ABSTRACT
This article explores the connection between media fandom and intertextuality by looking
at online fans who have moved between the movie franchise Twilight and one rock band
featured on the soundtrack. Drawing on Matt Hills’s work on “inter-fandom” and using
fandom for the rock band Muse as a case study, this article first examines positive
examples of inter-fan movement and the pleasures of discovering new fandoms. It also
shows what happens when such movement is blocked-when attempts to move beyond
Twilight fandom into band fandom are discursively policed by existing followers of the
artist. Second, the article relates these practices to “anti-fandom” (Gray) to consider how
anti-fan discourses and practices emerge. It offers an example of what I am terming
“accidental anti-fandom,” where seemingly unrelated fan cultures are forced into
opposition. Adopting the notion of the “interloping fan,” the article explores distinctions
operated by Muse fans to prevent the “infiltration” of their fandom by “interloping fans”
of the Twilight series. Given the cultural dismissal of young female fans in some existing
work on both music fandom and Twilight, the article draws on theories of distinction to
show how hierarchies based on gender, age, and knowledge continue to perform crucial
functions within contemporary fan cultures.
