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Produced by NetEase Technology's "Attitude" column

Author: Wenxi

Editor｜Dingdong

Fan culture and traffic kidnapping are once again directed at popular athletes.

The 2024 Paris Olympics is underway, and the phenomenon of sports fan clubs has sparked much discussion.pingpongWomen's singles final,Chen MengThe two top athletes, Chen Yuwei and Sun Yingsha, won the first and second place respectively, adding precious gold and silver to the Chinese delegation and presenting the audience with a hearty table tennis showdown. However, an incredible scene occurred outside the stadium.

In the competition venue, Sun Yingsha's fans occupied the majority, holding various banners and props, and cheering crazily for their favorite players. But they cheered for Sun Yingsha all night, but chose to remain silent and sigh for Chen Meng's victory, and stopped waving their cheering props. Some people even booed Chen Meng and gave her the middle finger...

This strange scene also happened on the Internet, where endless "conspiracy theories" and "opposition theories" irritated netizens. According to the "Weibo Administrator", more than 12,000 illegal contents were cleared in the discussion of related events in the past two days, and more than 300 illegal accounts were banned from speaking in stages or permanently, depending on the severity of the violation.

Behind the high-traffic halo of sports stars, the deformed "fan circle culture" is haunting the athletes. Some fans continue to make excessive, overstepping, or even illegal behaviors, which not only seriously damages the personal image of athletes, but also erodes the competitive spirit in the stadium.

one,

Being stalked, cyberbullied, and having your room illegally invaded

Athletes have suffered from the "fan circle" for a long time

Today, fan culture has almost "surrounded" the sports world.

Especially for athletes in high-intensity sports such as table tennis, diving and swimming, this scene at this year's Paris Olympics is not an exception. Their daily lives and training have been subject to various "harassment".

Among them, the highly-watched table tennis event has become a "hard-hit area", with the main players of the national table tennis teamFan ZhendongWang Chuqin could not bear the harassment and paparazzi of extreme fans, and spoke out on social media many times - "The Internet is not a lawless place" and "I hope everyone can respect each other's privacy."

Previously, a video of Wang Chuqin getting angry in the airport corridor was circulated online. In the video, Wang Chuqin was walking forward, and a girl next to him was very close to him, and kept taking close photos of Wang Chuqin with a camera. Wang Chuqin could no longer bear it and said directly to the girl: "Are you going to take a selfie with me? You are so close to me." "Stay away from me, stop taking photos of me, or I will call the police."

Late that night, Wang Chuqin posted a message, hoping to resist "proxy photography" and long-term following. He mentioned, "I really don't want people to wait for a long time and follow us outside the airport, training hall, dormitory and hotel, causing disorder in public places and seriously affecting our daily lives."

Previously, Fan Zhendong had also encountered incidents such as fans sending him off at the airport causing chaos, being stalked by "private fans" for days, and even having his hotel room illegally invaded. In March this year, Fan Zhendong's personal ID number and mobile phone number were exposed again, causing great harm to Fan Zhendong and his family. Fan Zhendong has also publicly stated many times: Don't bring fan circle bad habits into competitive sports.

In 2021, the Chinese team that won six gold medals in the National GamesTokyo Olympics200m individual medley championWang ShunHe appeared at the airport, wearing a mask and surrounded by fans. Then a suffocating scene occurred: a fan forced a hat on him, and when Wang Shun took it off, the fan shouted "Put it on me", and continued to put the hat on Wang Shun's head with force. Then he rushed to Wang Shun and started yelling and scolding Wang Shun. The scene was in chaos for a while.

Moreover, I don’t know since when, “fan-only” has become popular in the sports circle.This type of fans are also called "only fans", which means they only like one member of a group and are just passers-by to other members, or even fans who are malicious.

In the 10-meter platform final of the 2023 National Diving Championships, Chen Yuxi won the championship and Quan Hongchan won the runner-up. A fan of Quan Hongchan yelled "the referee is unfair" in the stands, believing that Quan Hongchan was "suppressed". After the game, there were many public opinions on the Internet questioning "unfair refereeing" and "deliberately suppressing scores", and even attacks and insults against Chen Yuxi, and the hostility was puzzling.

In the women's singles final of the WTT Saudi Grand Slam in May this year, Chinese table tennis player Chen Meng won both the women's singles and women's doubles championships in one fell swoop. However, she was fiercely criticized by irrational fans of her opponents and was even described as a "thief" who relied on luck and backdoors to get the opportunity to participate in the Paris Olympics. Some people even attacked and abused Chen Meng directly under her social media account, causing serious harm to the athlete's body and mind.

It can be said that the sports circle has suffered from the "fan circle" for a long time.

Turning sports stadiums into another form of "star chasing scene", the deformed fan culture has seriously disrupted the lives and training of athletes, and may even directly affect the athletes' mental state and performance, seriously affecting the healthy development of the ecological environment within the sports circle.

2. The deformed “idol supremacy” and the deep industry chain of star-chasing

What is “idol”?

The word "爱豆" originally came from the name of young idols in Japan and South Korea, which is derived from the transliteration of the English word "idol". This word is very popular in fan culture, used to express love and support for idols, and is also a rapidly developing and far-reaching popular culture in recent years.

On the one hand, idols can provide role models for young people, helping them learn to imitate in the process of shaping themselves and finding the direction of growth. But on the other hand, some fans may follow idols without any standards or bottom line, such as absolutely glorifying idols with "idol supremacy" and belittling other opponents with "pull-down attacks".

The biggest difference between the "fan circle" formed around a certain "idol" and ordinary fans is that it is an organized and profit-oriented professional circle.Generally, individual fans are gathered together by voting groups, data groups, anti-black comment control groups and other organizations. Through management and division of labor, a unified, efficient and standardized strict organization "fighting for the honor of idols" is formed.

On weekdays, they either sign in and like to collect data, or vote for idols and win honors, or report unfavorable remarks about idols on major platforms. The big fans give the orders, and the fans in the group rush forward in an orderly and well-trained manner.

However, once they think that someone or something affects the interests of their "idol", the "fan circle" will gather all its firepower to act out against the outside world, controlling comments, massacring, stepping on each other, blacklisting, collective human flesh search, online intimidation... Infighting within fan circles has become common over the years.

As the popularity and traffic of sports stars continue to gather, a series of gray profit industry chains have also unfolded, making the behavior of fanatical star-chasers more and more crazy and uncontrollable.

"Departure from ××, arrival at hb (flight abbreviation)", it is not uncommon to see athletes' flight information being sold or sought on major social media platforms, and athletes' personal information has become a "commodity" with a clear price tag. Behind this, proxy photography, direct photography, and autographed photos are all businesses, and more profit-seeking entities are constantly derived. These athlete materials will be quickly posted on social media and then publicly sold.

Fans' "love" has long been quantified by the market.According to statistics, the market size of the star-chasing market has reached billions of dollars, and in China, the market size has exceeded 100 billion yuan.

At present, the frequent chaos in sports fan circles has attracted the attention and concern of all parties.

Starting from April 23, several Internet platforms launched a three-month special campaign to manage the sports fan circle ecosystem. On May 15, the State Sports General Administration publicly stated that sports should not and should not be allowed to become the "trigger" and "hotbed" for the continued growth of abnormal fan circle culture.

However, as a social phenomenon, "fan circle culture" is difficult to completely die out, and may even evolve into new forms as time and environment change. When dealing with fan circle culture, we can neither deny it in general nor leave it alone. How to guide it correctly is a long-term test that must be faced.

Talking about the current phenomenon of sports fan clubs, Olympic champion Deng Yaping once said in an interview, "It's a very good thing to like a certain athlete and to like a certain sport because of the athlete. But we only need to talk about who we like, and there is no need to attack others. We are all on the Chinese team, and the most important thing is to respect each other."

The charm of competitive sports lies in hard work, in challenging the limits, and in the various uncertainties on the field. Don't let the "smoky" fan circle culture trap any athlete who is fighting for his dream.