Historical Poaching within Celebrity Fandom Practices

Abstract

Celebrity fans often critically read and make use of certain histories as part of their fandom practices. In their practices, fans of Chinese musical actors Ayanga and Yunlong provide two typical cases demonstrating both how fans poach a particular historical figure that, in turn, broadens their understandings of a celebrity and how fans poach history with the aim of supporting their fandom beliefs and communities. These fans mainly focus on using particular historical concepts to reinforce their interpretations and fantasies of their celebrities as well as their community practices while paying less attention to general historical reinterpretations, accuracies, and perspectives.

Keywords

• celebrity fan
• community conflicts
• cultural heritage
• historical figure
• reimagining
• relearning