Fan (person)

[3] The Dickson Baseball Dictionary cites William Henry Nugent's work asserting that it was derived from the fancy, a term referring to the fans of a specific hobby or sport from the early 18th century to the 19th, especially to the followers of boxing.

[failed verification] The Great American Baseball Scrapbook attributes the term to Chris Von der Ahe, owner of the Saint Louis Brown Stockings in 1882.

Fans often have a "wish to acquire" material objects related to the area of interest, such as a baseball hit by a famous slugger or a used guitar pick from their musical hero.

The degree of devotion to celebrities can range from a simple crush to the deluded belief that they have a special relationship with the star which does not exist.

This can easily switch to hatred of the previously loved celebrity, and result in attempts at violent attacks; one notable incident being the death of Rebecca Schaeffer by a stalking fan, Robert John Bardo, in 1989.

[10] In 2019, Billboard observed that popular musicians such as Tyler, the Creator had leveraged the power of fans to drive digital downloads using merchandise bundles.

In Japan, the term is normally derogatory, a connotation lacking in English, where it generally refers to people in the anime and manga fandom.

In contrast, a "smark" is a fan who recognizes that they are witnessing a stage-managed work ("kayfabe"), but appreciates it nonetheless, including its backstage aspects.

At a stadium or arena, sports fans will voice their pleasure with a particular incident, player, or team by cheering, which consists of clapping, fist-pumping, or shouting positive exclamations toward the field of play and ultimately, the favorable object.

Likewise, displeasure toward a particular incident, player, or team may be met by fans with booing, shouting of expletives, and sometimes throwing of objects onto the field.

Lighter, more harmless objects are also occasionally thrown onto certain fields of play as a form of celebration of a favorable sports feat.

This can create the sense of unity in a sports bar as all cheers and boos will appear to be synchronized due to similar feelings and reactions by nearly all fans at the fortunes and misfortunes of the favored team or athlete.

In the fan's own home, unbridled and lengthy screaming, crying, acts of destruction to household objects, and other manifestations of joy or anguish, are perhaps seen as most acceptable in comparison to the sports bar or sporting venue simply because such acts taken to such an extreme can be seen as disruptive to a large number of fellow fans even if they share the same sentiment if it is of less intensity.

Fan activities give participants a combination of euphoria and stress (about the potential for their team to lose) for which they coin the name "eustress".

Notably, English singer-songwriter Jessie J had this to say about her stans, "They support me and buy my albums and singles, and they stand outside hotels, and they come to shows, and they get tattoos of my lyrics and they cut their hair like me.

[43] This trend can also be observed within other fan communities, such as comic book fandoms, where women are frequently portrayed as "Fake Geek Girls", only interested in comic books to impress guys or to view the attractive men present within their content,[47][48] or sports communities, where women are often made uncomfortable at live sporting events due to the overt sexism and aggressive masculinity displayed by male spectators, and then labelled as 'inauthentic' for viewing the games via television instead.

[49] The recent events known as GamerGate provide a good example of such attacks, whereby multiple women working within the gaming industry were victims of sexual harassment and violent threats, some even forced to leave their homes for fear of a physical confrontation.

These acts of adoration are societally limited to adolescent youth, or menopausal women, in both instances blaming "these two periods of hormonal lunacy" on the irrational, overtly sexual behaviour.

[43] In her own words, "[i]t's a sign of maturity to pack up all the posters, photos, magazines, scrapbooks, and unauthorized biographies you so lovingly collected and shove them in the back of the closet.

[43] As Cheryl Cline summarizes, It's much easier for a man to be indulgent about the crushes of teenage girls than it is for him to be fair-minded about the sexual fantasies of the woman he loves when they're about someone else.

And the same guy who'll leave Penthouse in the bathroom will yell, 'No woman of mine is gonna hang a poster of Prince naked to the waist on the inside of the closet of the spare room where no one will see it!'

[…] [U]ntil you reach the age when everybody thinks you're crazy anyway, so why not admit to an intense hankering to run your fingers through Willie Nelson's whiskers?

[54]He later elaborates, stating that, Qualities like compassion, caring, empathy, intellectual curiosity, fear, vulnerability, even love – basic human qualities that boys have inside them every bit as much as girls do – get methodically driven out of them by a sexist and homophobic culture that labels these things as 'unmanly,' 'feminine,' 'womanly,' and 'gay,' and teaches boys to avoid them at all costs.

And, most importantly, they're taught that real men turn to violence not as a last resort, but as the go-to method of resolving disputes – and also as a primary means of winning respect and establishing masculine credibility.

[54]In the predecessor to this documentary, Tough Guise, Katz also addresses the issue of body image, using multiple movies, such as Terminator and Rambo, as well as action figures like G.I.

Their interests may also be considered as a deviation from societal gender roles, according to Noah Berlastsky, such as playing Dungeons & Dragons instead of football.

[54][57][58] A popular example of such treatment in mainstream media is shown on the sitcom The Big Bang Theory, where, multiple times throughout the show's run, the four main characters, portrayed as 'nerdy fanboys', are humiliated by larger 'real men'.

In terms of their involvement within fandoms, fangirls are typically portrayed as losing all control, fainting, sobbing, and dashing about in mobs.

[53] For instance, while describing the phenomenon of Beatlemania, fan activity is described by stating that: The appropriate reaction to contact with [the Beatles] – such as occupying the same auditorium or city block – was to sob uncontrollably while screaming, 'I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die,' or, more optimistically, the name of a favorite Beatle, until the onset of either unconsciousness or laryngitis.

In regards to chosen fandoms, they are typically associated with comic books, video games, science fiction movies or television series, or technology (such as computer or smartphone brands).