Amid the Civil Rights Movement, Black fans turned their passion for sports into a powerful tool for nonviolent protest. They boycotted teams that segregated stadium seating and plastered their communities with posters, while Black sportswriters like Jim Hall kept fans up to date on the latest boycotts in their local newspapers. As a result, teams began to change their policies to retain fans and avoid losing revenue.
Today, fans are still using their fandom to promote political and social change. They’ve helped bring down a manager at Manchester United, led marches to protest their club’s owners at Chelsea and pushed back against plans to commercialize the game in Liverpool.
When hundreds or thousands of fans participate in the same demonstration at the same time, the effect becomes magnified. It might not be noticeable if one fan boos at a game, but it becomes clear when hundreds or even thousands of fans do the same.
This article explores the emergence of fan protest stories in media, examining the ways that digital spaces facilitate these protests and how they speak more broadly to issues of ownership, equality and supporter culture. It also examines the relational and glocal motivations of fans in fan activism, and showcases Tumblr-based fan fiction communities that implement ‘Activism of Care’ to destigmatize mental illnesses and celebrate neurodivergent participants.
This research builds on the theory of Jenkins, who argues that fandom provides people with an investment in media with the potential to mobilize civic action. It also tests whether telling a protest story in a humanizing or delegitimizing way affects how credible the audience perceives it to be.