fandom | The Walrus

A teen stares at a computer screen in the dark

Arts & Culture

When Online Fandom Goes Too Far

January 9, 2023January 11, 2023 - by Zarmminaa Rehman

K-pop got me through my teen years, but celebrity obsessions have a dark side

A hand with its fingers crossed accompanied by text that reads, "Please make the playoffs or I snip a toe a fan."

Sports

The Team, the Fan, and the Severed Toes

June 23, 2021February 16, 2023 - by David Swick

What’s a person to do when their team loses year after year? For one diehard fan, it meant chopping digits

Above: Hands holding up a soccer ball. Below: Hands holding up phones

Sports

When Sports Fans Change the Game

June 16, 2021January 20, 2023 - by Shireen Ahmed

Equal pay across genders, renaming racist teams—owners are finally listening and boardrooms will never be the same

Portrait of George Armstrong in a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey against a blue background.

July/August 2021

The Paradox of Being a Leafs Fan

June 9, 2021June 15, 2021 - by Waubgeshig Rice

Generations of Indigenous fans have followed the Toronto Maple Leafs through close calls and decades of despair. Ultimately, it’s the hope that connects us

Screenshot of the actress who plays Anne Shirley on the TV show Anne with an E. She has red hair and freckles and is looking towards the top of the frame while wrapped in a grey blanket.

Arts & Culture

When Anne with an E Fans Waged War against Netflix

August 5, 2020October 13, 2020 - by John Semley

In their campaign to save the show, fans stopped behaving like an audience and started acting like owners

A wax figure replica of Céline Dion at Madame Tussauds in Las Vegas

Arts & Culture / September 2019

Céline Dion Is Everywhere

August 28, 2019January 13, 2023 - by Suzannah Showler

At fifty-one, Dion is wrapping up her Vegas residency with a world tour, an album, and two movies in the works. Why has it taken forty years for the world’s most talented singer to finally become cool?