Whether they brought down Jose Mourinho or marched against their club owner, these fan protest stories remind us that the capacity of fans to mobilize in support of social causes is a defining feature of fandom. They also show that, even when a movement fails, it can help us understand the constraints on fan activism more generally.
As IC and the HPA demonstrate, many fan activist groups recruit through preexisting community structures, but the media they create serves as the impetus for action. The powerful experiences created by these self-created media inspire a wish to help, which is often rooted in previous community experiences.
But the way in which this wish is expressed can affect the success of a movement. For example, the personal details shared about the teenager whose death spurred the Seattle protest led to more positive attitudes toward both the cause and the people involved in the demonstration. In contrast, news stories that highlighted his criminal past and speculated about his involvement in the murder weakened support for the protest.
Similarly, the personality of celebrities may influence which issues they choose to embrace or avoid. For instance, Tom Phillips examines the failure of Kevin Smith (Clerks, Chasing Amy, Dogma) to rally fans around his attempt to pressure Southwest Airlines for changes in their policies on body size and weight discrimination, and Cheuk Yi Lin explores how Hong Kong’s erotic pop star has offered queer fans new language and images to express their own sexual identities, but failed to motivate them into institutional politics.