We're Fans, Not Freaks: The State of Fandom

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:02][music] >> Kyoto my darlings, we are joined by not Abby this time. Very scandal. Very special Siska correspondent that you may already know or you've definitely read cuz I post her [ __ ] all the time in the newsletter. We have Sasha Judd, our chief Harry Styles correspondent and sort of all around fandom expert and she-o. Hello Sasha. Hello [laughter] Siska heard. It's so nice to be here. I should also say bestie because it's going to become very clear Sasha and I know each other very well. We spend a lot of time together. Actually, if you tuned into the first episode of the podcast, um, you'll know that I surprised Abby with tickets to Harry Styles in Melbourne and I said that my friend Sasha actually got them and that is the Sasha.

[00:00:54]>> That's me. So we're here to talk about the state of fandom because it is kind of the first thing we bonded over. Um I saw something that Sasha I saw a slideshow that you had used behind you in a speech and it was all about Harry Styles and One Direction and how the skills you learn in a fandom uh transferable. Yeah.

[00:01:23]And I have never felt more sane and I know that a lot of people in the world feel that way that have seen that. So I think we should start We shouldn't even start there. We should start with how you got into fandom and also like how you kind of became a fandom expert.

[00:01:39]>> [laughter] >> Okay. It's insane. Well, I guess then I have to confess that I'm very old.

[00:01:45]Okay.

[00:01:46]>> we're cross-generational besties and you know what? It works guys. It works for us. Um and so I got into fandom when I first got on the internet which was when we first got the internet at home, which is way back in the '90s. And like many people who um encountered the internet for the first time, I just went looking for stuff that I was into. Yeah.

[00:02:06]>> And um so it was this big wild world of now I can suddenly talk to anyone or, you know, read stuff from all over the world, and I was quickly bored of what's happening on the New York Times. Yeah.

[00:02:18]Uh and so I just went looking for people who were into the same stuff as me. And for me that was, at the time, The X-Files. I was super into the TV show >> with The X-Files.

[00:02:26]>> And so I wound up in um what was, at that stage, Usenet groups, chatting about The X-Files, and then reading fan fiction about The X-Files. I love >> that That was my entree into what's called transformative fandom. So that's the fan girls, gender neutral, who um like to not just engage with a piece of work, but also transform it in some way.

[00:02:50]So write fiction about it, create art about it, um podfic, all kinds of creative endeavors. And that's been my fandom journey ever since has been hanging out in those spaces online.

[00:03:02]>> Yeah. And you've engaged with them quite heavily. You are um kind of a low-key well-known fan fiction writer. Oh gosh, I don't know if I'd go that far, but >> you know, like in in meaningful ways.

[00:03:17]You know how like I was reading Wattpad when I was >> Sure. when I was younger, and I would like wait for the next chapter of this unknown person, but to me it was like Yeah, it was a special world.

[00:03:28]>> Yeah, a new chapter dropping of your favorite story. Amazing. And it was very like, I mean, I didn't have the words for it. I didn't know what transformative fandom was back then, but was very like this thing, and for me it was One Direction. And it has like I've watched all the video diaries, I've watched all the performances, they're on tour, I've got all the magazines, whatever.

[00:03:49]I actually need more.

[00:03:50]>> More.

[00:03:50]>> I actually need more.

[00:03:52]>> [laughter] >> And so that was like my awakening. But when I was doing that and I wanted to pick your brains, I actually want to talk a little bit about this.

[00:04:01]It was the most undercover embarrassing mortifying [ __ ] like if this got out at school, I would literally have to not show up for weeks 100% >> thing.

[00:04:11]And and now it's not. Yeah. Now it is a badge of honor that people wear, but I wonder like when Okay, when do you think that changed? Was it like that for you as well? Like a hidden Totally hidden.

[00:04:23]And for me it was because of my job. I used to be a lawyer and I worked at big international law firms doing serious law business The idea that people knew that this was something I wanted to do in my spare time was mortifying to me. My greatest fear was sort of accidentally hitting print on a story in the office and having it spit out of the communal printer or something terrible like that.

[00:04:49]I mean that still would make me Sorry, I have to die. [laughter] Um so yeah, no, I kept my fan and my life and my professional life really separate and that was true I think for pretty much everybody. And and it was there was a bunch of reasons for that. One was that fandom was still operating in a real legal gray area. So >> Yeah, actually. the the whole kind of if you ever read stories written back then, you'll find that the disclaimer always starts out with the author going, "Please don't sue me. I'm just a student. I don't have any money." So cute. Just like begging. Yeah.

[00:05:23]>> [laughter] >> Yeah.

[00:05:24]And that was because there was a period in the late '90s and the early 2000s when the studios were clamping down and you know, issuing cease and desist notices to fan fiction archives and whatever cuz they were like, "This is our IP. We don't want people writing horny stories about Harry Potter.

[00:05:43]So this is something that we're going to try and stamp out." Some authors hated it. So Anne Rice who wrote the Interview with the Vampire novels, >> Yeah. um she hated fan fiction. She was really clear about that. She didn't want anyone using her characters in their own stories. So, I think there was a sense that like not only was it kind of considered embarrassing, but also maybe it wasn't legally okay. And so, it was just something you really did on the DL.

[00:06:06]>> And in the in the age of user-generated content, it kind of feels like now an author, I mean, I could be wrong, an author or someone might be flattered [clears throat] to have things like their work. Or maybe like a Gen Z or a millennial author would be like, "Yes, I want people to be transformed by >> Yeah, I think um a lot of authors who have sort of grown up in those spaces or adjacent to those spaces think it's cool or expected.

[00:06:30]Um I think so I've seen some authors be quite cautious that they they're totally happy that it's happening. They just don't want people to be sending it to them because it puts them in this really difficult situation then if they're trying to write sequels or other, you know, like, "Did I see your story? Are you going to sue me later?" You know, it all becomes a bit of a minefield. But most authors I've seen are sort of stoked and obviously increases engagement with the property. Um TV shows, movies, they are leaning into a lot of that kind of stuff far more so than in the past. But you asked me when I thought it changed.

[00:07:04]>> Yeah.

[00:07:05]I don't I don't know if I could point to any one thing. Certainly, I mean, I started talking about my fandom life publicly when I stopped being a lawyer, which was in 2015. And at that stage I was like, "Okay, well, the job I have now um is fine with me talking about these sorts of things." So, um I'm not going to keep those parts of my life separate anymore. And that talk that you were referencing was one of the first conference talks I gave, which was called how the tech sector could move in one direction. And it was about how we are overlooking a pipeline of young women in STEM who [clears throat] are teaching themselves all of these skills in fandom spaces, but don't want to put it on their CV or you know, talk about it publicly. And as both you and I have written about or spoke about recently, that's not true now, right? Like HBO's hiring the fangirls to make trailers.

[00:07:51]And so, what changed between 2015 and now? I think it's that our experience of the internet changed, and everyone who's come online in that era has come online in a platform era. And so, their experience of the internet is Tik Tok, it's Insta, it's big everything app. It's um but they uh that's their experience of being online, and so they don't really have a distinction between on and off main.

[00:08:21]And I think everyone is doing their fandom on main because that's the internet to them is just their social accounts.

[00:08:28]>> That is so true because when you say the internet, I only think of platforms.

[00:08:33]>> the social media like social media internet.

[00:08:35]>> Yeah. But so before that Before that, we had all kinds of fandom-specific spaces.

[00:08:41]I mean, you would have started on Tumblr, which is still, I think, a really fandom-specific space, and um you will pry that broken website from my cold dead hands. I love everything about it.

[00:08:52]Um but but there were specific fandom spaces. So, you know, back in the day it would have been on mailing lists, and then it was in Yahoo Groups, and then it was in LiveJournal, and then it was on early Tumblr.

[00:09:04]But you went looking for a community.

[00:09:08]You weren't doing your fandom at the same time as everything else. Yeah.

[00:09:13]Wow, what do you think's you know, what era is better?

[00:09:17]>> [sighs and gasps] >> I mean, I love that we can be bold and proud about our fandom now. I think that's a great leap forward, but I think everyone doing fandom on main is causing some real containment breaches that um you know, and I'm sure we'll get to talking about some of those.

[00:09:34]And I think that the problem is fans and fan culture and and fan communities have grown up with their own kind of norms and etiquette and ways of treating each other and um those are special and um when everything's happening in the in the glare of, you know, the public eye Yeah. um I think that some of that's overlooked and and I think it's sad that we've lost the the sort of more closed spaces where people could grow up a little and learn to be baby fans >> Yeah. and um yeah, maybe we wouldn't be making some of the same speed run mistakes over and over again.

[00:10:16]Speaking of sort of being baby fans, I was a One Direction fan like a long time before you were actually a Harry Styles fan. Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about the how you got into Harry. Sure. And then the Harry or the One Direction to hockey pipeline, which has now come full circle because we have heated rivalry, which has then made me not so much a hockey fan but definitely a hater of >> Hockey adjacent.

[00:10:47]>> [laughter] >> Certainly hockey adjacent. Certainly like I'd now go and watch a game. But talk me through your journey cuz that's like fascinating to me. So I came to One Direction sort of as a spectator and it would have been 2014-2015.

[00:11:01]So it was toward the end the end of the band. I basically I didn't get to go to any of their shows but I watched the last tour, you know, through periscopes basically.

[00:11:11]And um and the the way I came to it was really just paying attention to what the fans were doing online and it started out as all things do because I like diving down extremely strange rabbit holes.

[00:11:25]Um I had years earlier found myself in a rabbit hole about the Larry Stylinson conspiracy theory. Pro Pro-Larry or anti-Larry? Well, at the time I thought that whole thing was kind of cute and hilarious. I was like, "Look at this.

[00:11:41]This is really funny, you know?" And you could go back and watch all these old videos and go, "Isn't it cute? They look like they might be holding hands."

[00:11:48]And then I was sort of wowed by the sheer creative power of that fandom and all of the amazing art and the stories and whatever. And like many things in my life when I'm down a rabbit hole I just want to yap to all my friends about it.

[00:12:02]And so I was going through this phase where I was sort of like every time I saw someone I was like, "Oh, let me tell you about the One Direction fandom."

[00:12:10]And then it sort of became this thing where people sort of say to me, "But you don't really like One Direction, do you?" And I really I had such a knee-jerk reaction to that because yeah, I would demographically I was sort of too old. I mean, who's too old for a band? Nobody.

[00:12:26]Yeah. Um but they were like, "You're not really getting into this British boy band, are you?" And if someone tells me that I can't like something then I'm just going to double the [ __ ] down. And so I went through this phase where I only replied to tweets with GIFs of One Direction and I, you know, was constantly sending people stuff about One Direction.

[00:12:45]>> of spite. Yeah. One day out of spite.

[00:12:47]>> [laughter] >> Absolutely.

[00:12:48]Um but of course you can't do it out of spite for very long before you just become a genuine fan, which is what happened to me. Um and but it was right at the end of the the band's run and Harry was my fave and so [clears throat] out of that started following his solo career. And for the record everyone now um we're not pro-Larry Stylinson. No, actually I went back to the same conference many years later and I did a sort of a mea culpa talk um in which I said, you know, that whole talk was about how things break at scale, how everything starts out um working quite well and as soon as you scale something up, whether it's a social media platform or a company or whatever, it starts to the wheels start to fall off. And um and I was talking about that and saying, you know, what I had realized in the intervening years is there is no such thing as a cute conspiracy theory because [laughter] it starts out fun and then you just wind up on this path where you believe that like every paparazzi shot is staged and every person holding hands is a stunt and you believe it all the time.

[00:13:51]Yeah, and it's it's such a short leap from there to QAnon or much more dangerous political conspiracy thinking and then suddenly there is no truth in your life anymore and I just I think that's a bad way to live. So 100% we've been talking recently on the pod about what happens when no one believes anything anymore and how even though we are so primed to question everything, sometimes it's like, yeah, but guys, we have to decide on some sort of reality yeah, or else everything's [ __ ] So to be clear, I'm I love shipping. I think it's cute that we imagine romantic relationships with people and write stories about them. What I am not okay with is what we call tin heading in fandom and that is when you think you know the truth about someone that you've never met. Yeah, and then force them to stop being friends in real life and on the camera and actually ruins it for everyone. Okay, so big Harry Styles solo fan, I've been to see him live all over the world and I've got a group chat of former One Direction now Harry besties who have been uh chatting to for I don't know, nearly 10 years now, I guess. And um and like real life besties. Yeah, real life besties. We met people, met each other in real life and they're all in the States. I'm I'm the only one that's lurking in this part of the world.

[00:15:08]Um and yeah, and so when COVID hit and Harry put his tour on hold, one of the things that we sort of noticed was we were missing that um catalyst for gathering together. Like when he's touring, there's something so lovely about getting in a group chat and sort of going, "What's he wearing tonight? And what's the set list? And what cute thing did he do on stage that everybody's posted a video of?" And and there's lots of things like that.

[00:15:34]Like tomorrow's the Met Gala and we'll all be like looking for the photos and seeing what everyone's wearing.

[00:15:39]>> I'm feeling this way about Hudson and Connor right now.

[00:15:43]We'll run out of content and we're in a group chat with some friends that also love Harry Styles rivalry.

[00:15:50]We've been waiting for something to happen. We've been waiting and tomorrow hopefully will, but it's like Oh, yeah, I I know exactly what you mean. So you needed something else.

[00:15:57]>> something while Harry was you know, not touring and nothing else much was happening. And um there had been a prior fandom migration into ice hockey that had happened in like 2012, 2013 and it was post band and pop slash. So that's like people who were into either the American boy bands and sync and boy zone or the more emo bands, My Chemical Romance and Panic! at the Disco and whatever. And a bunch of those fans had moved into ice hockey. So there were good authors writing ice hockey stories.

[00:16:31]And even though I had never watched a game, didn't know anything about the players, occasionally a mutual would post a link to a story and go, "You don't need to know anything about hockey, you should just read the story, it's really good." So we had all individually read the odd hockey story where we're like, "This one's got an amazing time loop in it." Or "This one's you know." So Oh yeah, sure, you're reading it for the craft.

[00:16:51]>> [laughter] >> Well, I mean if you don't know anything about the sport or the players, you're just reading it for the narrative, right? And and anyway, the the NHL had been on pause for COVID and they decided to try and sort of resurrect the end of the season and they bubbled all of the remaining playoff teams in a single hotel in Toronto, which was called Hotel X. Which was just the silliest, horniest thing that the NHL could have done. Like all of these men who spent an entire season fighting each other on the ice literally years in one hotel. Like you can just imagine the fan folk. Yeah. And >> [laughter] >> and so we were like well that's pretty funny. Maybe we should get into hockey.

[00:17:28]Yeah. And so yeah, very much a joke at the start.

[00:17:33]But as you and I always say no gatekeeping. Doesn't matter how you get there.

[00:17:37]You know, this many years on we're all proper proper for whatever Yeah.

[00:17:42]>> Whatever meaning of that there is fans.

[00:17:45]Two of my girlfriends have learned to play. They play regularly. We do a fantasy league together. We've all got you know our favorite teams and watch games regularly. Were you guys aware of Heated Rivalry when you were watching >> read Heated Rivalry the book when it came out. Because I mean you know, if you're reading and writing hockey fan fiction then then Heated Rivalry was a natural crossover, yeah.

[00:18:05]>> because it felt like this phenomena for me even I'm fandom adjacent >> Sure. crept up on me. But for you guys, did you track like did you know when it got sort of Oh, yeah. When it was going to be made and then the casting announcements and yeah, all the way through.

[00:18:20]>> So when you first saw the casting announcements were you like this fits or this doesn't fit or I can't imagine this? I'll be honest when I first saw them I thought this is going to be cheap. You know when you see something that you was cheap.

[00:18:31]>> It was cheap but what we didn't realize was that Jacob Tremblay is a god and managed to make it look cinematic on a $2 budget.

[00:18:38]>> Literally.

[00:18:38]>> Yeah. So that first if you've seen their first casting headshots and stuff it was kind of like this is going to be embarrassing. And I think there's always a bit of a tendency like we always group watch the things when they come out whether it's Red, White and Royal Blue or The Idea of You or whatever. And there's always just like a huge cringe element to it. It's kind of like I don't know about this. And so we definitely were headed into the TV adaptation of Heated Rivalry thinking it was going to be cringe. And then did you immediately watch it and be like oh wait this is actually [ __ ] amazing.

[00:19:06]>> Yeah. And then the rest [laughter] of the world was like >> Yeah. And I got a I got a text from Rob that day going, "You just must be like the the smug must be nuclear powered right now." Like the I told you so of being into hockey.

[00:19:22]Um yes, because now it's really as a like well, I was into this before everyone else was and it's I well You never know which thing it's going to bring through.

[00:19:31]I would not have expected it to be this, put it that way. Well, no, but then before you when you were talking about how when people get obsessed with something and then start doing their own transformative works.

[00:19:41]>> Yeah. It puts a lot of pressure on the author to then so Is it Rachel Reid still Rachel Reid still there, yeah.

[00:19:47]She's writing another book.

[00:19:49]>> Yes. That gives me stress. I don't know how you would do it now, you know, like the Everyone's going to say they've come up with it.

[00:19:55]>> The property is no longer your own at this point and and I think already this week she's sort of digging herself various holes because she wants to keep talking about these characters and I just want to say to her, "Girl, just I know. Just don't. Just let them go. Like the they belong to the world They do.

[00:20:11]And I sort of I think back about J.K.

[00:20:13]Rowling before she went Um >> Batshit crazy.

[00:20:16]>> Yeah.

[00:20:19]You know, she used to drop these nuggets like years later and it would sort of be this, "Oh, by the way, Dumbledore was gay." Or you know, the worst one was when there was something that was released through Pottermore and it was like wizards used to just go to the bathroom in the street and then finish it with their wands. And you're like, "Girl, You don't need to even say that. Nobody needed to even imagine that. What are you doing? They're wizards. They surely they don't even need to go to the toilet.

[00:20:46]>> [laughter] >> Just magic yourself away the urge. So I just I just think sometimes I'm you know, Well, look, I don't think I don't think I would have the strength if I was Rachel Reid, I'd be like, "Of course I want to answer every question and I want to do every interview." But you know, from the outside I'm just like just let it go. For your own sake. But I mean, a lot of artists are pretty good at especially um singer-songwriters about saying once they release something into the world it's no longer theirs.

[00:21:10]Yeah. So, that's really interesting but I really hate this sort of modern tendency with music to be dissecting lyrics to try and find some sort of truth in them, you know? Like this is a song about this ex-boyfriend or this song means this and it's like Unless it's quite obvious.

[00:21:26]>> Well, sure. But also that's not what music's about. Yeah. And then also when um people try to take singer-songwriters to court because of the lyrics and it's like, well, we also can't be doing that because >> sort of crazy. I spent some time today going through the Chris Knox archive at the Turnbull Library here in Wellington for something else we're about to talk about. Yeah. And um and he writes this amazing New Zealand song called Not Given Lightly which is a love song and you know, the first few verses you're able to sort of picture that as being your love song and then in the final verse he sings, "This is a love song for John and Alicia's mother." And it becomes like this really specific >> Yeah. story that's then for someone else. And it's like it doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the song or the things that I project on it. I just think we shouldn't be looking for a single version of a you know, of truth and >> Yeah. Of Yeah. Uh It's so funny. We've gone from saying there is one reality to there is one reality to saying No, you know what? There's no single truth.

[00:22:24]Sorry.

[00:22:24]>> And we're not going to be consistent today.

[00:22:26]>> And you know what? We're hypocrites.

[00:22:27]Um okay, so famously I'm not going to talk about this cuz I talk about it all the time but I have built a business off of being a fan of things and it is in my opinion the best way to build a business because you really care about it. No one's funding it and it means it's very a word I hate, authentic.

[00:22:46]>> Yeah. Sasha, you have recently [snorts] built slash launched a business with some friends of the pod actually. Some friends of Sisca. You guys remember Slam Dunk? He and Sash dream team and some other people that we love around here Um have teamed up to launch something called Loom which is for the fans about music. I think we should talk about it.

[00:23:11]Yeah, so you're so right. Like I think I I've spent a lot of time in and around startups. I was a startup lawyer and then I was a startup investor for many years and I always said I was never going to start my own business because I think that's sort of what makes you so risk-averse. You're like, "Oh no, I would never do it myself." But sometimes you encounter an idea that's just like perfect for you.

[00:23:31]And this is it. And so Loom is about getting back to the album in music. And so for so long we have had streaming platforms that are determined to um curate our listening experience around singles and playlists and algorithms.

[00:23:47]And that's great. It's lovely to be able to chuck on a cute, you know, sounds of Ibiza playlist in the background while you're, you know, painting your nails on a Saturday afternoon.

[00:23:57]Um but along the way it sort of separated us from the thing that musicians care about which is the album.

[00:24:02]And they spend all this time thinking about which songs make the album and which songs don't and what order they go in and the the um photography and the artistry around the album and what it is that they're wanting to get across. And then that all gets chopped up and lost on the streaming platforms. And so we said, "Well, what if we could go back to buying albums, buying them and owning them?" Which is pretty countercultural in this subscription age. But what if for the price of a CD or cheaper than vinyl, both of which, you know, people are buying a lot of again, um you could get a beautiful digital experience that comes not just with the core album but with everything else the artist wants to bundle around it. So it might be behind-the-scenes photography or videography. It could be their voice notes while they were making the album.

[00:24:47]Might be their text, their director's commentary, just all of this extra stuff that um really serious fans of an artist would be into.

[00:24:57]>> As a fan, I and as actually like as a Gen Z fan who has grown up with albums when I was younger and then have definitely fallen into the certain people who love a whole album very few and far between um but I'm very much in the like singles. I love, you know, a single and I am a like playlist girly, love my curation, blah blah blah.

[00:25:24]>> Yeah, and look, we don't want to take that away from you.

[00:25:26]>> but the bit that's exciting to me as a fan is well, first of all, I'm assuming that the you're working with artists who have said that they want this and they're going to benefit in some way. Yeah, that's the hugest part for us. We all know that the industry's pretty busted and it doesn't really work for anyone anymore, but particularly doesn't work for artists.

[00:25:48]And so, the way this works is you buy the album off us and um 80% of the net revenue goes to the artist. So, and the and their partners. And so, it's um among the highest royalty rates in the industry and it's a really direct way for fans to make sure that like we all want to support our faves, you know, we don't want to buy a crappy t-shirt and know that $2 of that is going to the person that we stand, you know, we want to find a way to support them directly and we know that, you know, we're getting crunched by on every direction whether it's by Ticketmaster or by, you know, touring platforms or whatever. But but it's it's just it's an ugly sort of space. Yeah. And this is trying to get back to the idea that what if you bought an album off the artist that you love and they got paid properly? Revolutionary. Revolutionary.

[00:26:36]It like feels like maybe that used to be the way it happened and then we just really [ __ ] it up like with everything. So, does an artist come to you and you work together or you go to them, you work together and then you go on an app and like buy a loom?

[00:26:50]Yeah. Is that what it'll will called?

[00:26:52]>> Yeah. And then so you get not only the album, but then you like click somewhere and it also comes along with like handwritten notes or videos from them or >> Yeah, you're just going to press the go deeper button and it's going to take you in. You might get alternate versions of songs. There might be, you know, covers they did in the live lounge or um an interview they did on Radio New Zealand or archival material. And it could be new releases or it might be a legacy re-release that you might have uh anniversary album that you loved when you were younger and the the artist decides to release a 10-year anniversary or whatever and it comes with archival material from when they made the album.

[00:27:28]So it's really up to the artist what they want to share. It's really And so we built a platform that's really flexible for them to do that. I okay.

[00:27:35]Who's your dream loom? Who would be your dream person to Look, I I'm so excited by the artists that we >> Have we got? Yeah, do we Can you talk about any? Yeah. So I mean Bic Runga is is one of our launch artists which I'm so excited about. I've loved her all the way through. But we've also got um so we've got some classics like Bic, like The Exponents. Oh my god.

[00:27:55]But we've also got what I'm loving is the emerging artists. So Geneva AM who just won the Taite Prize for Best Independent Debut. Um Ernie [snorts] Ball, Fazerdaze who won Album of the Year last year. So these are all New Zealand artists for your international audience. And in that celebrate we're doing a test launch um in the New Zealand market so that we can make sure that the product's all like exactly as it should be before we go global. Um but we're already lining up Australia to happen quite quickly thereafter and then the world. That's really cool.

[00:28:27]>> Yeah. And so the way you'll hear about looms is from your favorite artist. Like this is really a product for an artist to offer to their biggest fans and So that'll be like guys, I've done this thing where you can like actually support me, but also get all these extras. Yeah, that's right. And so feel free to head up your faves and say, "Release me a loom." Oh my god, imagine it. Hey Harry Styles.

[00:28:53]>> [laughter] >> Hey The 1975, you took a song off your latest I don't think it's going to move the needle for Harry, but it's definitely going to move the needle for your faves who are workhorse touring artists, who are young artists, who are you know, emerging, all of the people that you really want to say, "Hey, I think you're awesome and I want you to have a great career." That one day it should be more than just um musicians. It could be like cameo.

[00:29:23]>> [laughter] >> Like actors can have them. They have balloons? Actors can have looms. Yes.

[00:29:30]And you can see Hudson Williams loom. I was going to say, I want to see what he's annotated on a script when it's like when it's like, "And now you're going to bleep bleep bleep."

[00:29:40]Oh, that's Well, that's really cool because I I do buy like for example, The 1975 daily out like an anniversary edition of a record. Yeah. And I like looking in the sleeves at all the bonus [ __ ] you get. Yeah. It's the digital experience of that sort of boxy feel. And I think I think the important thing is it's not going to replace all your music listening. Like this is for the thing that you're a fave of. Yeah. You know?

[00:30:02]And it's the thing that like, you know, what we do when Harry drops a new album and you drop everything you're doing and you listen to it all the way through.

[00:30:08]And there's only some artists that you'll feel that way about. But for those artists, you'll really feel that way about them, you know? Yeah. spend that time and you want to experience the album the way that they made it for you.

[00:30:19]How do you feel like you and I you probably more so than me get asked to consult on fandom things like this and people often it ends up you or I having to be like, "It sounds like you're just trying to take money from the the fans."

[00:30:38]Where does this sit in that sort of argument? Yeah. I think the thing about Lumeris we're just trying to find a way for fans to give their money directly to artists that they love.

[00:30:48]Yeah, so that's what's different from the corporations doing it. That's why it feels different to me. Our merch is so cool. Yeah, and there aren't great merch options these days. You know, you and I have talked about that before. It's like often the official versions are either wildly overpriced or not that great. Did you see Lorde just posted bootleg merch on her No, did you? She was like um in two minds about it cuz she's like it's [ __ ] cool but it's bootleg. I think it was Lorde. And the problem with the bootleg stuff is bootleg used to be often fan designed and fan made. So you could go on to like Etsy and find like a fan artist who'd done some incredible stickers or had made a great sweatshirt or whatever and you'd be like boom, I get to support a fan and get some cool [ __ ] And of course unfortunately now what happens is that stuff just gets ripped off and made by Teemo and Etsy is full of drop shippers and and so the magic's gone. You know, I think I think as fans we we want something. We want to pay for something and we want that to feel like an authentic experience and it's about connection with the artist. Like at the moment if you buy an album The 1975 don't know that you've bought that album. Yeah. But um you know, Janelle Monáe will know that you bought her loom. Yeah, that's really cool. She'll be able to like send you dates if she's having a listening party or wants to do pre-sales for loom holders or just share more of her process. So It kind of feels like well for it reminds me of two experiences. One, when you know an artist right before they blow up and you get that access to them that makes you feel really like Like those of us who owned Lorde's EP before >> [laughter] >> anyone else had heard of her. Yes.

[00:32:27]Um and it also feels like in the early days of One Direction like they when social media was first coming up artists were on it all the time for the reason of engaging with fans. Obviously they don't need to do that anymore, but I remember like they'd do like follow-back sessions and tweet streams and blah blah blah. And it was like you felt like you actually had a connection with them.

[00:32:47]Whereas now, people talk about community and blah blah blah and like they don't know what the [ __ ] they're talking about.

[00:32:53]>> Yeah. And to come back to your point about like um people trying to sort of tap into fandom, I think the thing that I get frustrated with at the moment is a lot of people who are sort of taking this point and look like at them like the zoo animals approach to to writing about fandom or to um marketing to fandom. And it's like fans see fandom as their identity. It's not just a sticker on their water bottle. And you're like, "Oh my god."

[00:33:17]Like First of all, it's really, really infantilizing. Second of all, it's such a shallow kind of take on what fandom is and all the different things it can be.

[00:33:27]Um and it's not new. They're sort of looking at it as if this thing has sprung fully formed out of nowhere. And it's like, "Come on now."

[00:33:35]>> [laughter] >> No, you wrote a really good essay actually that you can go and read on Tasha's newsletter. Want to plug your newsletter? Oh, my newsletter is called What You Love Matters because I really believe that whatever you're a fan of is important.

[00:33:49]>> And she writes really good [ __ ] in most weeks or like quite often I'll message her and be like, "Can I actually republish this?" And she's always like, "Yeah, you can." Which is why she's our senior Harry Styles/fan correspondent. I have a few more quick questions for you.

[00:34:03]>> Yeah.

[00:34:04]I want to know if you're a fan in 2026, where do you go? Like the internet's hard. Where do you go?

[00:34:11]>> Yeah. Where do you find your internet is hard? It's still Tumblr for me. I And I there's a few reasons for that.

[00:34:17]Tumblr's not algorithmic, so it doesn't sort of function with any of the same broken incentives that any of the other social platforms do. You can just go on there and whatever your latest rabbit hole is, you just type in H Rider and you can start following people who are posting about it. Build yourself a little dash of great gift makers and people who are recommending great stories and You control your sort of you control your feed. And over time when you spend a bit of time on Tumblr and you get some mutuals who you really respect and who are kind of into the same stuff as you, like that becomes like a really serendipitous way of discovering new things.

[00:34:53]>> Yeah. Cuz you're kind of like why does this person who I otherwise respect keep posting gifts from this hot firefighter show? Yeah. And eventually you go and watch the hot firefighter show and you know and you're down another rabbit hole. And I I love that. I love that discovery piece which is so hard to do on algorithmic platforms. And also it sounds like it's encouraging you to build connections with the people that you're following. With like they don't even have to be like parasocial or social.

[00:35:19]Genuinely just watching what they do.

[00:35:21]Yeah. And I think the other thing about Tumblr is it's still all pseudonyms. No one's over there posting under their government name. And that means that it's like delightful, whimsical, safe, a bit silly, safe and you just block anyone who's or unfollow anyone who's not fun and so you just get to have a really lovely time instead of everywhere else.

[00:35:45]Next question.

[00:35:46]What What is your reaction and what is the correct reaction to Harry Styles being engaged?

[00:35:54]There is no correct reaction.

[00:35:58]There are some incorrect reactions.

[00:36:00]There definitely are some incorrect reactions. Um look, if he's happy I'm happy. That's the correct reaction.

[00:36:04]That's how I feel and I also feel like everyone be normal about this on the internet challenge. Starts now. Yeah. No one was ever going to be normal about Harry getting engaged but I have seen some truly unhinged people and you know look I I was on a pod recently talking about real person fiction and and I was chatting a bit about and some getting too concerned about what Hudson and Connor are doing in their real lives and I I said the whole point of fandom is supposed to be fun. Well, exactly.

[00:36:33]>> to be fun. And if you wake up in the morning and you see a paparazzi photo of Harry's fiance and it makes you feel a bit sick in your tummy, you are not having a good time. It's not what fandom is supposed to be about.

[00:36:45]>> That's kind of why I wanted to focus this conversation not on like cuz I feel like we are seeing a lot online of the dark side of fans like the bad side of fans.

[00:36:53]>> Toxic fandoms. Yeah, other people are talking about it. We don't really need to do that here because I think even though we know fandom, we also know it's like yeah, it's not that deep. Like it is deep, but it's like And look, people have been writing toxic fandom stories since the 1950s.

[00:37:09]Like that's also not you know, so at the moment it's about parasociality. A few years ago it was about stan wars on Twitter and a few years before that it was about you know, whatever. It's like People are always going to There's always going to be you know, always going to be like Every large community of people produces toxic takes and bad outcomes. You know, how many times >> And do I say there is a lot worse communities doing a lot worse things than fan communities. Oh, yeah.

[00:37:35]And there is. We will talk about that on the usual episodes of the future of your podcast where we actually talk about the news. Yeah. My last question for you that I've just thought of right now.

[00:37:45]Okay, if you and I'm going to try to do it with you were to predict the next big hated rivalry-ish fandom thing.

[00:37:56]My instinct is to say something fantasy book related.

[00:38:02]Right. That already exists. Fourth Wing adaptation or A Court of Thorns and Roses adaptation. I don't know if those are in the works. Probably.

[00:38:09]>> They are and I will be left out of it because I don't like it myself.

[00:38:12]>> Yeah.

[00:38:14]That's what my It's probably going to be that. I imagine it's going to be whichever romantic-y property makes it to screen. And does good, I think. Or my other pick might be one of the fan fics converted to fic fics like um Manacled to Alchemized or you know, like one of those ones that started out as fan fiction Yeah. was republished as a as an original fiction. Um maybe an adaptation of that. And I'll have you'll have to tell me about that because I just I won't even know that. You'll be ahead of the >> I think I think the thing with the thing is you can't see these things coming.

[00:38:51]>> I mean I was deep in Hockey Smut and I you wouldn't have paid me to give the opinion in October last year that the world would have fallen in love with Heated Rivalry. And I mean that was just such a confluence of events.

[00:39:03]>> I know. Incredible director taking romance material seriously for the first time, determined to, you know, give it its due on screen. Non-hetero.

[00:39:13]Incredible cast of unknowns who brought their all, you know, like it just it was such a yeah, lightning in a bottle. It's literally generational, changing the game.

[00:39:23]Everyone, if you want to know more about Loom, what should they do? Check out lumemusic.com. That's l u m e.

[00:39:32]>> Oh, yeah. l u m e. Everyone, not the looms that are in Heated Rivalry.

[00:39:36]>> of looms. There's looms. I'm a Canadian wolf bird.

[00:39:41]>> [laughter] >> Yeah, I was going to say there's really good branding here, but two different Yeah, lumemusic.com.

[00:39:46]Um but yeah, just keep an eye out on your favorite artist socials.

[00:39:49]>> Hopefully um they'll be offering you the chance to buy one sometime soon. And go and subscribe to Sasha's newsletter. It is in the show notes.

[00:39:57]>> It is, yeah. And it's a mix of hairstyles and Lego and Heated Rivalry and what's good on the internet and it's it's a real mix, but um If you like the internet and you want it to be good or you want to inject a little bit of joy into your own internet, follow it, read it.

[00:40:14]It'll be in the show notes, so you'll be able to find it.

[00:40:17]Until next time you're in the newsletter Sasha, I think that's us. Thanks. Bye everybody.

[00:40:23]>> Bye.

[00:40:30]>> [music]