We’re raised to be passive observers, to sit and watch. We’re currently watching our constitution and democratic rights shredded before our eyes. We’re sitting around and waiting to see what happens next. It’s our nature as Americans, even if we don’t realize it. Our school systems were designed to produce obedient factory workers patriotic enough to die on the battlefield. A small minority participates in sports, the arts and student government, while the rest sit and spectate from the bleachers. We then graduate, get a job and distract ourselves at night watching made up stories. Participation is not encouraged but fandom is.
A fan is a devoted spectator. The word derives from fanatic: a person with excessive enthusiasm and intense, uncritical devotion. Corporations want to generate more fans because excessive enthusiasm and intense uncritical devotion are a great way to separate suckers from their money. A sizable chunk of our economy is built around fans. Sports, music, comics, movies, television and videogames all branch out into different media worlds as source material to help sell billions in consumer products. Social media is driven by fandom.
A favorite activity for fans of any type is shit-talking, both to build up their own allegiances and to tear down the opposition because fandom is a group activity and groups create enemies for cohesion. Jimmy Hendrix versus Eddie Van Halen, Broncos versus Cowboys, Star Wars versus Star Trek, Marvel versus DC, Christianity versus Islam, Call of Duty versus Battlefield, Mac versus PC, Biggie versus Tupac are the kind of ridiculous, meaningless antagonisms of fandom. Fans need hate to balance the love – it has always been that way: fans of the yellow and green chariot teams fought pitched battles in ancient Rome; 2000 years later, soccer fan clubs committed multiple atrocities in the Yugoslav succession wars.
The best American novel to address fandom is Fredrick Exley’s A Fans’s Notes, about the black hole of depression of being a Giant’s fan and realizing that you’re a spectator in life as well as sports. Fandom can be a dark thing, when a yearning for group cohesion is built around a fake idol. Plenty of authors and creatives have touched on it, from Steven King’s Misery to John Travolta’s new film The Fanatic.
John Lennon, Selena and other celebrities have been killed by their fans. One of Jodie Foster’s fans nearly assassinated Ronald Reagan. When fan clubs go awry, we call them cults: the Manson family, Jim Jones’ Peoples’ Temple and the Branch Davidians.
Donald Trump, at his core, is a fan. He’s constantly telling us he is a fan of various sports teams, dictators, hydrocarbons, right-wing journalists and the military. He behaves on twitter like a fan: shit-talking the opposition, critiquing media and celebrities, making ludicrous claims and trying to fire up his fellow fans to literally kill the opposition if/when the need arises.
A fan now runs the game. His fanclub has gone awry. It’s time for the rest of us to quit being spectators.
Wes Clark Jr. 
Wes, this is outstanding
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