Fans are groups of people who form a collective bond due to a shared interest, such as a fan of a particular genre of music or film. They often have an obsession with a particular television character or band and become emotionally invested in their success, “the origin of fans comes from the term fanatic.”(Abercrombie and Longhurst. (1998). P.122) Abercrombie and Longhurst describe fans in three terms; the ‘fan’, the ‘cultist’, the ‘enthusiast’. The fans can be defined as a particular culture, as a culture is defined as a group of people with a shared interest or belief, fans are a subset of a main culture. Many subcultures found within cultures were initial thought to be deviant as their members differed from the norm. (Peter J. Martin, in After Subculture: Critical Studies in Contemporary Youth Culture, p24) The practises of fans differs from other audiences due to the personal involvement the fans
The fans gain from this a sense of identity and belonging. Cultural theorist Chris Barker identified the function being a member of a subculture has on its participants, he argued that being a fan allows the participant to escape from their reality, such as social or economic problems and provided them with an alternative version of what reality might be. Some fans become so obsessed with a celebrity that they may engage in threatening behaviour such as stalking or even killing, Darrell Lance Abbott, the guitarist for the band Pantera, was shot by a fan while performing on stage in 2004. Some individuals have used being a fan as a way of feeding their psychotic tendencies other examples would be violence at a football match when their favourite team loses, due to this fandom can often be seen as a deviant activity. For most being a fan gives the audience a sense of belonging, fans form a collective identity, Abercrombie and Longhurst argue that “often the fan uses their obsession to compensate for their own inadequate life’s”.(Abercrombie and Longhurst.