Review of “Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara”: A true crime documentary about toxic fandom

Catfish fishing is perhaps the only place where the work of Tegan and Sara and Erin Lee Carr could meet. After all, the former is a Canadian indie-pop duo and the latter is a true-crime documentary filmmaker. While the titular twin singer/songwriters deliver beautiful and achingly catchy songs about breakups and sapphic longing, the latter filmmaker has the dark depths of shocking cases like the Bling Ring theft spree, the despised “Cannibal Cop,” the murder of the infamous DeeDee Blanchard.

In Fanatical: The catfishing of Tegan and Sarathe musicians and filmmaker come together to investigate a case that is less violent but still haunting. The search for the hacker/catfish who has been playing with the hearts and minds of the band's fans for 16 years comes to light where the highs and lows of internet fandom collide with the tender underbelly of fame.

Fanatical: The catfishing of Tegan and Sara lets us get a little closer

This fascinating documentary takes the audience back to the late 2000sas Tegan and Sara Quin were on the rise as artists, so was social media. Where the band – and particularly the outgoing Tegan – used to show up at the merch table or stand in the line of fans waiting to enter the venue to sign autographs and take selfies, they could now interact on message boards, Tumblr, LastFM and Facebook. But over the course of 16 years, many fans have discovered that the Tegan they thought they were talking to was an imposter, posing as a pop star for reasons all her own.

Carr steps out from behind the camera here, interacting onscreen with Tegan (and to a lesser extent Sara), as well as victims who tell their stories. These women share a brilliant emotional intelligence, as they reveal their pain while acknowledging the painful experiences of others. As Carr does with the killers and victims popular in the tabloid press, she brings a deep compassion to her protagonists, providing a supportive space for people who admit they fell for the scam. Some of them thought they'd found a cool new friend – a pop star! Others believed they had a secret romance with one. All have been duped by the fake Tegan, or “Fegan” as they're called in the documentary, as the investigative team tracks them down.

For the first time, Tegan herself speaks about catfishing and how it affected her personally. And that is the most powerful revelation in the film.

In Fanatical, Tegan Quin shares the pain of toxic fandom

Tegan emphasizes that a large portion of her fans are wonderful and supportive of her music and each other. However, she also makes it clear that there is a terrible underbelly to public figures, perhaps especially if they are queer. Fans develop a sense of ownership over a celebrity that can lead to blame and even fear.

For Tegan, the news of the catfishing was a penetrating betrayal that made her doubt herself and her friends. Because the catfisher(s) had accessed private photos, unreleased demo tracks, and even personal family messages, she began to worry if someone she loved had turned against her – or if this catfish could abuse the trust of her fans and friends by paying so much attention to her fans.

Fans develop a sense of ownership over a celebrity that can lead to judgmental and even fearful attitudes.

The most shocking moment in Fanatical is a tense phone conversation between Tegan, Lee and a possible victim/possible suspect who denies that their erratic online behavior was harmful to the artist. “You were not affected in any way,” they angrily explain to Tegan. It's a comment that reflects a common assumption about celebrities and what they have to give up for fame. Recently, queer pop princess Chappell Roan faced online backlash after she go to social media To tell the fans to give her space And exclude her family from their efforts to reach herSome suggested that she had “signed up” for this intrusive loss of privacy through her fame, as if fame could be achieved by signing a questionable contract with the devil himself.

Being famous doesn't make you impenetrable, and Tegan shows that by sharing her story – and even her doubts about doing so in the documentary, for fear it would only make things worse. Although she is composed during most of her interviews, there is no denying the emotional burden she carries with no end in sight. In all this time, Tegan has not only continued to release music, but also a memoir with her sister and a subsequent TV adaptation called Secondary school Ia testament to the couple's resilience. They don't let these transgressions define them or affect their creative drive.

Fanatical confronts the Stan culture

To provide context for the digital waters in which this catfish swims, Carr presents a comprehensive summary of how Fan culture has evolved over the past 130 years. This sequence begins with the backlash from fans of Sherlock Holmes (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's original version, not the intense Johnlock fanbase of the 2010s). From there, an expert attempts to contextualize how fandom hyperbole has grown from 1893, via Eminem's breakthrough song “Stan,” which describes an obsessive fan turning to violence, to the present day Recontextualization of the term basically “superfan”.

Fanatical suggests that this transformation of “Stan” is the distinction between fans who say They would do “anything” for their idol and their fans, who actually dox so-called “haters” or stalk the object of their obsession. In the rush to connect these dots, the documentary loses the nuances of the online conversation and parasocial relationshipsand his penchant for hyperbole is lost. A series of reconstructed tweets (with blank avatars and no timestamps) are presented as a slippery slope where online threats of violence can lead to dangerous real-life reactions. Here, Carr cuts to clips of pop stars being grabbed on stage or having objects pelted by the crowd, and then to footage of trials of convicted stalkers.

Perhaps this section is intended to give each fan a moment of self-reflection on how they might be casually toxic. But when you associate threats of violence and doxxing with tweets like, “In my household, we're fans of Lana Del Rey and anyone who disagrees can choke,” it can be eye-rolling. Such an innocuous tweet seems out of place amid the details of the attacks on Tegan and Sara, which include threats to out the former as a “terrible person,” share her personal documents with others, and create disturbing, sexually explicit fan fiction.

Fanatical: The catfishing of Tegan and Sara is a must

Perhaps Carr is taking on too much when she tries to apply what happened to Tegan and Sara to a broader fan conversation. (It's easy to imagine the film as a miniseries because the subject matter is so massive.) But despite this fluctuation, Fanatical: The catfishing of Tegan and Sara is a fascinating film because of the balanced empathy between the stars and their fans. When the fanbase becomes toxic, both sides of the equation suffer. Carr shows this through thoughtful interviews and also interactions between the real Tegan and Fegan's victims, who are brought together to pick up the pieces of this bizarre betrayal of trust.

Fandom should be a place of community, not of infighting and catfishing.

These meetings range from healing to tense. Carr deftly exposes the “unnatural” setup of such interactions by letting camera equipment and light reflectors into the frame. The point is not to expose the artificiality of the interview, but to reinforce why a particular person – who was under Fegan's suspicion – might feel unsafe in that moment. They are literally in the spotlight and they feel it. But from this uncomfortable position, hard truths and hurt feelings are finally spoken so that comfort can follow.

Fandom should be a place of community, not of arguing and catfishing. FanaticalTegan and Sara try to restore the joy of community by sharing and shaking off the awkwardness of the whole situation, not only warning their fans about this strange hacker, but also asking the audience to think about the impact shady online behavior can have on the real world. Yes, even on celebrities.

Fanatical: The catfishing of Tegan and Sara was reviewed at its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. The documentary will later debut on Hulu.