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Bad fans

Started by Utter Shit, October 15, 2020, 01:01:41 PM

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Utter Shit

Saw a series of tweets from Jordan Brookes about comedy fandom, specifically male fans who exclusively follow female comedians and ensuring you respect boundaries etc...had a bit of a delve and it stemmed from a group called Lazy Susan who I've vaguely heard of, apparently they were sufficiently worried by the behaviour of a fan to get the police to contact him. Turns out it's this bloke, and his timeline since this came up is...worrying, to say the least.

Not sure whether this is a "discuss the importance of understanding boundaries in fandom" thread or a grubby "check out this grim aspect of human life" thread. The bloke clearly has a problem understanding boundaries with regard to the women he follows, and doesn't seem to understand/believe that he's done anything wrong. Even in agreeing to stay away from after the police told him to, he's still complaining about being disowned by "the 2 people you love most in the world". Obviously this is not the obligation or the priority of any of the people he is upsetting, but he needs to be helped, doesn't he? And is this a well known phenomenon? I can sort of see how it would be easy to overstep the mark - the nature of a lot of stand-up involves creating a form of relationship with your audience, often divulging intimate details about yourself etc, so it's not a surprise that certain people might misinterpret that intimacy and think it implies a relationship that doesn't exist.

JaDanketies

Yeah this is creepy. Not to defend him but to further investigate his pathology, you can see he's been a fan of Lazy Susan for several years, and it's only been 2020 where their star has shone so brightly as to get them on the telly (I watched an episode of their show, it was good).

There's a singer called Fielded who is on the ascension, and who I've been a fan of for about two years. When I first got into her, she had like 200 Twitter followers, and I would tweet things like 'listen to @_fielded_' and she would reply pleased that someone was promoting her, and we would have a brief chat, and it was nice. I can imagine if she got to number one in the charts and was on the radio all the time, there'd be a part of my brain that would want to be like 'hey Fielded, remember me! :) :) :)' except for that would be weird and she would have better things to think about. But I would feel like I was more invested in her celebrity than the average joe.

Famous Mortimer

Not really a lot to add, other than agreement.

Reading those exchanges, I hope there's not a much worse end to this story from the Lazy Susans "fan". He doesn't think he's done anything wrong, still, and says they're the people he loves the most in all the world.

It's a combination of horrible things - lockdown, parasocial relationships fostered by social media, good old fashioned mental illness, people liking the Lazy Susans (just kidding, I'd never heard of them til this morning)...I wish there were a decent solution.

JaDanketies

Yeah I hope Rob has got friends and family that check in on him. I would say that there's an increased chance he's gonna do something stupid in the next few days or weeks. Maybe someone should shoot him a nice, semi-supportive message - but I feel like in the no-nuance world of Twitter, any nice words said to him would be deemed to be supporting the harassment of Lazy Susan.

Y'know what, if you read his most recent replies, he seems to be showing some contrition, and he doesn't seem to be a particular self-harm risk either tbh.

Quote@jordbrookes

I've read everything you put on twitter and agree with all you've said. I found it very difficult to come to terms with loving Lazy Susan so much and not pestering them, I know I did and I'm sorry, I never meant any harm but can only apologise.

They will always be the act that introduced me to live comedy and they'll always have a special place in my heart. I want you to know they'll never have anything to worry about from me, I will respect their wishes and I wish them every success in the future. Thanks



Icehaven

What was it he did that made them contact the police? His thread seems to just be protestations and the Jordan Brookes one is general advice over how not to overstep boundaries with no specific mention of him, but is it implied that the kind of behaviour Brookes refers to is what this bloke did?

Without wanting to sound callous it's all too easy to imagine an obsessive OTT fan being absolutely delighted at the connection and association something like this gives them with their idols. Knowing they're thinking about you at all, even if it's negative, is far better than them barely knowing you exist. Not saying that that's definitely what's going on with this guy but he seems fine going on about it and making sure people on Twitter will associate him with them, he's even still pushing some quiz about them ffs. Everyone's different I suppose but if I'd been paid a visit by the police over my (to my mind) misconstrued attentions towards someone and even signed a prevention of harassment letter, I'd certainly never mention them on the internet again.

Utter Shit

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on October 15, 2020, 01:30:26 PM
Not really a lot to add, other than agreement.

Reading those exchanges, I hope there's not a much worse end to this story from the Lazy Susans "fan". He doesn't think he's done anything wrong, still, and says they're the people he loves the most in all the world.

It's a combination of horrible things - lockdown, parasocial relationships fostered by social media, good old fashioned mental illness, people liking the Lazy Susans (just kidding, I'd never heard of them til this morning)...I wish there were a decent solution.

I scrolled further back through his history and it's pretty bleak stuff. He pretty much exclusively sends tweets to female comics, almost never getting a response. There's one to Lou Sanders calling himself "your favourite front-row no-friends person" and I just want to cry for him.

Utter Shit

Quote from: icehaven on October 15, 2020, 01:37:29 PM
What was it he did that made them contact the police? His thread seems to just be protestations and the Jordan Brookes one is general advice over how not to overstep boundaries with no specific mention of him, but is it implied that the kind of behaviour Brookes refers to is what this bloke did?

From the bit of digging I did, it seems like Brookes' tweets were specifically about him but didn't mention him by name. The bloke was keen to underline that he was given a "prevention of harassment" order which he says is designed to ensure he doesn't harass them in the future, rather than to confirm that he has harassed them already. Which I assume is essentially "we can't prove that you have been hassling these women, but we know you did and want to make sure you stop now", right?

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I read a blog post by a reformed stalker some years ago. They basically characterised the problem (at least in their case) as a form of OCD - they get the idea of a relationship with someone stuck in their head and can't dismiss it, regardless of what reason may tell them.
He also made a bunch of "Phwooar. Who can blame me, eh lads?" asides, which made me question how contrite he really was.

Gurke and Hare

He definitely needs some kind of help. The fact that he thinks he's been disowned is worrying - mate, they haven't disowned you, they didn't own you in the first place.

Icehaven

In one of the tweets he says something like "I've done nothing wrong, and she knows this", which isn't a great choice of words to use when someone's called the police on you and they've seen fit to take some kind of action. Puporting to know what she thinks and calling into question her justification in taking it to the police doesn't exactly suggest he's accepted that her interpretation of the situation was different to his, and was extremely negative.


JaDanketies

QuoteTo Celeste (from Lazy Susan), can I ask why I was blocked & barred from your shows 15 months ago, if you don't wish to reply I understand & I will not contact you again, Robert.

- in August 2019! So he got barred from their shows over 30 months ago and he is still harassing them and being their number one superfan. And he promised to stop contacting them more than a year ago.

TommyTurnips

Dude was recounting the exact date and year that he first saw them live and keeping count of the hundreds of days that had elapsed since he had last seen them. That isn't normal behavior. If that's whats happening on the surface, I dread to think what was happening behind the scenes.

Icehaven

Quote from: JaDanketies on October 15, 2020, 03:29:35 PM


- in August 2019! So he got barred from their shows over 30 months ago and he is still harassing them and being their number one superfan. And he promised to stop contacting them more than a year ago.

See...I don't use Twitter so I don't know, maybe that's normal behaviour on there, but there's something odd about the fact that someone would post a message like that in such a way that everyone can see it, rather than as a private message. It's almost like a brag, similar to the other one where he (sarcastically, but still) calls being barred from a venue and blocked from a website because of all this ''a VERY productive day!''. It's not at all hard to imagine he's relishing the attention he's getting (particularly from Lazy Susan themselves) and wants to spread the association with them that he now has as much as he can, however warped it is. 

mippy

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on October 15, 2020, 01:48:10 PM
I read a blog post by a reformed stalker some years ago. They basically characterised the problem (at least in their case) as a form of OCD - they get the idea of a relationship with someone stuck in their head and can't dismiss it, regardless of what reason may tell them.
He also made a bunch of "Phwooar. Who can blame me, eh lads?" asides, which made me question how contrite he really was.

Was it Richard Brittain?  He wrote a long piece about stalking a woman he fancied which was jawdroppingly obtuse.

mippy

Quote from: icehaven on October 15, 2020, 03:50:47 PM
See...I don't use Twitter so I don't know, maybe that's normal behaviour on there, but there's something odd about the fact that someone would post a message like that in such a way that everyone can see it, rather than as a private message. It's almost like a brag, similar to the other one where he (sarcastically, but still) calls being barred from a venue and blocked from a website because of all this ''a VERY productive day!''. It's not at all hard to imagine he's relishing the attention he's getting (particularly from Lazy Susan themselves) and wants to spread the association with them that he now has as much as he can, however warped it is.

I'm not sure it is - I think it's probably the only way he thinks he'll be able to get through to them. I think, from what he's tweeted, that he's in his 50s, so it may also be that he thought he was sending a PM but didn't.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Quote from: mippy on October 15, 2020, 04:49:35 PM
Was it Richard Brittain?  He wrote a long piece about stalking a woman he fancied which was jawdroppingly obtuse.
I don't remember, but the victim was Bebe Neuwirth.

neveragain

I also read through this Rob guy's timeline last night and there's some very grim stuff there (he seems to have visited all of Lazy Susan's shows in the past, always talking to them afterwards, making this ridiculously obsessive quiz, constantly saying he loves one of them and that it's the other member of the group that's keeping them apart - there are some terrifying implications). Really hope he gets help.

Menu

WHICH ONE OF US IS HE THEN??

non capisco

I sometimes wonder if Blue Tulip Rose ever got over Mike Read. I genuinely hope so.

Icehaven

There used to be a customer that came into a public library I worked and who was a massive, obsessive fan of Robert Lindsay. She had several keyrings with his face on that she showed us that I think she'd made herself, and the reason she used the library was because he's done a number of audiobooks and she wanted to listen to all of them. The problem was the library catalogue didn't allow you to search audiobooks by who the reader was, and even on the record it often didn't say either, so we'd have to ring up other libraries and ask them, if they had the time, could they look through their audiobook stock, pick out any read by Robert Lindsay and reserve them for this customer. They thought we and her were mad but it was something to do on quiet days and hopefully it kept her off his doorstep for another day. 

He's still tweeting about them. He clearly needs help and I hope he gets it. But I can't imagine how scary it must be for two young women to have this man obsessing over them online. Grim stuff.

There's that Colin chap in Edinburgh too. Sits dead-centre on the front row of shows by women (and he'll often see the same show several times) and just stares at them. I'm surprised he hasn't been banned by any venues there.

notjosh

I know a male comic who had issues with a woman who is unnaturally obsessed with him, facebook covered in pictures of him, commented on every status he posts, was often waiting around after shows for him to the point where it got very uncomfortable. I've not really pressed him for details, but I don't think he ever felt threatened, more that it was incredibly emotionally draining to constantly manage the feelings of an essentially unstable person. He's a nice guy so would never tell her to fuck off and I think has had to be very tactful in the way he has told her that he doesn't want to engage with her anymore.

I personally don't think it's anything to do with a culture within certain fandoms, just a sad pathological impulse that certain people are prone to developing. Comedy is a very intimate artform and I can imagine how spending a lot of time in small pub basements with really funny, intelligent women baring their souls through performance could cause a lonely person to imagine a relationship. I mean, I've seen Daniel Kitson so many times now that I almost feel like he's a mate. Luckily I have real ones (about 3 if I'm bragging) so I understand the difference. I don't really think there's a solution for this guy other than having people around who can give him some perspective and allow him to channel his energies in a less obsessive direction. As well as obviously venues being more conscious about creating a safe and secure space for their performers - for many reasons, as has been discussed recently.

As not everyone here is familiar with Lazy Susan I'll just add that they're a terrific act and well worth seeing live (though I wasn't mega keen on their BBC Three short). Their podcast East Coast Listening Post is a very good parody of This American Life.

Schrodingers Cat

Quote from: Wayman C. McCreery on October 16, 2020, 10:18:53 AM
He's still tweeting about them. He clearly needs help and I hope he gets it. But I can't imagine how scary it must be for two young women to have this man obsessing over them online. Grim stuff.

There's that Colin chap in Edinburgh too. Sits dead-centre on the front row of shows by women (and he'll often see the same show several times) and just stares at them. I'm surprised he hasn't been banned by any venues there.

I imagine it's probably a bit difficult, to ban someone in that case. If all he's doing is turning up to comedy shows and sitting front and centre, it might be hard to consider it harassment, however uncomfortable he makes the performers feel. He's not technically doing anything wrong, and I can see venues choosing not to set such a precedent. That's assuming, of course, that is all he's doing.

This Rob fella, on the other hand, makes me feel both sad and uncomfortable. Although that's partly due to the nature of Twitter anyway - he keeps putting out tweets which have absolutely no replies or likes or anything and keeps going as if people are responding (unless that's just the way it looks to me, but I don't use Twitter). What the fuck is that weird, creepy quiz all about? Someone who knows more about Twitter than me, is that what it looks like? Some guy just tweeting random questions addressed to no one, which no one responds to and he keeps going as if they are? Like I said, sad and uncomfortable. I hope he gets help, but even today, he's still posting about them! I don't know anything about Lazy Susan, but I feel sorry for them in all this.

Icehaven

Quote from: Schrodingers Cat on October 16, 2020, 11:13:18 AM

This Rob fella, on the other hand, makes me feel both sad and uncomfortable. Although that's partly due to the nature of Twitter anyway - he keeps putting out tweets which have absolutely no replies or likes or anything and keeps going as if people are responding (unless that's just the way it looks to me, but I don't use Twitter).

Yeah on that one about getting banned from a venue and website he signed off with "Sleep well everyone!" as if he's addressing his audience. Although tbf he kind of does have one now...

It's quite sad too how he doesn't seem to spot the contradiction in how he claims they're the people he loves most in the world, but that they don't know him (apparently because despite the numerous times he's met them they've never asked him anything about himself. Take the hint mate.), as if he can't see how he doesn't know them either just because he's watched a lot of their shows and had brief (and probably increasingly awkward) conversations with them afterwards.

Thursday

Best to stop talking about him really.

Schrodingers Cat

Quote from: Thursday on October 16, 2020, 11:20:17 AM
Best to stop talking about him really.

Yeah, that's fair. Whatever he's done, he probably doesn't deserve all this extra negative attention from the likes of us. I was just curious whether it was common to post like that on twitter, as if to an audience? Either way, should probably make this thread more general than focussing on one or two people as if it's a kind of modern freak show.

Thursday

Yeah regarding your question, he's rarely getting from any kind of response that I can see, it's not just you missing something with twitter.

JesusAndYourBush

I just clicked a link and saw that his twitter account no longer exists.

neveragain

Probably a good thing.