I suppose there are reasons pushing for the study of recent popular culture (easier access to interviewees, for one), but often I get the feeling that things get lost in the recency and media attention: studying Twilight has this weird trendy/journalistic feeling to it, no matter what angle you take on it, and we don't currently have much perspective on how it'll play out. I'd much rather see the "anti-fan" concept (which is interesting) studied with a less recent example where we have a lot more distance on the height of the fandom/antifandom, e.g. by studying the disco-haters of the late 1970s or some other example > 5 years old.
I had a brief look and can't really find any detailed empirical work on the matter. The paper by Gray cited in the article does not really have much empirical work behind it - but is more about identifying the concept of the anti-fan as such and acting as a call to action for the research that is needed.
Given that the concept is relatively new, it may be extremely difficult to identify historical records of genuine anti-fans back in the day, since many may not have known that this is the sort of practice they were engaged in.
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[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 9.6 ms ] threadGiven that the concept is relatively new, it may be extremely difficult to identify historical records of genuine anti-fans back in the day, since many may not have known that this is the sort of practice they were engaged in.