How Beyonce changed fandom culture forever

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]My pledge is that I will be pilot, pilot. YEAH, HE'S A PILOT. GREAT. WHEN I WILL grow up, I will be a army. Strong army. WOW, >> [screaming] >> GREAT.

[00:00:12]I WILL be a Beyoncé Beehive member.

[00:00:15]INSHALLAH, WE HAVE A BRIGHT FUTURE.

[00:00:18]SHE'S SEEN AS AN ICON IN pop industry and Queen B amongst her fans. It's the one and only Beyoncé. You've definitely heard of Beyoncé a few times in your life. Whether it's the memes, whether it's the music, whether it's her interviews, it's like, "Oh, BEYONCé."

[00:00:31]PSH.

[00:00:34]BEYONCé!

[00:00:34]>> [screaming] >> BUT DID YOU GUYS KNOW THAT SHE HAS AN insane fandom? It is all her buzzing bees called Beehive. They fully flood the comment sections online. They rebuild the internet every single time a Beyoncé drops a song. And they most certainly are not the ones to chill away. But who are these Beehive people?

[00:00:52]What makes this fandom so different from any other in pop culture? And why does Beyoncé's fandom still seem to be growing after 25 years? That's what I will be telling you guys today in reviewing every fandom possible.

[00:01:05]What's up, everyone? And welcome back to my channel. We are already on part seven of reviewing every fandom possible. I still cannot believe I've made seven different videos of this already. And up until now, I see this journey as just growth, growth, growth. In this series, I review every single possible fandom I can ever come up with. Literally to the detail down, I will try to review it.

[00:01:23]And today we are going to be talking about the fandom of Beyoncé, which we call Beehive. Beehive, Beyhive, you write as Beyhive, but it's really Beehive. And Beyoncé says Beehive, but at the same time some people say Beyhive. So, which one is it? I have no freaking idea. I'm just going to assume it's Beehive because Beyoncé herself says Beehive. So, I'm going to be flowing with Beehive for now. Also, a huge disclaimer before I'm going to start with the video. Beyoncé's fandom is so freaking big. When I say big, I mean multiply the Barbz fandom by a thousand. There were so many things to discover in this fandom, so please, please, please let me know down below in the comments if I missed any of it. Tell me all the tea, all the drama, everything that's important that I need to know so I can maybe follow it up with a second part or a third part. Because I'm going to be very honest, I have a lot a lot a lot of information right in front of me and I am pretty sure that this is not even half of the fandom's information. So please just add on to it so I can maybe follow it up with a different part cuz I think I'd be sitting here until next year if I was going over every single detail. So please do not shy away from commenting any extra things so I can use them for the next part. Also, I genuinely chose the most humid day of the week to film this video so I'm going to be shining quite a bit today. To all the beehive, if your honey is ready then let's get right into it.

[00:02:33]Oh, it's a hot as coochie out here.

[00:02:34]First thing I want to do is introduce you guys to who Beyoncé actually is. So Beyoncé was born on September 4th, 1981.

[00:02:40]She's known to be one of the best-selling musical artist in history to this date. But she actually didn't start as a soloist. Beyoncé actually started out in a girl group called Destiny's Child. It was one of the best-selling girl groups in history with its heights in the '90s. It gave a huge image to what girl groups actually are and set the bar so freaking high for any girl groups incoming. And while she was still in Destiny's Child, their fans would have a specific form online called Destiny's Child Connection. And next to that, they also had one specifically made for Beyoncé called beyonceworld.net. And that is exactly where her fandom actually started. They genuinely didn't have TikTok, they didn't have a Twitter. The only thing they had was a passion and also a very slow Wi-Fi network. So you can imagine these were actual fans fans. And in 2006 at age 25, she started her solo career.

[00:03:24]Her solo career was actually pretty successful from the get-go due to the fact that she was in Destiny's Child. So in that sense, she rose to fame pretty quickly. It was only a matter of time when in 2006 she released her very first album called B'Day. And this was the very first release that would change her life forever. This is where the present fandom would actually start forming. The first little bits and crumbs that would create initially the Beyoncé fandom cake. So it totally transitioned from Destiny's Child into a full-blown Beyoncé based fandom. And of course, she then continued making music with lots and lots of success throughout the years. You might even remember some of her very famous songs like Single Ladies, which was a very global song, or maybe even the meme of Surfboard.

[00:04:03]Surfboard.

[00:04:04]>> And 25 years later, we are here to discuss the number one fandom that rules Twitter the same way that King Julian rules Madagascar. And that is the fandom of the one and only Beyoncé called Beyhive.

[00:04:18]So, now that you guys know who Beyoncé actually is, let's dive a little bit more deep into the background of the Beyhive. The Beyhive is actually a decades-old multicultural fully globalized fandom of Beyoncé. They've actually been stated as the most dedicated group of super fans on the planet by The Guardian. That is bull I'm going to explain to you guys in this video why it is bull But first, I want to talk about the name Beyhive. The name Beyhive derives from Beyoncé's nickname, which is Queen B. And this is the nickname that she got because she is seen as the Queen B of the pop industry.

[00:04:45]And while Beyoncé is the queen of the pop industry, her fans are seen as the workers of the pop industry. They're the ones that are doing the streaming, they're the ones that are doing the promotion, they're the ones that are really making a difference out there with whatever they're doing. And that name, Beyhive, was actually invented by Beyoncé herself. So, in 2011, her website actually relaunched. And when she relaunched it, they basically posted a handwritten letter from Beyoncé saying that her fandom name was going to be called Beyhive. Beyhive, but it was spelled as Beyhive because it was going to resonate with her name. So, Beyoncé, you write it as b e y o n c e. So, the first three letters, Bey, and then you just put a hive behind it. So, it's a Beyhive. So, like a type of queen worker bee, like a beehive. is exactly how the official fandom name was announced. But, it also traces back to earlier than that. So, like I said in the beginning, Beyoncé of course had an entire fandom already when she was in Destiny's Child with that own little website called beyonceworld.net. So, in the early 2000s, she already established quite a big of a community that were all fans of hers. Early 2000s, okay? And I think it's very important to note this down, early 2000s, because some of the people that are fans right now weren't even born back then. So, while Destiny's Child's forums were already running and she was already establishing a name for herself with fans, some of the fans were just popping out the womb. And before beehive actually came out, when she was still in Destiny's Child, they would call themselves Beyon Turaj. And you might be wondering now, Dust on, why were they called Beyon Turaj? That ass, I don't even know why. I didn't even bother to look it up because that's not her current fan name, so I don't care.

[00:06:08]Her current fan name is not Beyon Turaj and I couldn't find anywhere why it was called Beyon Turaj, so I don't even want to know. Maybe for a different video, question mark? But the B concept actually traces back all the way to 2006 when she had her album called B'Day.

[00:06:21]Beyoncé is the queen bee, the fans are the worker bees, together they are the beehive, you know, very on brand. It's basically an entire ecosystem and they all make sure together that Beyoncé is on top all the freaking time. To be more exact, this is so extreme that there's even research studies about the beehive.

[00:06:37]Yeah, not a good look on your bees, Beyoncé. Researchers basically call the beehive like soldiers and workers of Beyoncé because the second that she's being threatened, they immediately attack. But is that really all of it?

[00:06:48]Because I mean, a fandom as protective as this doesn't have any weird characteristics or anything, right?

[00:06:53]They're just innocently protecting their queen bee.

[00:06:57]The beehive should low-key concern most governments. They're just so freaking unique and it's not only because their size. The most interesting part about the beehive that I personally found was the fact that they were so freaking organized. Their devotion, their stable behavior, even how much humor they interpret into their fan base, and also how much attention they put on the importance of being respectful in pop media. They are the most serious and also unserious fandom that I'll probably ever be discussing in this series. But we can technically divide the beehive into different sub fandoms and they're all just like a collective bodyguard of Beyoncé. So, the first one I found was actually the detectives. These beehive members do literal forensic analysis on everything about Beyoncé. It is like their only reason for being a fan is just to find something new that hasn't been discovered yet. Color-coded outfits, public speeches, even what she's wearing, the PR she's getting, the colors in the background in pictures.

[00:07:45]They will fully analyze it to the max.

[00:07:47]According to the Ringer, they are a well-oiled machine that operates like Reddit's true crime communities.

[00:07:52]>> Yeah, yeah, that's right. That sounds like a perfect fandom indeed.

[00:07:55]>> The second division of the fandom is the protectors. I will be giving you guys an example of how these protectors actually work so you can fully understand what is even happening. So a few years ago, the Renaissance album by Beyoncé had leaked.

[00:08:06]And the beehive immediately organized it to not listen to the album and to identify the person that had leaked it.

[00:08:11]They basically formed what fandoms call the elite protection squad. These are the fans that are the most active in the fandoms. Going off at people in the comments, criticizing other celebrities and fandoms, making very aggressive statements online, and even harassing and doxing people that seem to be a threat to Beyoncé. For all the people that do not know what doxing actually means, it's basically exposing someone's address without their consent on the internet. So you're literally exposing that person's address where they live and all their like credentials, which can of course be very dangerous if you have a very big fandom, especially if they are so protective like the ones of Beyoncé. So if you dox someone, they could be in serious danger from that. So usually when people are saying, "I don't like anyone from the beehive members," they are most likely referring to this sub fanbase. And then the last group of the beehive I found was the activism and planetary health beehive. These are the fans that fully focus on the activism of Beyoncé's fandom. So investing into good causes and making sure that there's political counter protests. They also amplify a lot of the Black Lives Matter messaging, and they even do the main promotion of the Beyoncé releases. And I low-key was getting kind of hopeful when I read all of this. I was like, "Okay, this is pretty much good." But I could not believe my eyes when I went over the material again. Beehive genuinely doxed and harassed a lot of people. And it's not only people that are outside of the fandom, it's also people that are inside of the fandom. So they would for instance dox someone's address the second that they would put on any type of commentary on like Beyoncé's albums or songs. Whether it was just like a negative commentary saying that you don't like it, or if it was general critics being like, "Okay, I really don't think that this song was good."

[00:09:35]They would instantly dox them. And I'm saying this is inside the fandom and also outside of the fandom. And the beehive also has a thing called bee hydration anxiety. It basically means dehydration, but then of Beyoncé content. And it's kind of like the dry period, so the ones where she's a little bit more quiet, where she's not really releasing things. And in that time, the fandom behaves differently than usual.

[00:09:53]They're of course still pretty active, but they are so much more protective than they would usually be. And also very easily aggressed because they are super sensitive to the fact that they're getting Beyoncé content when they're not getting it, which is technically like almost all the time because she's not releasing any new music right now.

[00:10:07]They're also known to be a very funny fandom. So like I said, besides the fact that they are known as a fandom that is very harassing and very aggressive, they're also known to be a fandom that's very unserious. They make so many freaking memes of Beyoncé, it's absolutely insane. For example, when Beyoncé got bangs, no one trolled her harder than her own fans. They literally like to laugh at Beyoncé more than her haters. That's also why haters are sometimes confused about the fans. Are they really fans or are they just really haters or are they just like laughing along? Like what is even happening? So sometimes dynamic can be a little bit confusing in the fandom. And besides the laughs, they are of course still a fandom of Beyoncé. Like those dark sides for example that we shouldn't forget. So we don't just have aggressive behavior online with the doxing. We also have people fully trying to change the Wikipedia pages of celebrities to make sure that they have a bad look on them.

[00:10:48]And they even give a bunch of death threats to other fandoms. It got so bad that even Beyoncé's publicist had to ask the beehive to stop with all the allegations. It's like a very blurred line between passionate and predatory in the beehive community. This is a fandom with a humongous quantity and an insane way of acting. And to me it seems like the quantity is the most questionable thing of all because we do know them as a huge group. It is a genuine territorial fandom, which made me think, what made the beehive this insanely big?

[00:11:17]The beehive are kind of like the OGs of stan like behavior before stan was fully realized. I feel like they are the most obvious fandom that has shown throughout time what it means to be a stan.

[00:11:26]Transitioning from regular fan to obsessive fan. A statement made by stan culture and participatory media blog.

[00:11:32]The Hive did not invent Stan Twitter.

[00:11:34]They just wrote the rule book. And believe it or not, but the beehive was the first ever fandom on Twitter to start fandom wars with the Beliebers.

[00:11:42]They were the first one to start drama with the Barbs. Then they started drama with the Swifties, and then with the people that are not Stan culture at all.

[00:11:50]The beehive together with the Barbs are literally the most fight inducing fandoms on the entirety of Stan Twitter, which is exactly what made them so popular and gained this much popularity.

[00:11:59]How they first wrote the rule book, the Beyoncé fans now rule Twitter. And it has gotten to a point where you cannot avoid it, no matter what. And if you really dig deeper into it, it sometimes feels like Beyoncé is the only celebrity on Twitter. And just to add on to that, they were the ones to introduce cultural language. To be more exact, pop culture language. "Snatched wigs" was literally said by a beehive member for the first time. "Wig flew to Jupiter" was also said by a beehive for the first time.

[00:12:24]Damn, I don't know what they have with these wigs, guys. I have no idea why wig is the recurring topic in this, but there's like so many different examples of pop culture slang and language that has been used in pop culture that was invented by the beehive. Even the bee emoji spams as an attack mechanism on Twitter started because of the beehive.

[00:12:40]And many people don't even know about this. Like, I didn't even know. I literally had no idea about this either.

[00:12:45]All these freaking pop media slang that we've been using every single day as like a joke and a meme all trace back to the beehive. And now we're being told in 2026 that it all traces back to the beehive in a random video of the random guy that you're seeing right now on your For You page. And the most shocking one in my opinion was "boy bye" and "woke up looking like this." These were apparently lyrics from Beyoncé songs, guys. They are used every single day now in everyday slang like it's nothing. And we don't even know that it's all because of Beyoncé. And there's also literal records made by beehive members. 8,868 tweets per second per second, not per minute, not per hour, per second when Beyoncé announced her pregnancy at the 2011 VMAs. 1.2 million tweets in 12 hours in 2013 after Beyoncé did a surprise album drop. 1.2 million tweets in 12 hours. This was known as the biggest album conversation that social media has ever seen. The beehive just makes sure that there is no other way to get around Beyoncé. This is not your usual believer or even Swifty or even Barb or even Blink or even Army.

[00:13:49]This is the type of fandom that lures you in and does not want to release you ever again. Which is exactly why the beehive is a genuine representation of a beehive.

[00:14:02]Now, let's get on to the important moments of the beehive fandom. It is still so freaking hot, you guys. Please, I need this humidity to stop ASAP. Like it's so freaking humid today.

[00:14:12]Why am I doing this to myself on this day? The first thing I want to talk about is a 2013 surprise album drop. In December of 2013, Beyoncé gives a surprise album drop. No promotions, no announcements, just a random drop of the album out of nowhere. As mentioned earlier, this album hit record of tweet amounts. 1.2 million tweets in 12 hours.

[00:14:32]It actually became the fastest-selling album in iTunes history in 3 days. And from then onwards, it became a trend to do surprise album drops. So, after that, Taylor Swift, Drake, and also Kendrick Lamar started to do a surprise album drop. It led to fans actually calling her the inventor of surprise drops and it made her even more popular in the industry. Next up, I want to talk about the elevator incident. In 2014, Beyoncé's sister, Solange Knowles, attacks Jay-Z in an elevator after the Met Gala. The beehive started an immediate investigation to see what happened and also why. They generated thousands of speculations and thousands of theories around this whole entire incident. And the incident even became one of the most discussed celebrity incidents of that year. The elevator footage even had zero audio, so for 3 months long, people were trying to speculate what the dialogue was about.

[00:15:17]And this was known as well as one of the very first times that the beehive got their detective status. Their entire online behavior on the situation showed so much analysis and so much insight that the pop industry immediately knew the beehive shouldn't be screwed with.

[00:15:30]So, this moment is so important in the fandom because it established the detectives of the beehive. Next up is the Super Bowl 50 Formation performance.

[00:15:38]In 2016, Beyoncé actually performed at the Super Bowl. For this, the day prior, she dropped a song called Formation, which was all about politics. She then performed the song at the halftime Super Bowl with 150 million people watching.

[00:15:49]Now, this had changed Beyoncé's just a pop entertainer to an activist artist.

[00:15:53]It also fully redefined what beehive actually was. Fans aren't just standing music anymore. They're fully defending a political statement made by the artist.

[00:16:01]So, it has definitely changed the fandom quite a bit. It wasn't just about fun and music anymore, but also the message behind it. So, it brought a huge division in who is a Beyoncé fan and who isn't a Beyoncé fan anymore. There was even an anti-Beyoncé protest organized outside of the NFL headquarters by conservative groups who did not agree with Beyoncé's statements in the song.

[00:16:19]Yikes. Next up, I want to talk about the Rachel Roy incident. In 2016, Beyoncé released a visual for her album Lemonade on HBO. In one of the lyrics, she basically says, "Call Becky with the good hair." Now, a fashion designer called Rachel Roy posted on Instagram with the caption, "Good hair, don't care." And the beehive took this in the wrong way. They fully thought that it was something against Beyoncé and that it was something like negative against Beyoncé. So, beehive went full attack mode on Rachel Roy. They started changing her Wikipedia page to make it look like she's the worst person alive.

[00:16:47]They even harassed her so much on Twitter and other social platforms, and they even started calling her Rachel Side Roy. And it got to such a bad extent that she had to go private on Instagram and had to fully lock her Wikipedia page. And the funny part about this is the fact that beehive accidentally started attacking Rachel Roy. They attacked Rachel Roy on accident, who is a famous chef instead of Rachel Roy, the fashion designer.

[00:17:09]They gave her hate comments as well and also accidentally edited her Wikipedia page instead of the one of Rachel Roy.

[00:17:15]The beehive got the wrong person who had nothing to do with this. It was seen as the first mass hate that the beehive gave online to someone and also as a moment of pop culture that is very hilarious for the accident because let's be for real here, Rachel Ray the chef instead of the Rachel Roy fashion designer, that's an iconically stupid mistake. Next up I have the Mariah Carey versus Beyoncé beef. There's like an ongoing meme where people consistently compare Beyoncé to Mariah Carey. Which one's better? Which one's the most talented? Which one can sing better?

[00:17:41]Which one has more revenue? Blah blah blah. And I think the best way to describe this is by going into the interviews. Allegedly Beyoncé stopped doing interviews since 2021 because people kept mocking her voice. They kept comparing Beyoncé's voice to the one of Mariah Carey and said that Beyoncé was a try-hard that was trying to look like Mariah Carey. Allegedly, allegedly, that's also why Beyoncé stopped doing interviews. She doesn't want to be compared to Mariah Carey. She just wants to be her own Beyoncé. Maybe she is just very similar to her. And according to fans, that's also why pop media is disrespecting Beyoncé so much. They should have never even made any comments about the whole Mariah Carey thing and that's now literally what's causing her to not do any interviews. So fans just started to becoming like very aggressive towards pop media because they knew that they were being disrespectful towards Beyoncé. Next up is Arianators with the beehive. So beehive and Arianators are known to be the two most get-together fandoms in pop history. Arianators are basically Ariana Grande fans. For some unknown reason, Arianators and the beehive are super close together and no one knows why. They're two of the very few fandoms that actually get along and don't have any drama together. And as I mentioned earlier, the beehive does have a lot of problems with other fandoms, but the Arianators is not one of them.

[00:18:46]They even support one another more and praise the other artists. They have gotten to be a multi-feud fandom. So usually Arianators are part of the beehive fandom and the other way around as well. So beehive is also part of the Arianators fandom, which is also an important moment of how they grow as a fandom and how they reach new people.

[00:19:01]This means that if there are new Arianators that are joining the Ariana Grande fandom, they are more likely to be introduced to the beehive [music] members. So this could mean they could potentially be a new Beyoncé fan as well and be part of the beehive. Next up, I have the release of the Renaissance album in 2022. In July 2022, Beyoncé came out with her album Renaissance.

[00:19:18]This album basically celebrates black, queer, and also ballroom culture. It has fully changed the game of her fandom.

[00:19:24]And that is mainly because it is so inclusive. It really made the distinguishing between who really wants to support this and who does not. And it also made Beyoncé a queer icon. It made her establish a huge name for herself across all different communities around the world. From queer to black to all other ways she just became known as an artist who includes everyone. The Renaissance album literally has changed her entire fandom because of this. The fandom got bigger, more supportive, and also established a name in wider communities, which I think is a beautiful outcome of an album that's so unique. And ever since she also comes up with the names of the albums as the acts. So, you have act one, act two, and now people are also waiting for act three, which is allegedly supposed to come out this May.

[00:20:05]Then I also want to talk about waiting for act three. The beehive is currently in full detective mode. Beyoncé actually hasn't released anything for quite a long time, and she was supposed to release something last year already.

[00:20:15]Ever since the beehive has been speculating and also waiting until Beyoncé releases a new song. For people that are not part of the beehive fandom, this is quite a questionable era.

[00:20:23]Especially the last two weeks, there have been so many new videos popping up and like allegations of it cuz the beehive has genuinely been waiting for such a long time to get act three already. And it has actually brought quite some attention as well to it and made sure that new people were introduced into the fandom as well. So, even though there are no releases by Beyoncé, the beehive still is managing to grow her name and get new fans to join. All her songs are viral all the time, and especially now are getting more attention than ever because the beehive can feel the release date getting closer and closer, which leads to the fandom now being hungry for Beyoncé content. Comment down below when you think Beyoncé is going to have her next release. And also let me know what I missed in this video as well because there was so much to unravel, and this is such a long video. I'm so freaking tired right now. And also make sure to comment down below what fandom you want to see in the next video. By the end of this video, you will also see where I ranked the beehive out of all the phantoms until now. If you liked it then please give a big thumbs up and also make sure to subscribe to my channel to see more of my content and do not forget to hit that bell to not miss any of my videos. Please do not forget to support me on my other social medias as well and then I really hope to see you guys in the next one. Bye.