Divergent Fan Reactions to Allegations of Sexual Misconduct against Musical Artists

For the final Social Media & Society 2024 session today I’m in a panel on online music cultures, which starts with Jenessa Williams, whose interest is in how fans decide to continue or discontinue their fandom for artists accused of sexual misconduct, especially also in the context of changing music consumption habits. The focus here is on smaller, genre-specific cases rather than widely publicised allegations against superstars.

This identified three main modes of reaction, involving cancellation, confliction, and anti-cancellation: cancellation involved feminist-coded rage, disappointment, and betrayal, and was expressed in strong and absolutist phrasing and explicit actions of condemnation (binning merchandise, rage-tweeting the artist). Fans saw themselves as ‘digilantes’ who sought accountability and justice rather than mere cancellation.

Confliction was more complicated, and driven by progressive performativity pressures where fans felt required to express their condemnation even through they were not yet entirely convinced of the truth of allegations; they engaged in a kind of severity hedging that questioned the severity of the allegations.

Finally, anti-cancellation responses engaged in victim-blaming but also displayed underdog defensiveness and rejected the idea of artists as role models; they moved from buying music to streaming it to abdicate their financial responsibilities.

Music genre played a critical role in the adoption of these modes; this is also linked to class and race. Social media performativity emerged as distinct from actual actions. Overall, the patterns here, in the context of music fandom, were quite distinct from the #metoo experience in the movie industry.