Stephen King Tried To Warn Us About Toxic Fandom Decades Ago

By Brian Myers
| Published 25 seconds ago

Sometimes the terror inked from the pen of Stephen King strays from supernatural horror and personifies the worst in human nature. When the legendary author published Misery in 1987, he not only introduced readers to the human monster Annie Wilkes but also proved himself to be a sort of unwitting prophet.

The novel, and the 1990 film adaptation that followed, were grim predictors of fan behavior in the coming digital age. King’s work was a forerunner of what some social scientists refer to as “toxic fandom,” playing out on the page and on screen with chilling accuracy.

Toxic Fandom Depicted In Misery

For those who need a refresher, Misery follows romance novelist Paul Sheldon as he finishes the manuscript for what he hopes will be his first success in another genre. Shortly after leaving the remote mountain cabin where he was working, he loses control of his car on an icy road and crashes. He is rescued by the reclusive Annie Wilkes, who pulls his unconscious body to safety and takes him to her nearby house to recover. With a snowstorm closing off the area, Paul is stranded with Wilkes as she nurses him back to health. She reveals that she knows who he is and proclaims herself his “number one fan.” But when the final book in his romance series is read by Wilkes, her treatment of her snowbound patient takes a dark and twisted turn.

Annie flies into a mad rage when the principal character of the series dies at the end. During a long rant at his bedside, she tells the writer that no one knows he is there and that he is stuck with her. Determined that the latest romance novel will not be the final entry, Annie forces Paul to write a new installment featuring the same main character (aptly named Misery Chastain), while also coercing him into burning the only copy of his new manuscript.

Destroying A Life Is Fair Game

Annie’s treatment of her captive author turns savage quickly. She withholds pain medication as punishment and breaks both of his ankles with a sledgehammer in an act she refers to as “hobbling.” In the novel, her punishment is much more brutal and irreversable. As the story progresses, Paul discovers he is being held prisoner by a former nurse whose license was revoked after the deaths of infants in a local hospital.

No spoilers on the ending here. But what can be gleaned from Annie’s attitude and actions seems to mirror, symbolically anyway, the toxic fandom culture that exists across multiple forms of media and is prevalent in film franchises and the music industry. A rabid fan feels disenfranchised by the direction their beloved book series has taken and decides to assert herself to change the artist’s mind.

In the days before social media, Annie took a literal hands-on approach to fulfill this ideology, with devastating consequences. In the book and the film, the toxic fan is the maniac with the sledgehammer (or axe) and fairly easy to identify. But how do you recognize toxic fandom in today’s real world when you see it?

Toxic Fandom Could Be Cured By Touching Grass

Very Well Mind defines toxic fandom as a group of fans who “work to display negative and harmful behaviors, often online,” which often leads to targeted harassment of other fans, creators, and studios. While many fans consider their love and devotion to a particular film franchise or entertainer part of their identity, a toxic fan base dedicates itself to bullying others, mostly online, in an attempt to accomplish one of two things: assert authority over others and/or change the direction of the creator’s intent.

The last decade has been full of stories about the subset of Taylor Swift followers that turn toxic. Likewise, the worst offenders who have dedicated their adult lives to the Star Wars franchise reared their ugly heads immediately after the 2017 release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, taking bullying and harassment to new levels.

Some toxic fans, angered by the film, launched petitions to have the installment removed from the official Star Wars canon, arguing that it ruined earlier entries. Others demanded a total do-over. But the worst behavior was the sexism and racism that toxic fandom unleashed on the film’s co-star, Kelly Marie Tran. The Vietnamese American actress was harassed so relentlessly on social media by trolls that she left the platforms altogether. Her character’s entry on Wookieepedia was also edited by toxic fans with remarks that were horribly misogynistic, racist, and extremely vulgar. Tran quickly gained support from her fellow cast members and other celebrities, but the damage had already been done.

Stems From An Overly Entitled Sense Of Self

Toxic fans have no respect for the art or the artist. Rather than appreciate, or respectfully disagree with, what has been presented to them for entertainment, they allow their perceived fan superiority complex to take over rational thought and go into attack mode. While they aren’t literally taking sledgehammers to the ankles of writers, the actions they take online are just as violent symbolically. Threatening to derail an entire franchise because of an installment they didn’t feel was up to snuff, or because they don’t care for the casting choices, is ludicrous and speaks to the overly entitled sense of self at the core of toxic fandom.

Most anyone who has followed a film series, a TV show, or a musician has felt some level of disappointment along the journey. Die-hard Seinfeld and Game of Thrones fans can bond over their hatred of their respective finales, early Metallica fans are still fuming about how 1991’s The Black Album took the band in a direction they hated, and, to be quite honest, the powers that be behind the Police Academy films really should have stopped after the third installment.

What separates a normal fan from a toxic one is how each reacts to and acts on disappointment. A normal fan will still love the remainder of the art and move on. The toxic fan will make that disappointment part of their identity and refuse to let it go.

In the end, it’s all just for entertainment purposes. Why take any of it so seriously?