing that, is like—you know, I will say, my personal experience, when I started writing about the fandom that I was in, was the way I started doing fandom journalism, coming out of book journalism, and a friend said to me—who also is a fandom academic, and said, like, “You know, just think about this carefully, because, like, this is gonna take your thing away from you.” Right? Like, “If you actually wanna be using this thing that you're a fan of in this very different, professional context, it’s not really gonna be what it is to you right now anymore, so just, like, FYI.”
KT: Right.
ELM: And I was like, “...OK, cool.” [KT & ELM laugh] And I’m wondering—I imagine you’ve had that experience, too, and I’m wondering if that’s something that you thought about as it was happening, or if you—or, maybe not. Maybe you don’t feel like it’s fundamentally changed your perception of your own fandom.
KT: Um, I mean, I think just being on the internet enough, you kind of start to see elements of fandom that will put you off at various points, you know?
ELM: OK, fair. [laughs]
KT: [laughs] Like, I’m still a Harry Styles fan. I enjoy Harry Styles. But I still see stuff on my Twitter timeline like, “Oh, brother.” Like, “Do we have to say everything he does is the greatest?” Sometimes he’s doing something normal. [ELM & KT laugh]
FK: Yes, I—for what it’s worth, I agree—by the way, I really appreciated how much you hate the song “Woman,” because it is a bad song.
KT: It’s a terrible song.
FK: Like, I sing it when I’m at a concert and he sings it. Then I sing along, because obviously I’m at the concert, but, like—
KT: Right.
FK: —every time, I’m like, “I can’t believe I’m singing along to this objectively bad song.” OK, I’m done.
KT: Really terrible song.
FK: That’s the last thing. I just needed to connect on that. Sorry.
KT: It’s a terrible song.
ELM: But before we started recording, these two made a pact, [FK laughs] or Flourish made a pact to not go too much into—
FK: It’s the only one! I’m done now.
ELM: But, look, if you wanna lightly insult Harry Styles, I’m here for that. I support you both.
FK: I mean, I love him—Oh my God, can I tell you—[ELM laughs] OK, I think you’re gonna appreciate—
KT: Yeah.
FK: —the greatest, most terrible conspiracy theory that I just learned about within Harry Styles fandom, which is people thinking that his current hair is a wig. [ELM laughs]
KT: Wait, why?
FK: And I’m like, “Do you think this man chose that hairline? He did not choose this hairline!”
ELM: Oh, I saw his new hair, yeah.
FK: He didn’t make a choice—
KT: Wait, why do they think it’s a wig?
FK: I don’t know! They just think it.
KT: That’s shocking.
FK: Anyway, OK, we’re done. Yeah. But I was just sitting here going like, “I can’t believe you believe that he made an active choice to have that hairline. This man is clearly working with what God gave him.”
KT: [laughing] Oh my God.
FK: It is what it is. All right, moving on. [FK & ELM laugh]
KT: That is so funny.
FK: I think it’s cute, but it is not a hairline that anyone would choose. Moving on.
KT: [laughs] Um, OK. Yeah.
FK: Sorry. [laughs]
KT: It’s all right. [laughs]
ELM: All right, the question was—
KT: —journalism ruining fandom. Potentially ruining your fandom.
FK: Yeah.
KT: Um—
ELM: Yeah, or, like, fundamentally changing your personal, you know—putting yourself and your fandom under that microscope. Do you feel like you lost something?
KT: Um, no. You know, no, not really. I’ve, like—
ELM: All right.
FK: Wow.
ELM: That’s great.
KT: I had such a good time talking to other fans for this book in a way that I actually hadn’t done before, because I was really a lurker.
FK: Mmm.
ELM: Ah.
KT: Like, that was my MO, was just lurking and, you know, doing the reblogging and whatever. I was not even making original content. I was purely just, like, a little parasite. So, um—
ELM: Wow. Bold thing to say about lurkers.
KT: [laughing] So, so, I mean—
ELM: What about a supportive, silent majority?
KT: Lurkers are great. [ELM laughs] I support lurkers.
FK: I—I don’t know if I support lurkers. But, you know…
KT: [laughs] I did feel like I just—I didn’t have the energy. I wasn’t, like, making gifs.
FK: Yeah.
KT: I was just like, “Oh, thank you, thank you. That meme’s fun. I’ll reblog that.” Anyway, but, like, so this kind of felt like the first time that I was actually contributing to the fandom, and, like—
FK: Hmm.
ELM: Hmm.
KT: —you know, talking to a lot of different people with a lot of different experiences. Some of them told me things that, like, really surprised me, and were super interesting. And also, yeah, like, doing the kind of due diligence of messaging the big Larries and asking them to do interviews, and one of them posted about me on her Tumblr, like, 90 times in one night about how Kaitlyn Tiffany’s not my real name, and I’m lying to people and tricking them into being in my book, et cetera, et cetera.
FK: Bah!
ELM: Wait.
FK: Bah!
ELM: Is it your real—is it because you had two first names?
KT: Yeah, it is. She thought it was, like—you know on Facebook, where girls—
ELM: Yeah.
KT: —did that thing for a while where they’d be like, “My name’s Alissa Marie,” or whatever, like… [laughs]
ELM: I feel like a lot of people I know on Facebook still do that.
KT: Yeah—
ELM: Because they don’t want their relatives finding them, or whatever. Is that why they did it?
FK: Also, it’s fine! Sometimes people have pen names. It’s not lying!
KT: It’s true.
FK: It’s a thing that happens! I don’t give a shit if “Kaitlyn Tiffany” is the name on your birth certificate or not. Like, who cares?
KT: [laughing] I mean—
FK: I know who they’re talking about! [KT laughs]
ELM: Wait, but also, Tiffany—let’s just say, Tiffany is a very famous brand. That’s someone’s last name, right?
KT: I know. Unfortunately, I’m not affiliated.
ELM: Or was that someone’s first name?
KT: I wish I was. No, it’s a last name, but…
ELM: It’s their last name, right?
KT: No relation.
FK: It’s also, like, actually a name from the medieval period.
ELM: I’m sorry. [laughs]
FK: It comes from the word “theophany,” meaning “an appearance of God.” And it was, like, a totally—
KT: Whoa!
ELM: Flourish, Flourish—
FK: And it was, like, a totally common medieval name, and no one believes that now.
ELM: How did you—
KT: How did you know that? [laughs]
ELM: Did you just Google this? Why do you know this?
FK: Because it’s a classic in the names that people don’t think are actually historical, that they’re—like, it’s all over medieval literature. There’s tons of people named Tiffany. And you, like, think about it, and you’re like, “Oh, that sounds like a name from the ’80s,” and it’s like, “No! Actually—like, the princess’s name was Tiffany.”
KT: That’s incredible.
FK: There you go.
ELM: OK, Flourish, I’m just, like—sidenote, we’ve done this podcast for more than—for seven years, now. Never once heard you reference the medieval period.
FK: Really? [KT laughs]
ELM: Not—unless it was about, like, the history of the Church, or something.
FK: Well this is sort of about the history of the Church, because it’s a church name!
ELM: Oh! Never mind.
FK: Theophany!
ELM: Get outta here. Get outta here. [ELM & FK laugh] You were trying to dress it up in a secular way, but it was actually Church knowledge.
FK: I mean, I don’t know. I love Beowulf. I love Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Like, what are you—you know.
KT: Oh my God, my book club just read Wolf Hall, so I’m actually, like, real high on that history of the Church energy. [laughs]
ELM: Don’t get—no. We’re not talking about—no church. No church.
FK: [words here?] we’re entering into a dangerous place, here, and we need to refocus, [ELM laughs] which is that—
KT: OK.
FK: I mean, I’m actually really delighted for you, that you don’t feel like you’re—you know, I mean, like, having gone from being a fan to sort of entering the professional world, and I think Elizabeth would say this too, like, most people I know feel like they lose something, and it’s really cool that for you, it was like you gained something.
KT: Yeah, I think that it’s just like—maybe it’s also kind of an accident of timing—
FK: Mmm.
KT: —because I think, like—there’s a lot of people who were in fandom who are now—like, who were in fandom in the early 2010s on Tumblr, who are now journalists and academics, et cetera. So, there’s other people to talk to about this.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: Mm-hmm.
KT: It’s not like I’m The Fandom Journalist. You know?
FK: Yeah.
KT: There’s, like, lots of people who are in my same kind of line of work, or milieu, or social circle—
FK: Mm-hmm.
KT: —who are kind of doing the same thing and writing about the same stuff.
ELM: I wonder, too, if—I mean, it seems partly, too, like, you found fandom, you know, at age 19 and then by 21 you were, like, covering it in The Verge, right? Which is like—
KT: Mm-hmm.
ELM: Whereas I do feel like what Flourish, you were just describing, and definitely something we’ve encountered a lot, is, like, we were in fandom as teens—
KT: Right.
ELM: —and so I think a lot of the time when we’re like, [grumbling] “Everything’s—I feel very cynical now, and, like, oh, here’s how television is made.” It’s partly, like, “Oh, I wish I didn’t have this information.” [laughs] But it’s also, like, a complaint about adulthood.
KT: Yeah!
FK: Yeah, that’s very true. Yeah, like—
ELM: Everything was simpler as an adolescent fan.
FK: —man, I got into fandom when I was 11, and everything was so much simpler then, [ELM laughs] and now it sucks. What’s up with that? [ELM & KT laugh]
ELM: And now you know, like, everyone’s contracts determine all these things.
FK: At age 35, I hate that I know this stuff.
ELM: [laughs] All these things you thought were, like, plot-based decisions and now you actually know…
FK: Yeah, 25 years later, it was all a lie! A lie!
KT: Oh no!
ELM: [laughs] Yeah.
KT: What was your first fandom?
FK: The X-Files.
KT: OK.
FK: Yeah yeah yeah. I was a ’90s, like, while-it-was-airing, preteen, X-Files obsessive, so.
ELM: Which Flourish has now returned to.
FK: It’s true. And I have now returned to it, and it’s amazing, going back to some of that stuff on the—I mean, like, it was interesting to me reading your book, because it was like—how can I put this? I’m really used to hearing people from that era talk about that era, and it was interesting to me to hear somebody who, like, was not around—
KT: Yeah.
FK: —for Usenet be like, “And here’s Usenet!” And I was like, “Oh, man, is this what it looks like from that perspective?” [FK & ELM laugh]
KT: I know! I honestly felt weird during that part, because I had to, like, research an internet that I had never used.
FK: Yeah.
KT: It was really fun, but, like, yeah. It was so frustrating. I was, like, piecing things together through the Wayback Machine, and being, like, “God dammit…” [laughs]
FK: Well, and that’s hard too, because even the Wayback Machine doesn’t work for Usenet, either, right?
KT: Right.
FK: Like, it was a fundamentally different way of accessing—like, everything about the physical technology was also different, right? So—
KT: Yeah.
ELM: Usenet wasn’t the Web.
FK: No, Usenet is not the Web!
KT: Right right right.
FK: It’s fundamentally different in the sense that it’s, like, literally not on the Web.
KT: Right.
FK: Like, it predates that, so… What was the—you said there was surprising stuff. Like, what was the most surprising thing that you found out?
KT: I mean, like…[sighs] This is such a bummer, but—
ELM: [laughs] I’m so ready.
KT: [laughs] But when I was doing the Larry Stylinson babygate research, I guess the most surprising thing I found out was during that process, because I—like, as I said, had written about it as something that I thought was kind of goofy and, you know, obviously a little bit unnerving, but I hadn’t realized ahead of time how much actual pain it had caused people—
FK: Mmm.
KT: —within the fandom, because it was such a rupture, and also for queer fans it was difficult because their fandom became associated with Larry Stylinson, and Liam Payne was saying, “Oh, I think all the rainbow flags at the concert are because of this conspiracy theory.” So, that was very hurtful.
And then, I also talked to, in the book, a fan who was—she was in her 30s, a Black woman, who was talking about when Louis Tomlinson was recorded saying, like, a British abbreviation of the N-word, and a lot of the babygate Larry people were saying, like, “Oh, he didn’t really say it. Like, management forced him to say that as part of his frat boy persona they’re making him take on.” And she felt really betrayed by that.
So, I think the detachment from reality that came with that just had a lot of this collateral damage that I guess I hadn’t been aware of before, and it’s really sad, when you go—if you’re going online to be part of a fandom for whatever reason, and you’re expecting to be part of this community and you think it’s one thing and then it veers off in this unexpected direction, it’s not funny to you. [laughs]
ELM: That’s really interesting, because I feel like, especially with journalism, if you were just writing a piece on this—even if you were writing the piece you wanted to write now, and not the piece you wanted to write five, six, seven years ago, or whenever, you probably wouldn’t interview that many people. Right?
KT: Oh, yeah.
ELM: Right? Like, you don’t really have the time or space to—so, then you wind up, you know, you wind up defaulting to some of what you can see.
KT: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
ELM: And I think this is a—you know, it resonates for me, having been in a fandom with a fracturing conspiracy theory. I happen to know some of the people who were, like, at the center, you know? And receiving threats and stuff. But if I had been, like, askew of that? You know, like, a few circles over on Tumblr? I probably would have been like, “Oh, that’s a wild conspiracy theory. I don’t know. It’s all nonsense.” But instead, I’m like, “That was the most painful thing I’ve ever seen in fandom!”
KT: Yeah.
ELM: You know? [laughs] And it’s something that I wouldn’t have—I would have to have actively sought out, and it sounds like that’s the experience you had as you talked to a bunch of different people with different perspectives.
KT: Yeah. People were really generous with their time. I think it was also—it was kind of hard, too, like—because only one side was willing to talk about it—
ELM: Sure.
KT: All of the—you know, the antis, like…I don’t know if they love that term, but some of them are fine with it—like, the antis really wanted to talk about it, or people who, like, used to be Larries really wanted to talk about it, and the Larries were basically like, you know—well, one of them spoke to me. Most of them were like, [laughs] “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” Or whatever.
ELM: Yeah. Two first names, get out of here. [FK & ELM laugh]
KT: Yeah, so it’s hard, like, when only one side’s willing to talk. You’re kind of naturally sympathetic to them, and there’s no way to, like, get a rebuttal from the other side. It was—I don’t know. That part of the book was hard, too, because I didn’t—it’s not fair to be like, you know, “the Larries are the great villain of the internet who are, like, torturing everyone.” But it did seem like they caused some damage.
FK: I mean, you know, it’s interesting—I’m totally with you on this. It is interesting—you know, one of the critiques I’ve seen of your book is that it feels like—initially, you’re like, “It’s not about One Direction fandom!” But it also kind of is about One Direction fandom, right?
KT: Yeah yeah yeah.
FK: And, like, not to say that it’s—I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong to have, like, a fandom be the microcosm of the way that you see fandom or internet culture broadly, but I guess I’m interested to hear a little bit more about how you ended up approaching that, because it did feel, to me, also, like, by the end of it I was like, “This is a book about One Direction fandom, with some other stuff in it.” You know? [laughs]
KT: Yeah yeah. [laughs]
FK: Like, and I’m into that. Like, [laughs] I’m vibing. You know? [ELM laughs]
KT: No, I feel you. That’s, like, my most common Goodreads review, is like, “This book says at the beginning that it’s not about One Direction, [all laugh] but in fact it is.”
FK: I mean, whatever. Like, my stories about fandom are all also about fandoms that I’ve been in. Like, I sympathize, right? But…
KT: Yeah. No, like, so initially, I—like, when I was first talking to my agent about doing a fandom book, I wanted it to be sort of little pieces about different fandoms. But she was kind of like, “That is not gonna sell.” [laughter]
FK: Yeah.
KT: And, like, it would have been too hard, too, I think, to—how would you even begin to select, like, however many you could fit into it, five fandoms to focus on, that would be representative of all of what online fandom is? Like, it would have been impossible. And also, I think if I had tried to write about other fandoms at this length, it would have been way harder to do them justice, because I would have been parachuting into something that I hadn’t participated in myself.
FK: Mm-hmm.
KT: One Direction made sense to write about both because it was something I already cared about, so I knew I would enjoy getting to think about it for a couple of years. [laughs] But also, the book’s not just about the internet. It’s also about the experience of fandom, and I think a lot of that stuff is very abstract, unless you’re presenting it through the lens of a specific experience, you know? Like, if I’m just saying, “Oh, fandom helps a person to understand their life,” it’s like, “What does that mean?”
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: Mm-hmm.
KT: So, I used One Direction to be like, “Well, this is what it meant for me.” And, I don’t know. I think it was definitely the best way for me to write the book. Potentially, if I had a time machine, I might not write, “this is not a book about One Direction” in the intro—[laughter]
FK: I could tell that this is the sentence you most wish you could take out of the book. [laughter] Like, “Shit…”
KT: Yeah.
ELM: So, I’m interested, did you ever—I mean, whether it was with your agent or your editor, did you ever think about, like, narrowing the focus and making it really memoir-y about “my life as a One Direction fan”?
KT: No, I didn’t. It was definitely like, in the proposal from the beginning that there would be some elements of memoir in it, but I—I guess, like, [sighs] when I started working on the internet as a journalist and blogging at The Verge, I was writing about myself a lot, and I also had, like, a TinyLetter that was technically about Jake Gyllenhaal, but was mostly about myself, and I have, like, another email newsletter that’s mostly about myself. I’ve done a lot of the classic style of, like, internet confessional writing, and I think, like, in the last couple of years have just sort of started pulling back from that a little bit and trying to think a little bit more—and I don’t regret doing any of that, I think that’s really, it’s really fun to be young and blogging about yourself. [KT & ELM laugh] But I have been trying to pull back a little bit more and think a little bit more critically about, like, “How much of this is for me? And how much of this is for the reader to help them understand my point?”
FK: Mmm.
KT: And so, the parts of memoir that ended up in this book, like, I think for the most part—except for potentially the parts where I’m complaining about ex-boyfriends, that might be for me, a little bit—but, um, [laughs] I think for the most part, it’s to clarify the points I’m trying to make about how fandom enters a person’s life, or can enter a person’s life, how it can kind of provide this narrative structure and sort of, like, return you to yourself during moments of being unmoored or in crisis, or whatever. And I didn’t want there to be, like, a lot of flab.
One of my friends actually used to be in book publishing, and she was, like, editing a book and she was complaining about it, and she was like, “This book has too much of the rental car! Like, we need less of the rental car.” Just saying there was too much of the journalist, like—
FK: Mmm.
KT: —talking about themselves doing the journalism. [ELM laughs]
FK: Right. The rental car.
KT: And I was like, “OK, my book does have a rental car in it, however…” [laughs]
FK: It does! It literally does.
KT: [laughing] It’s only mentioned briefly. I’m not having, like, an existential crisis in the rental car, therefore I’m clear.
ELM: That’s very funny. And also, I’ve read that so many times. [FK & KT laugh] And they’re, like, describing the road, and you’re like, “Yeah, I get it.”
KT: Yeah.
ELM: “I know there’s trees. Yup. All right. Who were you going to see again?”
KT: Right, right.
ELM: Like, yeah.
KT: There was actually—there was a lot of rental car in The Orchid Thief.
FK: Oh yes, there is! [KT & ELM laugh] I have opinions about this, so…you know.
ELM: Well, you know, I’ve never read that. I’ve just seen the film adaptation.
FK: Yeah, me too!
KT: Great movie.
FK: But also—anyway, never mind.
ELM: Many times. [KT laughs] Um, so, actually, you know, it’s interesting, thinking about some of your most recent journalism, I don’t know if you—and not to put you on the spot—I don’t know if you subscribe to my newsletter, but I do include, like, most of your pieces.
KT: Oh! I do subscribe, but sometimes I feel like it goes—I am always losing newsletters in my promotions tab.
ELM: Because it goes to spam… Oh, in promotions, that’s fine. Yeah.
KT: But I do, yeah. But I am a longtime subscriber.
ELM: [laughing] All right, not to put you on the spot.
KT: No, I am.
ELM: But it’s always like when you have a new fandom or fandom-adjacent piece out, I’m like, “Yes, that one’s going in, I’m sure.” [FK & KT laugh] But we actually read them, and I wouldn’t include it if I didn’t think they were great. But one thing that I—you know, in thinking about some of your recent work, I was really pleased to read your coverage of the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial, because I felt like it was tying it into fan culture, and it felt like a breath of normal, [laughs] sane air, after reading so many bad, sloppy takes, people trying to make those connections—
FK: Oh yes. [laughs]
ELM: —for weeks. And I’m wondering if, like, that’s how it feels to you when you’re doing this, or if this is, like, news to you that you’re one of the only people connecting the dots here? Like, I just feel like, in the last few years, journalists have tried to use fandom concepts and fandom language in some of their arguments, and it’s just gotten so—
FK: Oh my God.
ELM: —it’s gotten so out of control.
FK: If I never hear somebody use the word “fanfiction” to describe a political thing again. [KT laughs] Ban it from your—
ELM: Or, like, parasocial relationships.
KT: Yeah.
ELM: So, I’m curious how this looks to you.
KT: Parasocial relationships especially is weird. Um…
ELM: Yeah.
KT: Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, like, [sighs] on the one hand, like, I think journalists should be paying a lot more attention to fandom than they have been, and so I’m interested whenever a writer that I think is smart kind of wades into that territory and comes at it with a different point of view. I guess with the Johnny Depp stuff, I wasn’t reading a lot of the pieces before I wrote mine, because I wanted to make sure that it was, like—I just didn’t want to have the chatter in my brain.
FK: Yeah, wise. [laughs]
ELM: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
KT: So, I didn’t feel the frustration so much then, although it did seem like—I guess when people started posting, like, “I don’t understand why I’m seeing all of this content when I have no interest in it. Like, why is it all over my feed?” I was like, “Oh. Uh, that’s because of fandom. Like, that’s fans. That’s your first sign that there’s some kind of fan involvement, is if people are, like, ‘I don’t understand why this is unavoidable.’”
FK: Yeah. [laughs] “Why is it that suddenly [KT laughs] I am forced to know what K-pop is?” Like…[laughter]
KT: Right.
ELM: In this specific case, it was fans plus, like, Ben Shapiro, or whatever—
KT: Totally.
ELM: —like, actually paying money to put it in your feed, so…[laughs]
KT: Totally. A lot of elements there. But actually, I think the one where I did feel frustrated much more so was during the BLM protests in 2020. A lot of the coverage of the involvement of K-pop fans—
ELM: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
KT: —was frustrating because it was very nonspecific. You know, just kind of relying on the idea that, like, “Oh, all K-pop fans are Gen Z. They probably don’t have any kind of specific nationality, and they’re just these ethereal teenage blobs in the air, like [ELM & FK laugh] guardian angeling the United States.”
FK: “Do they have race? Probably not.” [laughs]
KT: No. [laughs]
ELM: They’re just blobs. And they learned about politics yesterday.
KT: Right.
FK: And then they decided to use their powers for good. [ELM laughs]
KT: Right. Now we’re gonna elect them president. They are all gonna be president together [FK & ELM laugh] of the United States. Um, [laughs] that was more frustrating, because it’s just, like, I don’t know. Fandom’s not a monolith. It’s a much more—I understood what people were going for. And it was exciting to witness the things that people were doing to crash police apps, like, camaraderie with Anonymous was very weird, but compelling. [FK laughs] Like, it was a cool story.
FK: “Compelling” is so accurate. [KT laughs]
ELM: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
KT: It deserved attention, but it’s just like, if you’re gonna pay attention, then really pay attention, because obviously behind the scenes of all these fandoms, there’s just, like, incessant bickering about the political meaning of the fandom. And, like, you’re not gonna have a group of millions of people who only know each other from the internet who are a united front. Like, that doesn’t make any sense.
ELM: Do you feel like you see the same kind of flattening and presumption of monoliths when you’re reporting on other kinds of internet subcultures? Because you don’t just write about fandoms, right? Like, fandoms are one kind of internet subculture I think that you cover quite well.
KT: Yeah, I mean, I guess, like, internet culture coverage is—it’s pretty easy to get duped. Like, I think you can’t be super credulous, just because, I don’t know. There’s—people on the internet just have so many tangled motivations. [FK laughs] And, yeah. Sometimes—
ELM: And irony.
KT: Yeah!
FK: The irony! It’s hard!
ELM: The irony is just hard.
KT: Some people are being ironic, some people are totally deceptive.
ELM: Yeah.
KT: And sometimes you write a story and then you get an email from someone being like, “The person you emailed from that story is a total liar, and they made up—” Like, and, you know—
ELM: Yeah.
KT: —often times it turns out they aren’t a total liar, and the person who emailed you is the liar. But it’s just like…I think sometimes I read a piece of journalism about something that happened on the internet, and then it’s like—like today, I’m not trying to be a jerk, but I was reading a story [KT & ELM laugh] today about this, um, Chinese Wikipedia editor who got caught making up these—
FK: Yeah!
KT: —elaborate articles about medieval Russia.
FK: That story! I read that!
KT: It was super interesting. But the reporter just says, like, it turned out to be a bored housewife. And the source of that information is the Wikipedia editor, who was lying [FK laughs] about everything they posted. So, why would you believe them that they’re a bored housewife?
FK: Yeah. Is this true? [laughs]
KT: You know? Like… [laughs] I don’t know. I mean, there’s obviously, like, so many great reporters on the internet culture beat. I think it’s just, like, sometimes when somebody sees a human interest thing on the internet, like, it’s easy to get swept up in whatever narrative that, like, a savvy user of the internet has concocted to present to you.
FK: And often it’s a great narrative. Like, I love the narrative that it’s a bored housewife.
KT: Yeah! Yeah.
FK: Like, it’s a great narrative. Like, I want to believe.
KT: Yeah.
FK: I don’t know.
ELM: Did you just quote The X-Files? [KT laughs]
FK: I did! [ELM laughs] Thank you, Elizabeth. I did!
ELM: I’m attuned to it now.
FK: I did.
ELM: Yeah, or I feel like there’s also, you know, the assuming that one small thing’s representative of the whole.
KT: Yeah.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: Right? Which is I think something that you’re very careful about. It was interesting—there was a really good segment—do you listen to On the Media?
KT: Mmm-mmm.
ELM: The show on WNYC? Flourish, I don’t think you listen to much radio at all.
FK: I do not.
ELM: There’s a great show about media critique called On the Media on WNYC, and they did a story recently about, um, TikTok panics.
KT: Oh, OK. Yeah.
ELM: Right? Like, you know on the local news where they’re like, “Teens are, like—”
FK: “Teens on TikTok are doing this thing.”
ELM: “—are like—”
KT: “Teens are lighting their ears on fire.”
ELM: Yeah, exactly.
FK: It’s the modern version of lipstick parties. Right? Like…
ELM: Well, no, it was incredible because then they got audio of the local news doing the same exact ones about YouTube panics from, like, 2010.
FK: Ah! [laughs]
KT: Oh my God.
ELM: And they’re like, “Teens on YouTube are—” And then they just—and it was really good, like, it broke down exactly the way it goes where there’s maybe one video, and they were like—it was giving ways to tell when a story was bullshit, when it was like, if they don’t have any actual examples and they quote local law enforcement, [FK & KT laugh] it’s probably not an actual thing that’s happening.
But it was just so funny because it was just such a great example of, like, how you could take one small thing and turn it into, like, “Every teen on the internet is now interested in, like…” I don’t know. Pranking their teacher in this way or whatever, for TikTok views.
KT: Right, right. Yeah. The, like, bogus trend story, I think, also is a real classic of internet culture. Like, “Everyone on TikTok is doing this.” And it’s, like, four people. [laughs]
ELM: Yeah. Like, they brought up at the start, they talked about the Tide POD thing, which I didn’t realize—I thought more teens were doing those Tide PODs back in the day.
FK: You thought that?
ELM: No—
FK: You believed the Tide POD thing?
ELM: I have Tide PODs. They look delicious. [FK laughs] I thought, why not? You know? Like, I hold them in my hand—
KT: That’s what Chuck Schumer said as well.
ELM: [laughs] Did he?
KT: Yeah, he did.
ELM: Me and Chuck over here live in Brooklyn together, and I walk down the street in Brooklyn—maybe he does, too—holding my Tide POD, carrying it to the laundromat, and I’m just like, “Mmm, it looks so great!” [KT laughs]
FK: Wow, I didn’t know this.
KT: What if I just knocked one back. Who would have to know?
ELM: Delicious.
FK: It never occurred to me that you were carrying, like, a Tide POD in your hand as you walked to the laundromat. This is like…
KT: You can’t drop it in your bag. It’ll go and get smushed.
ELM: Yeah! I don’t want it to burst in my bag.
FK: No, this makes perfect sense now that you say it, but it’s one of those things, just like the experience of, like, getting on Usenet… [KT & ELM laugh] You know, like, I will never know it.
ELM: Yeah. No, and I hold it like a little gem as I walk down the street. [KT laughs] I’m like, “Hmm…”
FK: Yeah.
ELM: “The precious POD.” Because if I drop it, then I have to go climb my four flights of stairs to get a new POD.
FK: You know, I have never been happier that I have the Holy Grail of in-unit laundry than I am right now. [ELM laughs]
KT: Wow.
FK: Yeah. I want a moment of jealousy for me and my great in-unit laundry. Moving on.
KT: It’s radiating off of me right now.
FK: Thank you. I accept it.
ELM: No, look. Look. I take my gem of a POD to the laundromat, toss my laundry in, then I go get a delicious coffee. I gaze at the lower Manhattan skyline.
FK: You get to be out of your apartment, which, I never have to leave mine, and that’s actually a problem for me, sometimes.
ELM: Just saying.
FK: Yeah, I get it.
ELM: Anyway. [FK laughs] Anyway.
FK: Coming back to the book, one thing that really struck me when I was reading it was, the subtitle, “How Fangirls Created the Internet as We Know It.” Like, that’s a strong subtitle. It’s coming in hot.
KT: Yeah.
FK: And I was like, “All right, this is what I think this book is gonna be about.” And the book was about that to some extent, but it felt like it was not nearly as much of a cheering defense of fangirls or, like, a rousing, you know, “fangirls are the greatest,” and it was a much more ambiguous thing. And I guess I wanna hear a little bit more about that from you, because I’m always interested when titles and books seem like they’re, like, “Yeah, it’s the right title, but also the book’s doing this other thing, too.”
KT: Yeah. Well, so, first of all with the subtitle, I went back and forth with it—about it with my agent so many times, because I was just like, “Oh my God, like, two of the most boring words in the history of humanity are ‘fandom’ and ‘internet.’” [FK laughs] But, like…[laughs]
ELM: As someone who has a master’s degree in the internet, I disagree. [FK laughs]
KT: You don’t get sick of using that word?
ELM: Well, I don’t usually say ‘internet’ because I say the World Wide Web, to be accurate.
KT: Ah, ah, ah. Right, right.
ELM: You know? [laughs]
KT: I should have done “How Fandom Created the Social Web.” Um…
ELM: Yeah! You should have. You should have said Web. The Web, with a capital W. [KT laughs] That’s right.
KT: So, that was one of my issues with the subtitle, but she was also like, “OK, we need to do something that’s sweeping.” Because she was like, “Imagine if a man was writing this book. He would be like, [FK & ELM laugh] ‘How Canned Anchovies Explain the Entire World.’ Or something.” You know? [laughs]
FK: That’s true!
ELM: That is true. This is true.
FK: That is correct. That is a man move.
ELM: Yup. [laughs]
KT: So it is just kind of like, the broadest phrase that I could think of that felt like it semi-represented [laughter] what the book was about.
FK: I really appreciate this honesty. [all laugh] I do, I do, because I was like, you know—this is—I see why this is a good phrase to, like, market this book, but also, like, that’s—there’s so much other stuff in this book than just, like, you know… [laughs]
KT: Yeah. But I think like—OK, so, the actual title, like, is supposed to sound a little bit creepy. You know? Like, I—
FK: [laughs] Everything I Need I Get From You… [laughs]
KT: Yeah! [laughs] So, like, I felt like together they sort of expressed this ambivalence that I feel about both the internet and online fandom, because I actually think I don’t think I feel much ambivalence about fandom on the personal level. I think it’s almost always productive and affirming, just on the personal level.
ELM: Hmm.
KT: But, like, when it comes to the internet, we obviously all know that there are lots of outcomes that are possible, and…[all laugh]
FK: [laughing] Lots of outcomes that are possible.
KT: That’s, like, the—[laughs]
ELM: Flourish, you’re just quoting her back in a creepy tone over and over again.
FK: I know! That’s because she says these things—
KT: That sounds like a political spin. That’s, like, how Kamala Harris would say it. [all laugh]
FK: The thing is that she’s saying these things with a little bit of, like, upswing? At the end? Like, “Are we sure?” And I’m like, “I am sure.” [all laugh]
KT: Yeah, um…so, yeah. I mean, like, I did want the book to be a defense of fangirls on some level, because I think they deserve, they merit defending, because they are so much more interesting than they have gotten credit for in the past in certain spaces.
FK: Mm-hmm.
KT: At the same time, I am resistant to the commodification of the idea of the fangirl, which is often done through this kind of blasé, uh, you know, “the future is female,” um, “the fans are going to save us from whatever,” which I think is just, like…irrational, makes no sense, and is ultimately as dismissive as saying these people are freaks. [laughs]
ELM: [laughs] That’s interesting, though, because it’s like—you know, this is something I’ve really struggled with, as the years, kind of a roller coaster going up and down, because, like, you find yourself—and I’m wondering if you’ve had this experience, too—like, you find yourself, like—someone does something shitty about fans—often fangirls in particular, and you’re like, “I’m defending them!” And then you’re like, as you’re defending them you’re like, “Oh no, but here are all the internal shitty things they’re doing.” Right? You know?
KT: Yeah, yeah.
ELM: And you don’t want to, like, undercut that, but you wanna be like, “Not you guys! Stop! Back!” You know? Is this something that, like—this seems to resonate with you, it seems.
KT: Yeah, totally. I mean, I guess that’s just like—that’s true of any group you’re gonna be in, right?
ELM: I think—I mean, it’s definitely true of, you know, people who are writing on the identity beat, writing about any particular marginalized group that they might be a part of, right? Where it’s like—you can see the struggles of, like, “OK, there are some internal problems in this group, but, like, we’re under attack.” And I’m not saying that being a fan is a marginalized group, and I hate anyone who makes those comparisons, but you know, you see people trying to put up a strong defense, when there’s a lot of internal struggles, you know what I mean?
KT: Yeah. Yeah, totally. I think, also, like—I guess something that I am defensive about is that—and this sort of relates back to your question about journalists covering fandom. I think, like, some journalists have developed this persecution complex about fandom, where they think that maybe the primary thing that fandom is is, like, toxic stan Twitter that’s like, doxxing Pitchfork critics, [FK laughs] or whatever, and, like…[laughs]
ELM: Yeah.
KT: I think it is easy if you’re not in fandom for that to be the only element of fandom that you see, because it’s on Twitter and it’s super visible and Twitter is where journalists hang out, and I am embarrassed when I see that stuff on Twitter, because it’s fucked up. But, you know, obviously anybody in fandom knows that’s not what fandom is, in and of itself. And, like, that is also a pretty specific—I think even within Taylor Swift fandom, the Swifties that want to act like that is, like, a pretty specific faction. It’s just, like, I don’t know. You’re always gonna have that, like, embarrassing cousin, right? [ELM laughs] Where you’re like, “Shut up!” [all laugh]
ELM: Right, and I think it’s hard, too, because you can denounce that kind of thing within the fandom—
KT: Yeah.
ELM: —but fans don’t have that kind of mainstream voice to be like—a random fan isn’t gonna have the legitimacy of a journalist on Twitter, right?
FK: Yeah.
KT: Yeah.
ELM: It can be hard, because it’s like, yeah, you can have fans in the mentions being like, “We’re not like this,” or whatever. But it often feels like people see the loudest and the worst behavior.
FK: Yeah, because it’s not like there’s a, you know—I don’t know. If, like, a member of a particular club or group or something, like, doesn’t something egregious, then the leadership of that group can be like, “This person does not represent our—”
ELM: Can literally kick them out.
KT: Yeah.
FK: Yeah! They can kick them out and say, like, “This person doesn’t represent us and goodbye.” But you can’t do that with fandom, and there’s also not even a person who—like, a journalist knows to turn to and ask. It’s not like, you know—
KT: Right.
FK: It’s not like a journalist has on speed dial the person who’s the most authoritative, as if there was one, for every fandom, you know? [laughs]
KT: Yeah. Yeah.
FK: Like, that doesn’t exist.
KT: Yeah, I guess, like at my book events, somebody asked me about, like, the responsibility of celebrities to corral their fans, which, I don’t know. I’m kind of two minds about. It’s not like—
ELM: Yeah, what’d you say? What’s the answer?
KT: Well…[ELM laughs] I think it would be unreasonable to expect, like, Taylor Swift to sit on Twitter all day long being like, “Don’t say mean things to people on my behalf.” But there are times when celebrities kind of seem to know what they’re doing, where they’ll, like, tag someone that they’re annoyed with, and it’s like, OK. Like, you know what’s gonna happen.
FK: Mmm.
KT: I feel like they have a responsibility to not do that, at least.
ELM: I feel like there’s been more awareness amongst especially the kind of celebrity that is doing their own off-the-cuff tweeting—
KT: Yeah.
ELM: Like, there are some, right?
FK: Yeah. Oh yeah. [laughs]
ELM: I—[laughs] You know? The ones who have the password, and they just go for it. I feel like I have seen in the last couple of years more awareness of the fact that, like, you’re putting a target on someone’s back if you quote tweet them—
KT: Mm-hmm.
ELM: —to dunk on them, right? And those power imbalances. As much as they might annoy that person, right? Or, you know, feel hurt by their comments.
KT: Yeah. That does seem like one of the less fun things about being a celebrity. Like, I really relish my freedom to, if someone really peeves me off, say something snotty to them. But if you’re really famous, you can’t do that, because then they’re gonna get death threats. [laughs]
ELM: Yeah, but then, like, also, you’d be a millionaire, like—
KT: That’s true. That’s true.
ELM: Like, you know, you’d get all this free stuff, like…I don’t know.
KT: I would not be on the internet if I was rich, let’s be real.
ELM: Oh, yeah, no. I would—someone else would be tweeting for me. I would not have the password.
KT: No reason to be on Twitter.
FK: Honestly, like, I just—among other things, it just seems like no matter how many actor feels would be satiated by the people saying nice things to me and, like, interacting with me all the time—like, I’m presuming I’m an actor in this context—
KT: OK.
ELM: Is that—you’re gonna be an actor. OK. All right.
FK: Yeah, I would and, like—actors obviously are endless pits of need, right?
ELM: Sure, yeah.
FK: For, like, approval, right? But the thing is, they’re also endless pits of anxiety about disapproval, and so it just seems like the tradeoff would not be worth it, but…
ELM: You’re saying if you were an actor, you would not read your mentions.
FK: I would need somebody else to do that. Like, I would want to, but I would need someone to have an intervention with me and be like, “You can’t do this. It’s actually bad.”
ELM: Oh. No, I would go into interviews—like, you know, Vanity Fair or whatever would have me do some interview where I would have to read Google search results about myself, and they’d be like, “Do you look at what people say about you on the internet?” And I’d be like, “The interwebs? What’s that?” [FK & KT laugh] Right?
FK: “I did a graduate degree on the internet before I was famous, but I have fortunately forgotten all of it.”
ELM: I wouldn’t mention that to them. No, I wouldn’t mention that to them ever.
KT: “I had, like, a very expensive procedure to have that removed from my brain.” [ELM laughs]
FK: Yup. Actual lobotomy, but, like, targeted with lasers just to those nerves.
ELM: Flourish, that was a Severance reference, but since you won’t pay $5 for Apple TV…
FK: You’re right.
KT: Wait, I actually haven’t seen Severance.
FK: Ahh! [KT laughs] Oh!
ELM: [laughs] Amazing! That was an inadvertent Severance reference. Now you should probably go see—
FK: Since neither of us will pay $5 for Apple TV…
KT: Wow.
ELM: Wow.
KT: Now I gotta watch it, I guess.
ELM: OK, do you wanna pay $5 for Apple TV? You should.
KT: No, you know, I got so many subscriptions already. What is a girl to do?
FK: See!
ELM: Yeah, but that’s a good one.
FK: This is how I feel.
ELM: You can watch that. You can see Lee Pace’s arms in Foundation. You can see—which is a sell, in and of itself—you can watch the first season of Dickinson, and then, you know, muddle through the second and third seasons.
KT: I have heard that’s good… You know, I only really watch The Real Housewives anymore. [FK & ELM laugh] It’s really bad. But it’s just like—[laughs]
ELM: I’m selling it. Apple, Apple, call me! [laughs]
FK: Unless we’re going to get into Real Housewives fandom, I think we may be far enough off the topic that it’s a sign that we need to, like…
ELM: I want to though, but…
KT: OK, OK. Lemme know if you ever do a Real Housewives ep, though, ’cause I’m there.
FK: Oh my God! [KT laughs]
ELM: Yeah, I kind of want to, though. [laughs] Well, thank you so much for coming on.
FK: Yes.
ELM: Congratulations on the book again. It was a delight to read—
KT: Thanks!
ELM: —and that’s so exciting, and I hope that you’ve been getting all the accolades that you deserve.
KT: Thank you so much, it was really fun.
FK: [laughs] Bye!
[Interstitial music]
FK: That was a lovely conversation. I am really, really glad she was able to come on.
ELM: Yeah, a delight to talk about—I mean, not just about the book, but about her journalism, too. It’s nice to talk to another person who’s had to deal with some of the things that I have, writing about fandom in the mainstream.
FK: Yeah! I mean, that was really—even though I don’t share that experience, that’s really valuable to me to hear about it too, because, you know, I don’t know. I guess I observe a lot of—like, I observe backlash at journalists, and so forth, right? Like, everybody does, who pays attention to fan culture things. It’s interesting to hear about it from that angle.
ELM: All right, well, before we go, business?
FK: Business! The usual business, which is reminding you that the way we make this podcast is by the donations of listeners and readers like you via Patreon! Patreon.com/Fansplaining. We have a bunch of delightful rewards that you can earn by pledging at many different levels, from $1 up to all the dollars, [ELM laughs] which include things like cute enamel pins, zines, special episodes, of which there are many…you know.
ELM: [laughing] Was that your New York accent? “One dollah”? [laughs]
FK: I have no idea what accent that was. I believe that it is in the category of funny voices.
ELM: You were trying, you’re vying—you’re, like, fighting Tom Hanks for the next role. [both laugh]
FK: I mean, except I’m not going for anything, I’m just sort of vaguely going for…
ELM: I don’t know if he was going for anything either. [FK makes agonized noise] I mean, I haven’t seen it, but…
FK: All right. All right all right—
ELM: I mean, he was going for something, obviously, like, that’s undeniable, but…
FK: Yeah, yeah, clearly, but OK. But Elizabeth. Elizabeth. [ELM laughs] If people don’t have money or don’t want to give their money to us—
ELM: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
FK: Can they still help us?
ELM: Wow, OK.
FK: What can they do?
ELM: You really set me up right there. Well, there’s a number of things they can do. They can subscribe to the podcast. They could share it. They could share our transcripts. Every single episode—if you listen on a feed, you may not know, but every single episode has a page on our website. It’s got the audio. It’s got shownotes. It’s got transcript. It’s beautiful. Um, you can also write in to us. Fansplaining@gmail.com or at that website fansplaining.com, there’s a submission box. On Tumblr, our ask box is open, anon is on. You can call us. 1-401-526-FANS. Leave a voicemail. And you can also follow us on Twitter and Instagram. As we always say, not a great place to leave substantive feedback, but a place to keep abreast of, I don’t know, future Fansplaining things, like the Tiny Zine that we’re working on right now for our patrons.
FK: Wonderful. With that said, Elizabeth, [ELM snorts] I guess I’ll talk to you later.
ELM: OK, goodbye, Flourish.
FK: Goodbye!
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