Fan Fiction & Shipping: Are Stans Removed from Reality?
Though Tumblr shipping culture is firmly in the rearview mirror for me, shipping still holds a place in the hearts and minds of teenagers— and some mildly concerning adults— everywhere. “Shipping” is a relatively new term, so to speak. At its base level, it means wanting two people, real or fiction, to be together romantically. For the sake of this argument, I am exploring how the term often applies to celebrities, influencers, and public figures. Shipping, however, has evolved into something so much more complex and boundary-pushing than its original definition, and for some has become pretty shaky on consent and ill-informed by parasocial relationships. Shipping now largely requires a fan of the hypothetical couple to not only want them to be together, but to insist that they are together, and completely deconstruct these celebrities’ realities to look for “clues” to support their biases.
While it would be ludicrous to deny the existence of PR couples, marketing stunts, and closeting in the realm of fame, many internet armchair detectives have taken it upon themselves to spin a narrative of certain celebrities’ dating histories, trying to personally determine which relationships are real, and which are PR. This practice can certainly be lighthearted, but some fans have taken it to the next level, convinced they know their idols better than anyone else through the subliminal messages left behind by the artist.
In our deeply individualistic society, we love being at the center of something relatively unknown, relishing in the fact we’re real fans of the subject or person by sleuthing out “Easter eggs” — subtle clues left behind by the artists to predict future release dates, merch drops, and upcoming projects. We want to feel as close as possible to our favorite creators and are willing to comb through their lives to do so. In terms of songs, films, etc., this search is relatively harmless, but it doesn’t translate well to creators’ personal lives.
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Using Taylor Swift as an example, fans have speculated on her relationship history with Dianna Agron and Karlie Kloss based on tattoos, lyrics, celebrity gossip, and interviews, tying the threads together to create elaborate theories on their relationship timelines. Though Swift has declared herself both straight and an ally on multiple occasions, some fans insist that she has secretly been in romantic relationships with these women throughout the years. Observing Swift’s lyrics through a queer lens as a queer person is natural, but giving Swift status as a queer artist can be damaging.
The proximity to queerness Swift’s fans have granted her invites casual homophobia into fandom discussions. The infamous lyric change in “Picture to Burn” off of Swift’s self-titled album (2006) (“Tell your friends that I’m obsessive and crazy / That’s fine, I’ll tell mine that you’re gay") is being both excused and demanded back by LGBTQ+ and straight fans alike, despite Swift recognizing the poor implications of those lyrics and seemingly having no intentions to re-record the song that way. Because her fans have aligned Swift with queerness, they are unable to differentiate between how they would receive this lyric— based on speculations about her dating history and personal interpretations of her lyrics— versus how allowing straight people to make casual homophobic digs actually reads.
Though the above example is relatively tame, I am no stranger to the intensity of shippers and the damage caused by centering straight people in queer discussions. As an older One Direction fan, I remember the microscope put over every interaction between Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson by young shippers who demanded they have access to, or asserted their knowledge of, the two’s dating and sex lives.
Tomlinson has said he’s straight and Styles remains publicly unlabeled, recently stating in a Better Home & Gardens interview that he prefers to keep that aspect of himself between him and his loved ones. This presents a two-prong argument for the harm shipping can do, given these men’s opposing presentations of their sexualities. If the artist you deem to be in a queer relationship isn’t queer, you’ve created a false narrative about what being LGBTQ+ is, centered a straight person in a community they aren’t a part of, performed a disservice to other LGBTQ+ artists who could’ve benefitted from the platform you gave to a straight artist because of your personal theories (and likely, projections), and interfered in this artist’s personal and professional relationships because you deemed them fraudulent.
If you’re right about this artist being queer or non-conforming, you still may have stepped over several social boundaries. As Styles said, he has no desire to give the world an exact label, and the years of fans demanding one and insisting upon a label for him must have been exhausting and anxiety-inducing. Pressuring closeted or unlabeled celebrities for personal information is, arguably, an unfair and invasive act.
In an attempt to prove that two celebrities are together, fans will often label their partners as “problematic,” and with that justification, make misogynistic comments on their appearances, ages, families— even these women’s children. Even if these are PR stunts spanning over a decade, even if, through multiple labels and management, Styles and Tomlinson are still deeply closeted, it’s important to reflect on where your dislike for these women comes from.
“While LGBTQ+ representation is so necessary for young, queer people, searching for it in places it does not exist can encourage a slew of bigoted rhetoric, center straight people in queer spaces, and cause many fans to completely disregard their idols’ discomfort and boundaries as a means of exploring their own sexuality.”
The label ‘problematic’— often disingenuously assigned to these women without any actual care for the communities their mistakes affect— does not absolve anyone from sexist comments made about Olivia Wilde and Eleanor Calder, nor do they exist in a bubble. To quote the infamous Mean Girls line, “you all have to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it okay for guys to call you sluts and whores.”
The only women fans tend to accept are the ones that they think their favorite artist would never have any romantic or sexual interest in. Styles and Lizzo have formed a very public friendship in recent years. They’ve performed together, held hands, danced with each other— so many couple-y things. Yet, fans don’t pick apart Lizzo the way they do Styles’s other female friends and/or partners, even with sufficient cause. Even with her own list of cancellable offenses, Lizzo finds herself safe in the fandom’s eyes. They’ve crucified women for much less and yet, she remains a staple in Styles’s fanbase.
Lizzo being absolved from this comment has a lot to do with anti-blackness and fatphobia. These fans don’t see Lizzo as a threat to the false reality they’ve created because she’s a fat, Black woman. I also think Lizzo proves the rule that fans don’t really care about “problematic” behavior, they just care about who Styles is sleeping with, and their bigotry left Lizzo an unconsidered candidate — despite the two’s closeness — so her controversial past has been passed over.
I understand the desire to want the artists you already love and cherish to be like you, to share your worldview and connect with your interpretations of their work. While LGBTQ+ representation is so necessary for young, queer people, searching for it in places it does not exist can encourage a slew of bigoted rhetoric, center straight people in queer spaces, and cause many fans to completely disregard their idols’ discomfort and boundaries as a means of exploring their own sexuality. There are plenty of actual queer artists that deserve the attention and adoration in their own right.
Words: Lauren Andrikanich
