Before writing this editorial I have to point out that I do not intend to insult any site owners, it’s just something I am wondering about.
The thing I’m wondering about is fansites showing up for people that haven’t actually done anything yet. Being a fan would suggest that you admire someone for what they do, so to be a fan you would need to have seen something of the person being admired.
The best way to describe what I mean is examples; last year New Line Cinema released The Golden Compass which was basically intended their next epic movie series after the Lord of the Rings. It was a major flop so I doubt we’ll ever see a sequel to it which is probably a good thing. Another thing it intended to do was launch the career of Dakota Blue Richards who starred in the movie; The Golden Compass being her first movie.
I keep an eye on the younger generation in Hollywood so of course I looked into what she had done before which was nothing, the more surprised I was to actually find fansites on her. Why? All the people starting those sites could have seen of Dakota Blue Richards is the trailer for The Golden Compass. It’s just a trailer, of course a trailer can grab your intention but it’s impossible to tell whether you will be a fan of someone or not. So it doesn’t actually surprise me that these sites have pretty much ceased to exist now.
This makes me think that the people starting these sites actually bet one someone being successful so they can say that they run the first or biggest fansite of that celebrity at some point. I don’t think that works though, to run a fansite you also need passion to run that site. If you don’t actually like the person the site is on you have a problem, you can’t fake to be a fan forever.
Another example would be Noah Cyrus; granted she has appeared in six episodes of her father’s TV show Doc and five episodes of her sister’s show Hannah Montana but that’s hardly something someone builds a fanbase on. Especially not seeing her parts in all of those shows was tiny. She of course is going to appear in the DVD movie RL Stine’s Mostly Ghostly but that won’t be out until the fall. Yet today I ran across a Noah Cyrus fansite which hasn’t even been updated with the Mostly Ghostly news.
Do we even know whether Noah wants a career in show business? Chances that she wants one are quite high seeing she has three family members in show business but it’s not a guarantee. No guarantee she will be as successful as her older sister either, I would even say it’s unlikely. I guess people that start a website on Noah have hopes that she’ll develop into another Miley, though it’s hard to know what the real motivation is.
The main problem still is will the owners of these fansites actually be fans of the person in question? You can only be a fan if you’ve seen the person work and like that work (though a real fan doesn’t have to like every single thing of their idols does). I can understand the desire to be the first to have a fansite on the next big name in Hollywood but sometimes it’s impossible to predict. If it then turns out the person running the site doesn’t actually like the celebrity it’s just a waste of time. I would just wait until the celebrity actually had a career and I liked her, though I have no interest in running any fansite.
I just wonder what other fansites will start showing up in the future or on who, just because someone is cast in a major movie or being the sibling of someone famous isn’t a guarantee.
Image: New Line Cinema
Tags: Dakota Blue Richards, Noah Cyrus
