ABSTRACT
Are fans just followers? Many psychological theories about the star-fan bond position it as a kind of pathology and so undercut fan agency. Conversely, Identity theorists often posit the fan as hacker: though this grants fans considerable agency it arguably does not describe all fan bonds nor agency itself. Before supplementing these theories with an existential account of fan agency, I suggest that any useful account should accomplish a series of tasks. First it should contribute to explaining the allure of a star, the needs of a fan, and the uses to which the star is put in the fan’s life. It should also help distinguish the unity and variety among a star’s works while also helping reveal larger ‘stages’ in the star’s career. Arguably it should help us make distinctions among the types of stars, fandoms, and artistic genres.
I use the polyphonic stardom of David Bowie to illustrate how celebrity serves different ‘navigational functions’ for fans (Mendes & Perrott, 2019). From his early work (marked by strategies for increasing existential possibility) to his last two albums and his video for Blackstar (2015) (where he dragged necessity into the light), Bowie utilized many of Soren Kierkegaard’s existential strategies. Like Kierkegaard’s, Bowie’s stardom is carefully designed to not be a singular signpost allowing all fans to reach one destination through imitation but instead increases fan agency while letting different fans steer towards different self-narrating goals.
