"Selena" was on TV the other day - I didn't watch it, but it got me thinking about celebrity fan clubs. Selena, of course, was famously murdered in 1995 by her then-35 year-old fan club president. At the time, I didn't really understand that the fan club was a business venture this woman had been appointed to run for Selena. 
I thought it was just like, this club, and to become president, she had to be elected by the members of the Selena fan club. Just like the Mira Catalina Elementary School student council, my only real frame of reference at the time. I recall thinking that it was odd that a 35-year old would want to run for "the office of" fan club president. Didn't she think it was weird that she was running against kids who were 10 years old? Even at my young age, I felt it odd that a woman so old (and especially so old-looking) would want to be in some pop artist's fan club. It seemed as strange as if my dad were to join Color Me Badd's official fan club.
I thought it was just like, this club, and to become president, she had to be elected by the members of the Selena fan club. Just like the Mira Catalina Elementary School student council, my only real frame of reference at the time. I recall thinking that it was odd that a 35-year old would want to run for "the office of" fan club president. Didn't she think it was weird that she was running against kids who were 10 years old? Even at my young age, I felt it odd that a woman so old (and especially so old-looking) would want to be in some pop artist's fan club. It seemed as strange as if my dad were to join Color Me Badd's official fan club.Anyways, I notice I never hear anything about celebrity fan clubs anymore. When I was younger, I felt besieged by offers to join fan clubs for actors, actresses, music groups and the like. $8.99 would get you a one-year membership to the Boyz II Men fan club, whereby you would receive the quarterly Boyz II Men newsletter (I always wondered what they put in things like this) and your very own T-shirt!
I guess there's two simple explanations at work here. One is that celebrity fan clubs have simply become Internet fansites, and the second is just that I'm not 8 years old, and don't see the ads because I'm not meant to. But even so, I feel like the culture of the fan club is waning. There seem to be a lot fewer individual band/actress/actor fansites than there were when the Internet first got going. After all, what's so great about a Good Charlotte newsletter with info and pictures when you could pick up an US Weekly and get all that and more. There's no way for me to prove this, but I feel like the celebrity fan club is dying.I'm curious if any readers were ever at any point in an official fan club for someone. It would be really funny if you were in the Lou Bega Fan Club or something, but anything will do. What did the club entail? Did you pay money? Does the club still exist?
2 comments:
Maybe I'm way behind on this, but apparently being a "fan" has reached a totally new level: http://www.fanfiction.net/
That is really scary. Like, simply appalling.
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