Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World

23 The Anti-Fan within the Fan Awe and Envy in Sport Fandom

23 The Anti-Fan within the Fan Awe and Envy in Sport Fandom Vivi Theodoropoulou Anti-fans are people with clear dislikes.1 They are people who, for a variety of reasons, hate or intensely dislike and have strong negative views or feelings about a certain text, genre, or personality (Gray 2003). This chapter looks at a particular category of anti-fans: those whose status as such is defined by the fact that they are fans. It looks at the anti-fan within the fan. It aims to demonstrate cases where fandom is a precondition of antifandom and to illuminate instances when for a fan anti-fandom is given and set. These are cases where two fan objects are clear-cut or traditional rivals, thus inviting fans to become anti-fans of the “rival” object of admiration . It suggests that under such circumstances, a fan becomes an antifan of the object that “threatens” his/her own, and of that object’s fans. Thus, when A and B are the opposing fandom objects, fans of A are antifans of B and of B’s fans, and vice versa. The chapter argues that such anti-fans emerge whenever binary oppositions are established between two fan objects. It proposes that this kind of anti-fandom is fostered particularly in the realm of spectator sports and is embedded in the nature of such sports that promote incessant competition and ranking. Inspired by Thucydides (1920 [431 BC]), it applies the term “αντι ′παλον δε ′ος” (“antipalon deos”) to argue that it is a series of emotions such as fear, admiration, respect, and envy for the opposing threat that cause hatred and anti-fandom of this kind. More importantly, it demonstrates how fans participate in such bipolar structures. The focus of the chapter is on football. It explores fans of the two most popular and famously rival clubs in Greece, Olympiakos and Panathi316 naikos. The two clubs have shared a deep rivalry since their founding. Olympiakos is the opposing threat and counterforce to Panathinaikos and vice versa. This rivalry is one of the classic and most acknowledged bipolar structures in European football,2 with the two teams being considered mutually exclusive and antagonistic fan objects. Based on a series of interviews and group discussions with fans of the two teams that took place in spring 2005,3 the chapter exemplifies the conditions and provides a definition of such anti-fandom. It suggests that the emotional investment in anti-fandom is significant to the construction of fan identity. It concludes that bipolar oppositions act as the definitive mechanism of distinction to the outsider and enable identification with the team. In this sense, and by emphasizing the importance of identification against the rival, the chapter suggests that anti-fandom may also work as a form of language, structured , like language, through binary oppositions. The Concept of the Anti-Fan Even though popular culture and fandom literature have been looking at instances when audiences feel uncomfortable with or ambivalent about given genres or texts (see Alters 2003; Barker & Brooks 1998; Barker, Arthurs, & Harindranath 2001), Jonathan Gray (2003) was the first to categorize the practice of (actively) disliking genres, texts, or personalities as “anti-fandom.” Anti-fans do not dislike popular texts for nothing. On the contrary, they are often familiar with their objects of dispassion and aware of the reasons for their dislike. According to Gray, “anti-fans must find cause for their dislike in something. This something may vary from having previously watched the show and having found it intolerable, to having a dislike for its genre, director or stars; to having seen previews or ads, or seen or heard unfavorable reviews” (2003: 71). The discussion of anti-fandom has thus far outlined moral and ethical objections, and textual and class considerations, as the most essential underlying principles of opposition to texts and personalities. Be the text Television without Pity postings (Gray 2005), The Simpsons (Alters 2003), or David Cronenberg’s film Crash (Barker, Arthurs, & Harindranath 2001), it is predominantly the moral value of the text as interpreted and received by the reader that triggers anti-fandom. However, there is another anti-fandom cluster that, so far, has not been discussed or examined in fan culture studies in much detail: anti-fandom The Anti-Fan within the Fan: Awe and Envy in Sports Fandom 317 caused and triggered by fandom. This type of...