During last year’s Anti-Bullying Week: Reach Out, VotesForSchools conducted a vote with 41,192 young people in the UK on whether fandoms encourage bullying.
‘Fandom’ is a word used to describe a community of people who are enthusiastic fans of something or someone. The rise of social media has meant that these fandoms have easy ways of communicating, both between one another and as a collective. While fandoms are typically a positive celebration of a shared passion, unfortunately this passion has sometimes resulted in negative behaviour or comments towards other people or groups. To mark Anti-Bullying Week 2022, VotesForSchools asked their young voters to consider the role of fandoms and whether they think they encourage or discourage negativity, primarily in but not limited to, online spaces.
For this VoteTopic, voters who were 7 years or older were given the question “Do fandoms encourage bullying?”, and younger voters (aged 5-7) were asked “Is it difficult to stand up against bullying?”. The results showed that:
- 52.23% of KS1 (ages 5-7) voters said Yes
- 50.87% of KS2 (ages 7-11) voters said Yes
- 52.27% of Secondary School voters said Yes
- 59.97% of voters aged 16+ said Yes
When these percentages are broken down, there was a slight split in opinions from different genders of young people in Secondary School and College (aged 11+), where girls and young people who identify as gender diverse* were more likely to say that fandoms do encourage bullying. Young people who identify as gender diverse were also 14% more likely to vote Yes than male and female in primary age 7-11.
Generally, the results of this vote were very close. VotesForSchools commented that this near-tie “appears to be because of two reasons: the definition of bullying and that the negativity in fandoms comes from a relatively small pool of the overall fandom”. The young voters didn’t always regard the negativity that can happen within fandoms as ‘bullying’, however others made observations that while this may be the case, fandoms do allow space for bullying to happen. As you can see in the comments below, there were also lots of comments about the positive sides of fandoms, and how they can be supportive and friendly places to share a common interest.
“Some fandoms encourage bullying as they can turn on someone saying something or not showing support. Fandoms should be a fun and supportive place!”
Primary School Voter
“Fandoms can sometimes cause bullying because of passion and enthusiasm to support their idol or team. This can result in over reactions from fans which can sometimes do more bad than good. Overall, it is up to the fans to control their passion and share it through positive support.”
Secondary School Voter
“Most fandoms are kind and yes, there are a few rude fandoms but most of the time fandoms are supportive and thoughtful.”
Primary School Voter
“As long as you are respectful, sharing your opinion does not have to mean bullying.”
Secondary School Voter
You can read more about the results from VotesForSchools here.
*Votes collected as gender “Diverse” include students that identify as gender diverse, as well as students that wish not to disclose or were not able to specify their gender.