Using faux social media accounts, Tegan Quin from the Canadian band Tegan and Sara, was able to deceive their fans and Erin Lee Carr captured this story in her documentary, “Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara.” Their account is the focus of the documentary, however, Carr decided to also highlight how social media fandom changed from a place where queer individuals felt safe to a toxic environment that looks more like a parasocial fandom today. Additionally, this documentary is very informative and focuses on the social media era of the 2000s when people of a younger age used Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, while older generations engaged with MySpace, Tumblr, and Last. FM. Although this specific era was useful for the schemes, the format of the documentary is focused on true crime which makes it seem unfit for the underlying pain of humanity at the center of the story.
In the documentary, both Sara and Tegan’s names appear, however, the focus is more on Tegan, who is an internet personality and who at least one of the perpetrators impersonated back in 2008. Even though this was the case, there were still many imposters who tried to interact with the fans as the singers.
During the beginning of the documentary, Tegan states her concern regarding her and her audience’s emotions towards reopening this subject. The trauma that continues to affect the couple is the same trauma that is being displayed at the beginning of this emotional documentary.
The two sisters went on tour for two straight years and once they concluded their trip in 2011, they were informed by their management that their social media was hacked. Not only that but their private information was leaked too. Someone faked Tegan’s identity and was known as “Fegan”. This impersonator was able to create fake emails and social media accounts to connect with the band’s fans. Sadly, by this act, he/she was also able to exploit Tegan’s previous acquaintances from the Vancouver scene.
As the film progresses, we see Fegan’s victims who happen to be super fans in addition to the management of Tegan and Sara back in 2011. I also saw psychologists who studied and explained the consequences of catfishing. Many older fans were quite fascinated when we spoke about the importance of the 2000s and how many young queer people appreciated the different kinds of fandom available. While I wasn’t the biggest fan of Tegan and Sara, I still empathized with their story about meeting friends on the internet.
Tegan recalls that when Sara and she commenced their music career, they used to reply to all the fan emails themselves. Now, she has managed to create a healthy online fanbase.
As the group became popular, Tegan routinely did meet and greets with her fans, first before the show, and then later after the performance, she would even spend hours in lines to sign autographs. The nature of the band’s lyrics also supported the idea of openness which made them vulnerable to such deception.
This part of the film looks into what they define as the ‘dehumanization’ of pop culture icons, how love can oftentimes be so intense as to promote possessiveness or even violence. There is a specific demographic group that did not need to be educated about where the expression ‘stan’ came from, but as Eminem’s song ‘Stan’ is set to turn 25 next year, it’s a good time to shed some light on its violent roots.
Towards the end of the film, there are two final confrontational moments that don’t quite land as convincingly as intended. For instance, the JT character mentioned earlier describes their encounters with Tegan and how her unfriendly behavior towards them made the queer community for them quite unsafe for a long time. “Vancouver is a small town. Music is a small town,” they say. Even as they staged a scene that required them to meet for the first time in over a decade, his trauma was still apparent.
Tegan realizes that the pain is present, but she primarily cites it’s due to the fury of “Fegan”, not due to the way she treats JT. The answers she gives out reflect her trauma, but the nature of the film’s JT character feels like a box in a construction set rather than any sort of genuine healing.
The other parts contain a “Tara,” who is a deeply obsessed fan and previously operated a blog with “Quincest” fan fiction. (to readers, my deepest condolences if this is the first instance you are being exposed to this twincest concept, and if this is the case, don’t ever google that term ever again.) In the course of the investigation of the film, “Tara” held the broadest network of connections to these other fans obsessed with “Fegan”, and to Tegan and Sara’s Management, and to one of Tegan’s former partners. One disturbing thing, that Tegan and Erin Lee Carr do, is that while they are on a call with “Tara,” they cover their faces modulate their voices, and accuse “Tara” of being the “Fegan” persona. Of course, this tactic backfires.
I understand that the sequence is uncomfortable for the audience to watch, but I think the reasons are not what was intended. Yes, ‘Tara’ has done things that from a certain perspective tread on delicate lines.
It is painful to learn that some fans think celebrities like Tegan do not face real-life issues. Fans believe that what happened to Tegan did not matter because she was a singer and a public figure is an example of it. It is weird, considering how the entire foundation of the film is based on the process of undermining one’s power and catfishing. During the entire situation, Tegan and the filmmakers seem to be oblivious to how powerful they are. It is a shame that Tegan along with Carr, who produced the clip, did not walk away gaining anything from the encounter with ‘Tara.’ Now, they are stuck thinking about if it was even worth the effort trying to unveil what they believed was, ‘Fegan.’
At the end of the film, there is no sense of closure and it feels as if the 2000 messages exchanged during the interviews are forever going to remain undetected. There is no resolution, and the case where the criminal is still at large casts more shadow over it. After the credits started rolling, the only thing coming to mind was, will the fans who suffered the most questioned the experience ‘to be or not to be.’ In this case, is Tegan still pondering over partaking in the project throughout the documentary?
Fandom can be so deep on a personal level, but as Carr makes the film through a more clinical true crime standpoint, how the fans relive those strong emotions behind these feelings is pretty much untouched. For what it’s worth, those emotions are not effective evidence for the investigation.
Despite arguing how people should accept public well-known figures as people too, this documentary fails to capture a ‘people’ side.
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