Everybody Hurts

The anguished blog and forum postings of fandom are rich material in this set of essays analyzing the ways in which people react to the endings of, changes to and disappearance of things they love--aging out of Backstreet Boys fandom, discovering a celebrity you love is a creep (especially useful these days!), people demanding a TV show be canceled because they don't like the death of a character, fanfiction revisions of plots, protests when Disney World shut down a beloved but aged ride. The scholarship is serious, and links these popular culture people and events to established processes like grieving and political activism.

Rebecca Williams and her chapter contributors have written a fascinating look at what happens when a fandom experiences an end - whether it is through a break up, a cancellation, a closing, the removal of a physical site, or even viciousness within a fandom that causes a break up with the object of affection. I thoroughly enjoyed this well researched and well reasoned examination of an aspect of fandom that has not received a lot of academic attention.
Everybody Hurts is a good introduction to this niche of fan studies. Each chapter could have been expanded into an interesting book of its own. I hope that the chapter contributors are able to continue their research and hopefully write more books on this subject.

A fascinating look into the relationships fans hold with the objects of their affections, and how the ending of those relationships can lead to real psychological and emotional upheaval. The scholarly articles contained here cover a wide variety of fan-objects. While many people think of TV shows, musical groups, and sports teams when they think of fans, this book also looks at fan relationships to things like amusement park rides. From bands breaking up, the end of a TV show, an amusement ride closing, or a popular celebrity faced with criminal charges, this book explores the ways fans both express grief and employ psychological strategies to protect themselves from it. As both a scholar and a fan, Everybody Hurts shed light on fan behavior that has always stumped me and explained what has sometimes seemed like unreasonable attachment in my own life.

What a fascinating subject for a book! Each of the chapters covers a topic that could easily be expanded to book length. The social psychology of fandom is a diverse and complex area of study, especially in our times of increasing interpersonal isolation. I have certainly felt the strong effects of a favourite show being cancelled, a band breaking up , my home team losing in the playoffs etc. The book therefore has a strong personal interest for most of us, I’m sure. Scholarly yet not “stuffy”, this book is recommended for sure.
My thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an arc in exchange for my honest review.

#EverybodyHurts #NetGalley

An excellent tribute book to R.E.M. Rebecca uses a particular approach to explore the fan's belonging status to the group by the influence of different factors such band breakups, to show cancellations, films, comics, television, and other social influencers. I recommend this book for Social studies classes.

Given how closely we identify with our media and how this has been going on since at least the 80's, this kind of book is overdue! It may also be a good resources for school officials and counselors to understand that "no, it's not just a tv show" to some people, and also to draw a line for when obsession becomes addiction, because it can happen and affect the human psyche. We love our media, it becomes and extension of us, and now with the prevalence of the Metoo movement taking down so many bad men, finally, a lot of us are dealing with separation and even revulsion with shows we formerly loved, and that deserves to be taken seriously.