After negotiating this power structure, fans must learn they can trust each other in order to discuss more personal topics.Īvoiding arguments is a key component to building trust in XXXTentacion’s fan community. Comments like “i wanna cry so bad” humanize fans. Fans express themselves without providing deep analysis because doing so might make them seem like they’re trying to place themselves above others. XXXTentacion fandom, however, functions almost like a group chat. The absence of long, detailed analysis isn’t what you’d find in many fandoms. This brevity reinforces the community’s casual tone. Most comments, too, are short–such as “rip” or “i wanna cry so bad”–and often include expletives (/u/thotdestroyer1 /u/acsialucsia). While the content of that thought might lend itself to a lengthy discussion, the post is only a sentence long. A top post in XXXTentacion’s subreddit notes that while X spent so much of his life wanting to die, his life was taken when he was beginning to get better (/u/thisty). These fans then maintain friendly informality through comments on forums–the vast majority of which are a few sentences or less. Through memes, fans create beliefs and conform to them. In order to fit in, you have to find the jokes funny, and to do that, you must agree with them. In order to “get” certain jokes, you have to hold a specific set of beliefs. Memes are meant for an ideologically homogeneous audience. But memes aren’t only unifying in status. It works to show that sophistication (which could give someone authority) doesn’t belong in the community. It’s obscure, lowbrow humor, meant to be enjoyed by “common” people. The post isn’t formal or detailed, but that’s the point. It’s a low-res image of XXXTentacion looking confused. Take the post “When you get up to eat breakfast but someone finished the Cocaine” (/u/HERO1NFATHER). Memes are commonplace in X fan forums and social media. XXXTentacion’s fans use memes to communicate both informality and a common belief system. They aren’t compelled to do so because their fandom doesn’t value showing off or gaining clout. If someone were to make music and attempt to promote it in the fandom, they could gain authority. Fans of XXXTentacion don’t make their own music to share in the community because doing so could contribute to hierarchy. They differ from many fan communities in that they avoid using the same medium as their object. This equality manifests in the texts they choose to create.
There is a purposeful absence of hierarchy in the XXXTentacion fan community, which encourages an equal playing field where fans are confidants, not authority figures. Yet they have a masculine outlook on the world, transforming their mental-health battle into a battle with the outside world (and, frequently, women). They avoid the hierarchical structure present in many fandoms, instead encouraging each other to share their struggles–which are often mental-health related–in an equal and informal environment. Through these texts, I hope to learn more about the how and the why of X’s fandom, and the possible ramifications of these findings on the fields of mental health and masculinity.įans of XXXTenatacion are dynamic in their ability to be vulnerable, supportive, informal, and agreeable within their community, yet masculine and hostile to those outside it. This project is an attempt to navigate the XXXTentacion fandom by studying these interactions through texts they create (e.g., fan art, analysis, memes, comments). These contrasting viewpoints lead XXXTentacion fans to interact with each other and the world in unconventional ways. Outsiders, on the other hand, see these fans not as victims but as perpetrators, inflicting pain through their misogyny and aggression. XXXTentacion fans feel pain in a very real way, pain which they blame not on themselves but on the rest of the world. However, it’s XXXTentacion’s fans’ position in the world that kept me interested. XXXTentacion and his fans have always been surrounded by controversy-it’s what initially drew me to study this fandom. I was ashamed by my mental lapse, but also curious: Why did I forget? Why did his fans choose to? The answer lies in the texts. Here was a pseudo-utopian paradise, where XXXTentacion (real name Jahseh Dwayne Onfroy) could do no wrong. Yet when I took a step into his fandom, I forgot all that. He allegedly beat, tortured, and imprisoned his pregnant ex-girlfriend (MacAdams). The artist died June 18th, 2018, after being shot in Deerfield Beach, Florida.
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Download PDF X & Why: Mental Health and MasculinityĪmong Fans of XXXTentacion Dashiell Nusbaum
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