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      K-Pop Stars BTS Will Release a Book Telling Their Own Story in July

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      The announcement by their U.S. publisher, Flatiron Books, came after days of frantic speculation by their fervent fans.The K-pop juggernaut BTS will release an oral history of the group in South Korea and the United States on July 9, its U.S. publisher, Flatiron Books, said on Thursday.The book, “Beyond The Story: 10-Year Record of BTS,” was written by the journalist Myeongseok Kang and members of the group, and it will be published in South Korea by Big Hit Music.The news confirms intense fan speculation over several days that Flatiron would publish a nonfiction title about a pop culture phenomenon this summer. The rumor spread once booksellers in the United States noticed last weekend that a mystery title with a July 9 release date was coming. It had an initial print run of one million copies and required booksellers to sign an affidavit to stock copies on publication day.Fans searched for clues of who the mystery author might be, zeroing in at first on Taylor Swift and citing her frequent use of the number 13 as evidence. (The book’s original announcement was slated for June 13.) Swift had also highlighted the date July 9 in her most recent album announcement.But June 13 and July 9 are also significant dates in the BTS community. The group debuted on the first date, and BTS’s passionate fan base, Army — which stands for Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth — was founded on the second. The book’s release will coincide with the fan group’s 10th anniversary.As speculations mounted, preorders drove the still-untitled book up best-seller lists at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.The English translation of the book was led by Anton Hur, in collaboration with Clare Richards and Slin Jung. The U.S. edition will be 544 pages and contain exclusive photographs, according to Flatiron, and will have a first printing of one million copies.The group’s powerful, very online fandom has become famous worldwide, known for supporting the group by buying multiple versions of each physical release and running intricately coordinated social media campaigns. Devotees also assist each other by translating BTS content into English and other languages and providing robust fan communities.It is difficult to overstate BTS’s influence, in music and beyond. Last year, the seven members of the group — RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook — visited the White House to speak against anti-Asian American hate crimes.Since 2013, BTS has released nine albums and six EPs and helped K-pop become a dominant global force. In 2018, the group became the first K-pop act to hit No. 1 on Billboard’s album chart with “Love Yourself: Tear,” a feat it repeated twice in 2019 with “Love Yourself: Answer” and “Map of the Soul: Persona” — matching a record set by the Beatles.In June 2022, after yet another No. 1 album — the three-disc compilation “Proof” — BTS released a video on social media announcing it was going on hiatus so its members could focus on solo creative projects. “I should be writing about what I’m feeling and the stories I want to tell,” Suga said, “but I’m just forcefully squeezing out words because I need to satisfy someone.” The clip drew more than 16 million views in two days. In October of last year, the group’s label confirmed that its members would enlist in South Korea’s military as required by law. Some of them already have.The hiatus was devastating news not only for BTS’s fervent fan base, but also for the entertainment business. The day after the news broke, the stock price for Hybe, the South Korean entertainment company behind the group, dropped 28 percent, which shaved $1.7 billion off its market value. As the group’s popularity has grown, it has become a pillar of South Korea’s economy, contributing $3.5 billion annually by 2020, according to the Hyundai Research Institute.Many fans say that while they are drawn to BTS’s music and performances, they are also inspired by its messages of love and acceptance, which have led some to become more politically active. “They’re really, really passionate people who just fight for what they love,” Nicole Santero, a fan who ran a data-focused BTS Twitter account, told The Times in 2020. “Those characteristics translate well when you look at social issues.”Caryn Ganz More

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      Beyoncé Returns to the Stage With a ‘Renaissance’ Spectacle

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      The pop superstar opened her first solo tour in seven years in Stockholm and performed tracks from her acclaimed 2022 album, but left most of the choreography to her dancers.They came from Iceland, Portugal, Switzerland, Detroit. Dressed in “alien superstar” chic — rhinestone boots and disco-ready, glittery cowboy hats — a huge crowd gathered on Wednesday at the Friends Arena, their cheers reaching an almost deafening pitch as a woman gradually emerged from below, lights bouncing off the sequins on her outfit.Beyoncé was back onstage.The singer, style icon and heroine of the global BeyHive fan community is on the road solo for the first time in seven years with her Renaissance World Tour, which opened on Wednesday in Sweden with elaborate visuals but with unusual physical restraint from Beyoncé herself.Onstage at the 50,000-capacity arena in Stockholm, she appeared flanked by dancers and backed by a live band, performing for three hours before a giant screen that displayed a constantly morphing tableau that was part retrofuturism and part disco fantasia. At one point, the 41-year-old artist traded dance moves with a pair of giant robot arms; at another, an image of a silvery alien dancer in heels hovered over a disco ball.But for one of pop’s ultimate dancing queens, Beyoncé’s performance was far less physical than on past tours. She often seemed to keep her feet stationary while shaking her upper body, and appeared to favor one leg. She spent much of one song sitting atop a prop.Fans came from around the globe, drawn in part by the more affordable ticket prices in Sweden.Felix Odell for The New York TimesThe star’s eagle-eyed fan community speculated online that the singer was injured. A spokeswoman for Beyoncé did not respond to questions about her performance.Kristin Hulden, a Swedish fashion student who was wearing an embroidered jacket she had made that depicted Beyoncé riding a horse (the image on the cover of her latest album, “Renaissance”), said she had noticed the star’s more limited movement, but it hadn’t bothered her. “The show was so great,” she said. “The dancers, the visual — it never stopped.” Like many fans at the opening-night gig, she will attend several shows on the tour, returning to Friends Arena on Thursday and then heading to Hamburg, Germany, in June. “I’m very excited,” she added.Competition for tickets to pop’s biggest, priciest concerts has been stiff, and many in the crowd had traveled far — even thousands of miles — to guarantee that they would see Beyoncé this time. (Thanks in part to favorable exchange rates, tickets in Sweden ended up being far cheaper than in the United States or Britain, costing between 650 and 1,495 Swedish kronor, or about $63 to $146.)Rhoyle Ivy King, 26, an actor wearing a fluorescent turquoise jumpsuit and shades, said before the show that he had come from Los Angeles for the concert, spending about $2,500. “Anything for mother,” he said. “Seriously.”Beyoncé has not toured on her own since her Formation outing in 2016, following the release of her pop-culture-dominating “Lemonade.” In 2018, she performed at the Coachella festival and hit the road with her husband, Jay-Z, for their joint On the Run II Tour.Because Beyoncé offered few visual cues for her “Renaissance” era beyond her album artwork, fans came decked out in looks inspired by the disco cowboy aesthetic she nodded to there. The new tour is for “Renaissance,” a homage to decades of Black queer dance music. The LP, her seventh solo release, opened at No. 1 last summer, and its single “Break My Soul” became her first solo No. 1 hit since “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” in 2008.It was, notably, the first Beyoncé album in nearly a decade to arrive without a full suite of accompanying videos. Starting with her surprise self-titled LP in 2013, the singer has become synonymous with elaborately choreographed and highly produced visual pieces.On Wednesday, she revealed several futuristic fashion choices: an iridescent-effect minidress; a shimmery gold bodysuit festooned with black opera gloves covering strategic locations; a black-and-silver suit that resembled royal armor. At one point, Beyoncé was dressed in sci-fi bee chic: a yellow-and-black leotard with cutouts and sharp angles, and knee-high black boots. The cyborg theme was fully reflected at the merch stands, with T-shirts, hoodies and totes carrying images of Beyoncé in silvery, “Metropolis”-like robot costumes.The set list featured songs from her debut solo album from 2003 (“Crazy in Love”), her 2008 double album “I Am … Sasha Fierce” (“Diva”), her 2011 LP “4” (including “Love on Top,” which Beyoncé let the crowd finish for her) and her self-titled 2013 release (“Drunk in Love”), alongside a host of tracks from “Renaissance,” including “Move,” “America Has a Problem” and “Cozy.” For the closer, “Summer Renaissance,” the singer sat atop a silver horse that was hoisted from the rafters and then ascended above the crowd by herself, sporting a grand, sparkling cape.Beyoncé has not toured on her own since her Formation outing in 2016, following the release of her album “Lemonade.”Felix Odell for The New York TimesIn February, Beyoncé announced the Renaissance tour by simply posting an image to social media. Three months earlier, the demand for tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour had led to a Ticketmaster meltdown, leaving many fans frustrated and calling for Washington to examine the outsize market power of Ticketmaster and its corporate parent, Live Nation.To handle the ticketing for Beyoncé’s tour — which is being promoted by Beyoncé’s company, Parkwood Entertainment, and produced by Live Nation — Ticketmaster had an elaborate plan that included rolling out sales in batches, rather than all at once, and the process went far more smoothly.Still, Beyoncé drew controversy this year when she performed a private show at a luxury hotel in Dubai, in United Arab Emirates, where homosexuality is illegal. “Renaissance” draws heavily on dance music of the 1990s and L.G.B.T.Q. culture; at the Friends Arena, signs denoted some “gender neutral restrooms” in the official tour font.Oless Mauigoa, 35, had traveled from Salt Lake City and said that “Renaissance” had made him desperate to see the show. “I feel like it’s dedicated to a lot of gay styles,” he said. “I’m connected to it more than anything she’s done.”Beyoncé played into those connections throughout the show, nodding to the ballroom and vogueing culture that inspired “Renaissance” at the end of the night by giving the stage over to her dancers, who tried to outperform each other to rousing cheers.Beyoncé’s tour continues in Stockholm on Thursday and then arrives in London for five shows at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, starting May 29. Its North American leg will open in Toronto on July 9, will head to MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., on July 29 and 30 and will close in New Orleans at the Caesars Superdome on Sept. 27. More

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      Ticketmaster Finds Itself in a Royal Mess Over Coronation Concert

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      Some British residents said they received misleading emails suggesting they had secured free tickets to the concert for the coronation of King Charles III at Windsor Castle.At five minutes past noon on Tuesday, Ticketmaster sent Joe Holmes and many others in Britain an email: “Congratulations, you have been successful in the ballot” for two tickets to King Charles’s coronation concert.Mr. Holmes, a student in his final year at the University of Essex, saw it immediately while checking his email and rushed to click the link to claim his tickets to the concert, an official coronation event that will take place a day after King Charles III is crowned — only to be met with a message saying that none were available.He was one of dozens of people who believed they had secured entry to the concert before being quickly let down once they tried to collect tickets. Many Twitter users posted screenshots of the same “congratulations” email Mr. Holmes received this week and expressed frustration about the confusing messaging; one user called the email “disgraceful” and said Ticketmaster had a “total shambles of a system.”It was “immediate excitement and then immediate disappointment,” Mr. Holmes said on Friday. He had already sent a screenshot of the email to his sister in celebration and believed his next step would be to book a train to the event.Ticketmaster was tasked with issuing 10,000 free tickets to the concert being held on May 7 through balloting, a process that fans are saying the site has made a mess of. It comes a few months after the company canceled the public sale of tickets to Taylor Swift’s latest tour because of high demand, which spurred public outrage, a lawsuit from fans and a Senate hearing.Ticketmaster said in an emailed statement on Friday that people who had been selected in earlier rounds of balloting had three weeks to claim their tickets to the coronation concert. On Tuesday, after that time had expired, “unclaimed tickets were released on a first-come, first-served basis to those who had previously applied and were unsuccessful,” the company said. “These inevitably went very quickly.”A tweet from the company’s U.K. page on Tuesday announced the tickets had “sold out.” Replies to the tweet included stories of experiences similar to that of Mr. Holmes.The application to be included in the balloting was open from Feb. 10 through Feb. 28. Tickets were to be allocated “based on the geographical spread of the U.K. population,” according to the British royal family’s website.Katy Perry, Lionel Richie and Take That will headline the concert, which is being organized and broadcast by the BBC. It is the first to be held on the grounds of Windsor Castle, the royal family said. Mr. Holmes, who said his mother traveled to London for the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana in 1981, wanted to attend the concert to be present for “a part of history.”The email from Ticketmaster said Mr. Holmes was one of a “randomly selected group of ballot winners” offered tickets in a “supplementary round” that would be on “a first-come, first-served basis.” It urged him to “act quickly.” But farther down, it said he would have until noon on April 27 to claim the tickets, after which “they will be re-allocated.”Even so, Mr. Holmes said he acted within minutes to no avail. It was unclear how many tickets were actually available, or how many people received the same email about them.He searched Twitter and found many others who said they had a similar experience.Janine Barclay, 58, who received the same email on Tuesday, declined a lunch invitation for May 7 because she thought she was headed to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “I was telling everybody about this,” she said on Friday, “and then I’ve got egg on my face.”She received the email while she was out of the house and put off claiming the tickets, thinking she had a couple of days. Ms. Barclay said she was grateful that she lived close enough to Windsor Castle that her instinct was not to book a hotel or travel.“They misled people,” Mr. Holmes said, but he added that he knew to expect disappointment in these situations. “We know how it goes with concerts these days,” he said. “It’s so hard to get tickets, it’s an event itself.” He plans to watch the concert on television at a family barbecue.Beyond bad blood with Swifties, Ticketmaster was criticized in March when fans tried to attend the final round of the Eurovision Song Contest and some complained that glitches left them ticketless. The Cure said last month that Ticketmaster agreed to issue refunds to some fans after they complained of high ticket fees.“It is a fiasco,” said Ms. Barclay, a swim coach and teacher in Pinner, England, who was excited to take her husband to the coronation concert. “For a big company like this,” she said, “you would have thought that they would have handled it better.” More

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      Taylor Swift Mania: Fans Seek Sweatshirt

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      TAMPA, Fla. — Did you hear about the women who hid all night underneath the truck?Rumors were flying outside the Raymond James Stadium more than 36 hours before Taylor Swift took the stage of the 75,000-seat site on Florida’s west coast.They went from person to person, as in a children’s game of telephone. But the lines outside the stadium last week were made up of fans of all ages willing to put up with hours of discomfort to buy souvenirs tied to the singer’s Eras Tour. Many of them arrived well before sunrise.When word went out that certain prize items might be sold out, some Swifties spoke darkly of resellers with suitcases who had bought up boxes of T-shirts and sweatshirts at previous tour stops. There was also talk that a couple of women had spent the night beneath a merchandise truck.That turned out to be true. One of the women, Larisa Roberts, had the selfies to prove it — grainy photos showing that she and a friend had spent hours taking shelter from the rain under the official Eras truck.“No one was here,” Ms. Roberts, an interior decorator from Trinity, Fla., said of the scene outside the stadium when she arrived between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. on Wednesday. She added that she planned to buy sweatshirts for her daughters, Lilly and Daisy.Z Souris, left, with her mother, Selma Souris.Zack Wittman for The New York TimesA fan passes the time by making a friendship bracelet.Zack Wittman for The New York TimesSwifties lined up on a sidewalk in the early morning rain outside Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla.Zack Wittman for The New York TimesJonathan Amador wore a metallic blanket to protect against the elements.Zack Wittman for The New York TimesProvisions were scattered on the sidewalk.Zack Wittman for The New York TimesShirley Vogler, a nurse in Tampa, said she had made it to the Eras truck at 10 p.m. the night before. Like other early arrivals, she had been moved from spot to spot by security guards in the rainy predawn hours. At 5:45 a.m., she was among the hundreds of people camped out on a sidewalk next to the six-lane West Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Ms. Vogler, 31, was seated on the ground toward the front, chatting with two other women whom she had befriended.Fans were able to buy merchandise inside the stadium on each of the three nights that Ms. Swift would perform at the home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. So why bother waiting all night in the rain? Ms. Vogler, who had tickets to a show, said it was because of what she had seen on social media — specifically, “the TikToks about how bad all of the arenas are with the merch lines and the traffic.”Several other fans mentioned having seen posts by Bailey McKnight-Howard, one half of the twin influencer duo @brooklynandbailey, an Instagram account with nearly nine million followers. A few days earlier, Ms. McKnight-Howard had put up pictures of herself waiting outside AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.She had also modeled a newly purchased blue crew neck sweatshirt, the most-sought after item among fans. Nearly every person outside the stadium on Wednesday morning was trying to buy one, or two, or as many as they were allowed to have.There was nothing flashy about it. The sweatshirt had no sequins or embroidery or hidden pockets. It was just your average everyday sweatshirt, with Ms. Swift’s name and “Eras Tour” printed across the front and the tour dates and the titles of her albums on the back. If you closed your eyes and conjured a blue crew neck sweatshirt with some writing on it, your mental image would probably match up with this in-demand item.One thing that made it special was the fact that, unlike some other tour souvenirs, it was not available in the “merch” section of taylorswift.com. It was also, notably, the rare garment for sale that day without Ms. Swift’s face printed on it. In the weeks since the start of the Eras Tour, fans had elevated this unexceptional article of clothing to cult status.“Every Swiftie wants the blue crew,” said Debbie Losee, a 60-year-old teacher who said she was waiting in line on behalf of her daughter.The rain cleared off as the fans lined up outside the trucks selling tour souvenirs.Zack Wittman for The New York TimesThe apparently limited supply made it even more prized. “The resale on the sweatshirts is $300, Jake!” one fan was heard shouting into her phone. She was correct. The sweatshirt is available on eBay for more than four times its $65 list price.“I’ve been having nightmares about getting this crew neck,” said Emily Rottkamp, a 20-year-old employee at Disney World. “I haven’t been sleeping.”Alyssa Misay, a personal injury specialist from Land O’ Lakes, Fla., joined the line before 5:30 a.m. She said her teenage niece had given her strict instructions: “‘The sweatshirt, the sweatshirt!’”“Social media just makes things a bigger deal than what they are — like, almost unattainable,” Ms. Misay, 36, said. “Like, if you don’t have it, you’re not cool in school.”Nearby, Venisha Jardin, a sophomore at Wiregrass Ranch High School in Wesley Chapel, Fla., wore a hooded plastic poncho to protect her from the rain. In the hours before sunrise, the glow from her phone illuminated the area around her. “I’m missing school for this,” she said.Her mother, Chrys, was sitting in a nearby parked car.“I was like, ‘There’s no way I’m missing merch just to go to school,’” Ms. Jardin said, describing how she had managed to convince her parents. She added that she planned to buy at least five items, including the you know what.The item most coveted by fans in Tampa was a simple crew neck sweatshirt commemorating the Eras Tour. It cost $65.Zack Wittman for The New York TimesDespite the chill in the air and the steady drizzle, spirits were high. Gina Delano, 27, walked up and down the sidewalk telling people she had a cooler full of free snacks and drinks. Wearing a cardigan that had gone on sale at taylorswift.com at the time of the singer’s 2020 album “Folklore” (which includes the song “Cardigan”), Ms. Delano said she had traveled from her home near Buffalo.“The weather could definitely be better,” she said, “but if this is what it takes to get merch, then this is what we’ll do.”Elsewhere in the line, Jess Montgomery, a wedding photographer from Dade City, Fla., cradled her 7-week-old son, Denver, in a blanket. Standing beside her was her 11-year-old niece. “I’ll be 40 next year,” Ms. Montgomery said, “and when she’s my age I want her to look back and say, ‘My aunt was super cool.’” She added that she had struck out in her attempts to score tickets for any of the three sold-out Tampa shows.Fans reacted to a TV news crew as they lined up in the lot outside the stadium.Zack Wittman for The New York TimesThe people outside the stadium included teenagers who had never known a world in which Ms. Swift wasn’t an international superstar and women who had grown up alongside the 33-year-old singer. The hours of waiting gave them a chance to feel at home among hundreds of others who shared a love for Ms. Swift’s songs about high school bullies and first loves, about heartbreak and loss.“The worst kind of person is someone who makes someone feel bad, dumb or stupid for being excited about something,” Ms. Swift said in a 2019 interview. It’s a line that her fans have often quoted on social media in reply to the haters.Shortly after 7 a.m., Matt Langel, a Tampa resident, was sitting on the sidewalk decked out in Pittsburgh Steelers gear while his daughter, Alexis, filmed the scene for her mother. Ms. Swift’s music had become a lifeline for the family, Mr. Langel said, adding that his wife was disabled. “My wife, since she’s been bedridden, pretty much Taylor is what got her through,” Mr. Langel said.At 8 a.m., two hours before the merchandise was to go on sale, stadium workers opened the parking lot. Some fans tried to respect the existing line as others rushed toward the front. Because many people had been waiting at different locations, there was a scramble. Fans who tried to abide by an honor system found themselves more or less out of luck.“Everyone started running from all different directions,” Ms. Roberts, the woman from under the truck, said after she had managed to secure a spot near the front of the line.Farther back, some people squabbled with those trying to cut in. “Back of the line or I’m going to have to put you in jail,” an officer with the Tampa Police Department can be heard saying in a video of the scene recorded by a fan and reviewed by The New York Times. Some people cheered as several of the apparent line-cutters obeyed his order.As 10 a.m. approached, local TV news crews showed up to interview fans, and a helicopter whirred not far above the merch truck. Strong winds whipped across the lot, stirring up dust. Tears streamed down Haylee Lewis’s face.“I just feel like camping overnight is a little much,” said Ms. Lewis, a 21-year-old college student who lives in Orlando. The line was already over 1,000 people long when she had arrived at 8:30 a.m., she added. “I understand it, maybe, for concert tickets, but for the merch line it’s actually insane,” she said.Bailey Callahan with her freshly bought Taylor Swift souvenirs.Zack Wittman for The New York TimesDolly, wearing a homemade Taylor Swift T-shirt, waited with two fans, Clara Rath and Brittany Mendes.Zack Wittman for The New York TimesThe front of the line, at last.Zack Wittman for The New York TimesLarisa Roberts, who spent part of the night beneath the merchandise truck, with her haul.Zack Wittman for The New York TimesA pair of fans, Kaila Shelley and Amanda Stiemann, in their custom Eras Tour jackets.Zack Wittman for The New York TimesThere turned out to be two trucks selling merchandise. Next to the Eras truck, which was patterned with images of Ms. Swift’s face, there was a plain black truck topped with a sign reading “COOL STUFF” in big red letters. Both trucks sold the same items.Inside the trucks, sales people prepared for the rush, unpacking boxes of shirts, tote bags, light wands and posters. They wore black Eras Tour T-shirts, the same ones they would be selling for $45 apiece. (Online, some fans have complained that certain shirts fade noticeably after washing.) There was one rule for the day: only two blue crew neck sweatshirts per customer.At 10 a.m., the line lurched forward. A pair of AirPods flew into the air and landed on the ground, their owner seemingly oblivious. Things progressed slowly as the fans who made it to the very front asked to see various sizes and mulled their options. The mood was tense but jovial.Less than an hour later, the vibe shifted as word circulated that the prize sweatshirts had sold out. Anna Avgoustis, a 26-year-old fan, got one of the last ones.“By the time I got to the front, they were taking them off the wall,” she said. “I was like: ‘Please give me the last one. I will do anything for you. I’ll run you guys Starbucks.’” A few hours later, true to her word, she returned with coffees for the sales crew.Kristi Kall, 38, and her daughter, Kaylee, 11, said they would try to buy a sweatshirt at the concert. “I just wish they would have had a little bit more, because they knew that’s what everybody wanted,” Ms. Kall said.“I’m a little upset,” said Kaylee, who bought an Eras Tour-branded water bottle instead.Brisk sales meant empty boxes.Zack Wittman for The New York TimesIn the afternoon, Laura Gavagan, a 33-year-old fan in Baltimore who had come directly from the airport, joined the line outside the truck, her suitcase rolling behind her. “I’m getting some looks,” she said.Jaclyn Quinn, a high school English teacher from Joliet, Ill., said that Ms. Swift’s work came in handy in her lessons. “We use ‘The Man’ to teach critical lenses and talk about the feminist lens versus the genderqueer lens,” she said. “We use her song ‘Bad Blood’ to talk about metaphor.” She bought an Eras Tour wall tapestry for her classroom.As 5 p.m. approached, the salespeople began straightening up the trucks and peeling off the tour T-shirts. When asked if they got to keep the shirts they had worn that day, one of the workers said, “No.” Instead, they folded them and returned them to the stacks to be sold to the next day’s fans.“Isn’t that so gross?” the salesperson said. “Don’t tell.” More

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      in Television

      Why TV Can’t Quite Take a Stand on Stan Culture

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      “Dave” and “Swarm” try to demystify extreme fandom but end up pledging fealty to celebrity.The “stan,” a word that comes from Eminem’s seminal 2000 song about obsessive, sometimes violent superfans, has become a locus for celebrity anxiety in recent years. Popular fan bases can be malicious in defense of their idols — see Taylor’s Swifties, Nicki’s Barbz and Beyoncé’s BeyHive. (Selena Gomez recently had to chide her fans for sending death threats to Hailey Bieber because of a convoluted rivalry instigated in part by eyebrow lamination.) It can create an awkward dynamic for the famouses: Denounce your fan base’s zealotry, and you risk seeming ungrateful. And while obsessive fans have existed for as long as celebrity has, the internet, which is conducive to acts of anonymous virulence, has made stan fury particularly potent. It was only a matter of time before scripted TV tackled this subject. In the FX comedy “Dave,” Lil Dicky (Dave Burd), the annoying or — depending on your tolerance for anxiety-ridden white rappers — endearing M.C. at the center of the series, has several uneasy encounters with fans in the Season 3 premiere. While trying to destroy a concrete bust of his head that a fan gives him after a show, he meets a young woman named Campbell (Jocelyn Hudon), and they strike up a conversation. “Sorry, I don’t know you,” she says. Relieved, Lil Dicky confesses that he prefers that anonymity. She invites him to a house party, during which one of her friends inadvertently reveals that Campbell is actually a huge Lil Dicky fan and that her mission was to have sex with him.Later, party guests ask to see Lil Dicky’s penis; he refuses. They surround him, yelling and screaming. They rip his clothes off. Eventually he flees. The escape is played mostly for laughs, but a current of unease and even violence lurks in the scene. FX“Dave” has always possessed a meta, synergistic relationship to fame. Burd, who’s also a creator of the show, essentially plays an exaggerated version of himself; he became popular thanks to his catchy, puerile raps under the same moniker he shares with his alter ego. His hypeman, GaTa, is also his hypeman in real life. Travis (Taco) Bennett, who plays Elz, Lil Dicky’s producer, was part of the rap collective Odd Future. Celebrities like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Justin Bieber, Kourtney Kardashian and Doja Cat have played themselves. During the first season, Lil Dicky desperately desires the spotlight, and the show — as if expressing its bona fides — brings out a constant parade of famous people to heighten its verisimilitude. But what’s notable about the second and third seasons (at least based on the first three episodes) is their focus on fame’s darker side, how it distorts the ego and emboldens zealous, even aggressive fans. Stan worship is taken to its most extreme conclusion in “Swarm,” a new Amazon Prime Video limited series created by Janine Nabers and Donald Glover. The show’s protagonist, Dre (Dominique Fishback), kills anybody who speaks ill of her pop idol, Ni’Jah (Nirine S. Brown), a clear stand-in for Beyoncé, whose fan base is notoriously overprotective, to put it diplomatically. After Dre loses her foster sister, Marissa (played by the R.&B. singer Chloe Bailey), to suicide, she fixates on the people who tweeted something mean about Marissa or Ni’Jah. But Dre’s uncontrollable urges extend to Ni’Jah herself. After some ingenious maneuvering, Dre shows up at an after-party she knows Ni’Jah is attending and — in a winking nod to a Tiffany Haddish story about an actress who bit Beyoncé in 2017 — bites her idol on the chin. In the final episode, Dre, after killing a ticket scalper to get in, commandeers her way to the front row at a Ni’Jah show. The series ends on a deliberately surrealist note, which calls the logic of the entire series into question. But the takeaway remains unclear. The ambiguity seeps into the framework of the show, which, as compelling and mordantly funny as it is, can’t seem to figure out what exactly it’s trying to say about stan culture. Is Dre really a stan? Or a deeply disturbed young woman who fixates on a pop star as a way to cope with grief? Or both? The “Dave” premiere ends in a similarly ambiguous place, though that show’s embrace of sophomoric sexual humor undermines its more salient points about the frightening consequences of standom. Both “Dave” and “Swarm” opt for dark humor, the better to highlight the absurdity of toxic stan behavior — an affection so passionate that it turns vicious. And both shows seem ultimately ambivalent and unsure about this state of affairs, gesturing toward the dangers of such fandom before retreating into fantasy. There’s an odd uncertainty at their cores, a sense that even the writers don’t quite know where to land on the fierce relationships people have with celebrity. The phrase “parasocial relationship” has been bandied about as of late, defining the warped one-sided dynamic that some fans have with their favorite celebrities. But perhaps some of the confusion “Dave” and “Swarm” seem to convey lies in the fact that the critique is coming from inside the house. Their creators — Burd and Glover — are both famous. Both shows question the excessive adoration some fans feel for pop stars but rely in part on securing public figures to appear in them. (In addition to Bailey, who’s signed to Beyoncé’s label, Billie Eilish and Paris Jackson, daughter of Michael, make guest appearances on “Swarm.” And Malia Obama wrote for the series.) As bizarre as Dre and Campbell’s actions are, fame’s corrosive force goes both ways. Nicki Minaj, for example, is notorious for siccing her most rabid fans on people who dare to tweet criticism. Other celebrities (including, notably, Beyoncé) don’t always engage with their fan bases enough to tell them to cool it when their devotion turns threatening. Critiquing such passion while benefiting and sometimes even exploiting celebrity clout is an inherently untenable position.“Dave” seems to understand this tension to some degree; there are plenty of episodes that mock Lil Dicky’s growing egocentrism. “Swarm” doesn’t really engage with Ni’Jah’s celebrity from her point of view. She remains a cipher — another nod to Beyoncé’s real-life inscrutability — but the decision to characterize her that way further blunts the show’s critique of stan culture. Even the “Swarm” brain trust seems to acknowledge their awkward proximity to the show’s main theme. In a recent interview with Vulture, Nabers said she wrote Beyoncé a letter about the show to explain their intention. At another point in the conversation, she mentioned that Glover and Beyoncé are friends. In a different interview, Fishback politely demurs from naming the BeyHive as the inspiration behind Ni’Jah acolytes at all. “It’s an amalgamation of different celebrities and our current climate’s being kind of intense about our love for celebrity.” Their deference to Beyoncé is telling. Even they seem to fear her fans’ venom.Source photographs: Byron Cohen/FX. More

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      ‘Phantom of the Opera’ Fans Mourn the Record-Breaking Show’s End

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      “The Phantom of the Opera,” the longest running show in Broadway history, will give its final performance on Sunday, bringing its glittering chandelier crashing down on the stage of the Majestic Theater for the 13,981st and final time.Its success was powered by all kinds of engines, perhaps none more striking than the group of die-hard patrons who call themselves Phans. They come from all over the world, drawn by its soaring Andrew Lloyd Webber score and Gothic love story, and have devoted themselves to the show, seeing it as often as possible, of course, but also collecting memorabilia, dressing up as characters, and conversing about it online.Frank Radice, a Long Island call center operator, proposed to his wife at a “Phantom” installation inside a Madame Tussauds Wax Museum, and Tracy O’Neill of Connecticut used the show’s “All I Ask of You” as her wedding song. Elizabeth Dellario, a New York City tech worker, named her cats Christine and Erik after characters in the show. Erin Castro, a Los Angeles office assistant, makes Lego figurines of the cast. Katie Yelinek, a Pennsylvania librarian who has seen it 69 times, said, “I can honestly say I’ve shaped my adult life around going to see Phantom.”So many Phans. Meet six:Body ArtAlice DychesAlice Dyches, a singer-songwriter who fell for “Phantom” while growing up in South Carolina, expresses her love for the show with tattoos. Lucia Buricelli for The New York TimesPlenty of Phans have “Phantom” tattoos, but Alice Dyches has gotten specific with hers. Inked on her wrist are the first three notes of “Think of Me,” a beloved song in the show, and her midriff shows an address for the Majestic Theater: “245 W 44th.”Growing up in South Carolina, she fell in love with the music by watching the film; when she was six, she saw it for the first time on Broadway, on a trip with her grandparents.“The Phantom was Hugh Panaro, and he terrified me, and I kept wanting to go back,” she said.Now Dyches, 22, is a singer-songwriter, living in New York and working at a cat sanctuary on the Lower East Side. Throughout the pandemic, she worried about whether “Phantom” would survive, but once it reopened, she felt reassured.“I’m real sad — I thought I had more time to see it,” she said. “I’ve not lived a life without ‘Phantom’ being on Broadway, and there’s always been the notion that if I’m having a really crap day, I can go.”And, with that address inscribed on her abdomen, she is wryly watching what happens next.“I hope something good goes into the Majestic,” she said, “because otherwise I’m going to be screwed.”Phan ArtWallace PhillipsWallace Phillips, who said he had seen “Phantom” 140 times, creates artworks inspired by the show, and dreams of making an animated film of the musical.Lucia Buricelli for The New York TimesWallace Phillips didn’t even know what “The Phantom of the Opera” was when he dressed as the Phantom one Halloween. He was 10 years old, growing up in Silver Spring, Md.; he just thought the costume was cool.His mother gave him a cast recording and then, in 2010, brought him and his sister to see the show on Broadway.“It was eye-opening, and awe-inspiring,” he said. “I was enthralled.”Phillips is now 27, living in New York City, where he moved to study animation at the School of Visual Arts. He’s making his way as a freelance filmmaker, while working as an usher at “Hamilton.”How much does he love “Phantom”? At last count, he had seen it 140 times.Phillips expresses his Phandom through his artistry — he hopes one day to make an animated film of the musical, and meanwhile, he does concept art and drawings, some of which he signs and gives to cast members.“Despite all the times I’ve seen it, I’m always surprised, every time I’m there,” he said. “That overture! That chandelier rising! The theater transforming! It keeps me awed every time.”The NamesakeChristine SmithChristine Smith, of Bountiful, Utah, was named after Christine Daaé, a character in “Phantom.”Taylor SmithShe became a Phan.Chrisitne SmithIn elementary school in Kaysville, Utah, Christine Smith had to write a paper about where her name came from. When she asked her mom, she learned that she had been named for Christine Daaé, the young soprano at the heart of “The Phantom of the Opera.”“I wrote that I was named after some dumb opera singer,” Smith recalled.Her father, who worked graveyard shifts stocking shelves in grocery stores, listened to “Phantom” to pass the time. She didn’t understand the appeal until she saw the movie.“I know it sounds silly, but I just could tell, that was going to be my life,” she said. “I really learned to love my name.”She picked up a cast album at Walmart, started performing in school shows, and dreamed of playing Christine. Her family couldn’t afford to travel to New York, but they made it to a production in Las Vegas, which she eventually saw six times.Smith, 31, who now lives in Bountiful, Utah, finally got to see it on Broadway — twice — after the show’s closing was announced. In October, she and her husband arranged a flight layover in New York so they could see “Phantom,” and then, in January, she won a contest to see its 35th anniversary performance.“It made my ‘Phantom’ heart so happy,” she said.The GlobetrotterAlessandro BertolottiAlessandro Bertolotti, who lives south of Milan, has seen “Phantom” all over the world.Alessandro BertolottiHe has programs in many languages.Alessandro BertolottiAlessandro Bertolotti, who lives in Codogno, a small town south of Milan, has seen “Phantom” roughly 100 times: not just on Broadway and in London’s West End, but also in Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Spain and Sweden.“The most memorable evenings are those where you feel an energy in the public — something created by a fusion between the audience and the cast,” he said. “And then there are shows, like the one in Sweden, where I really enjoyed seeing a completely new staging of ‘Phantom.’”Musical theater did not initially interest Bertolotti, 67. Opera was his thing — both as a fan and a director. But two decades ago, while in the United States to work on a production of “Otello,” Bertolotti saw “Phantom” on the recommendation of a colleague.“It was a revelation,” he said. “I was fascinated by the music, by the sets, and this vortex of costumes and fast scene changes.”He is planning this summer to see a version in Trieste — the first in his native Italy — that will star the Iranian-Canadian “Phantom” veteran Ramin Karimloo.“Among all the musicals I’ve seen, ‘Phantom’ will always be the most fascinating and the most engaging,” he said. “It’s part of me now.”Phandom FROM AFARYixuan WuYixuan Wu, who grew up in Changsha, China, watching a DVD of “Phantom,” has seen it on Broadway 61 times since she moved to New York in 2021. Lucia Buricelli for The New York TimesYixuan Wu was just 11 when she stumbled across a “Phantom” DVD in a video store. She was about as far from Broadway as can be — in her hometown, Changsha, China — but the packaging caught her eye, so she rented it.She watched it over and over, and nurtured her Phandom online, streaming bootleg recordings from around the world.“I just feel like this story was calling to me,” she said.Flash forward to 2021. Wu had finished art school in China, and moved to New York to study at the Fashion Institute of Technology. She bought a ticket at the TKTS booth in Times Square, and finally saw “Phantom” from the right rear orchestra.“I was amazed and surprised by all the colors onstage,” she said. “You have to see it with your own eyes.”Wu, 25, has now seen the show 61 times, sometimes with a $29 standing room ticket, sometimes by winning a lottery, and once in a while by springing for a full-price seat. She collects merch (including teddy bears from the Japanese production), writes fan fiction and makes fan art (illustrations of cast members, many of which she gives to them).“Every time I go into the Majestic,” she said, “I feel like I’m home.”CosplayingPatrick ComptonPatrick Compton had not heard the term “cosplay” when he first showed up at “Phantom” in a costume.Greg MillsHe performed a scene from “Phantom” for a fundraiser at his church in Frankfort, Ky.Charlie BaglanThe first time Patrick Compton dressed as the Phantom was at a church event. His congregation in his hometown, Frankfort, Ky., was raising money with an evening of scenes from Broadway shows, and he decided to sing something from the musical.Compton, a duty officer at Kentucky’s Division of Emergency Management, had loved “Phantom” since his parents took him to see it in Louisville, and this was his moment.In the years since, Compton, 47, has taken voice lessons, recorded his own versions of “Phantom” songs, taken a weeklong workshop with “Phantom” alums and auditioned for a number of shows. He has seen “Phantom” 20 times in New York, and five times on tour.He had never heard the word “cosplay” when he started showing up to the show wearing a mask, cape, vest and fedora — he just thought it was fun. Now he’s done it several times.“To this day I have yet to figure out how a show like that can just emotionally affect you — from the very first note of the overture, you get goose bumps, and your hair stands on end,” he said. “You can’t help it. It’s addictive.”Elisabetta Povoledo More

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      Taylor Swift Fans Grapple With Joe Alwyn Breakup Reports

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      After “Entertainment Tonight” and People published stories reporting that the singer’s relationship with Joe Alwyn was over, many Swifties went online to vent their feelings.To quote Taylor Swift’s own lyrics, “The rumors are terrible and cruel, but honey most of them are true.”Fans of Ms. Swift spent much of the weekend grappling with the possibility that the “Midnights” singer and her longtime boyfriend, the British actor Joe Alwyn, had broken up, after reports from “Entertainment Tonight” and People magazine said the couple was through.“ET” was vague about how it had come by the information, saying in its story on Friday afternoon only that it had “learned” that Ms. Swift and Mr. Alwyn had split. A few hours later, People matched the report with a story of its own citing an unnamed person close to the pair as its source. Both outlets said the breakup had occurred weeks ago.With no comment from Ms. Swift, Mr. Alwyn or their representatives, fans of the singer were not sure whether to trust what they had read. Ms. Swift’s publicist, Tree Paine, did not immediately respond to requests for comment for this article.“I think it’s a poorly written, unconfirmed article,” Brittany Browning, a 30-year-old writer who lives in St. Petersburg, Fla., said of the “ET” story.She added that she didn’t believe the pair had really split up and predicted that Mr. Alwyn would make an appearance at Ms. Swift’s next concert stop, in Tampa, Fla., “out of spite.” (Mr. Alwyn has not been sighted at any of Ms. Swift’s tour stops thus far.)Another fan, Tiffany Hammer, a tarot card reader from Puyallup, Wash., was also skeptical. “I won’t believe it’s true until I hear something officially affiliated with Swift, whether that’s Tree or whether that’s her mom mentioning it casually in an interview a year from now,” Ms. Hammer, 37, said, referring to Ms. Swift’s longtime publicist, who has become a celebrity in her own right among fans. “As respectfully as possible, it’s none of our business until we know what she wants us to know.”Ms. Hammer noted that some Swifties have gone into an online frenzy as they try to digest the unconfirmed report.“On Reddit, people are combing through her lyrics about this supposed breakup and grieving something that’s not even confirmed yet,” she said. “It’s like, your poor parasympathetic nervous system. Give yourself a breather until you know everything.”Other fans accepted the reports as truth, albeit with caution.“I think that media literacy is really important, and I have the benefit of having a few more years on some of these newer Swifties or younger Swifties,” said Katherine Mohr, a 31-year-old project manager from Madison, Wis. “I’ve been through the wringer on celebrity gossip before and know who you can trust and who you can’t.”Ms. Mohr said she had not been quick to believe earlier gossip items concerning Ms. Swift, including those about marriage, pregnancy and some recent online speculation on why the singer had made a change in her set list, replacing “Invisible String,” a love song believed to be about her relationship with Mr. Alwyn, with a different number. But the articles from “Entertainment Tonight” and People were enough to persuade her that the breakup news was legit.“There is a seriousness factor to this that there wasn’t with any of those rumors, and we need to be able to tell the difference,” Ms. Mohr said. “Otherwise, we’re never going to be able to survive in celebrity culture knowing what’s true and what’s not.”Morgan Chadwick, 27, recalled meeting Ms. Swift at an event years ago and chatting with her about how the two women had been dating their boyfriends for the same amount of time. Ms. Chadwick, a graphic designer in Chicago, said she would often joke to her boyfriend, who is now her husband, that each new love song Ms. Swift wrote was about them.“He would always roll his eyes,” she said.“It’s sad, but also I’m an adult,” Ms. Chadwick added.She said she wasn’t sure what to make of the breakup reports. “They’ve been so private in their relationship that I don’t know that there’s going to be any sort of confirmation other than, like, she might make some comment at a show, or he’s going to show up at a show,” Ms. Chadwick said.Katie Devin Orenstein, 23, a recent college graduate living in New York, said she is counting down the days until she gets to see Ms. Swift at one of her concerts in New Jersey in May. She is, however, rethinking her outfit, which she had planned to wear as a nod to “Invisible String”: a teal shirt and yogurt shop employee uniform in homage to the line “teal was the color of your shirt when you were 16 at the yogurt shop.”She added that she’ll be looking to Ms. Swift for the final word on her relationship status.“Every single thing she does onstage, especially those surprise songs, everyone’s going to analyze it like it’s the damn Torah,” Ms. Orenstein said. More

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      How Taylor Swift Shapes the Story of Her Eras

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicTaylor Swift’s Eras Tour began this month in Glendale, Ariz., and will continue through early August in stadiums throughout the United States. The performance is grand-scaled: almost four dozen songs over more than three hours.It is the first major Swift tour since her dates supporting “Reputation” in 2018, and even though it touches on tracks from each of her 10 albums, it focuses heavily on her last four: “Lover,” “Folklore,” “Evermore” and “Midnights.” Those are vastly different albums, and the segments of the concert devoted to them varied very widely.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about how Swift translates her music for a live audience, how she reconciles the different categories of her catalog and the persistent fervor of the fans who support her.Guest:Joe Coscarelli, The New York Times’s pop music reporterConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More