Return To Sender
On Obsessions & Crossing Lines
Staking a claim on who you love is a normal and wonderful way of finding and defining ourselves. We love the people in the public eye we love because they reflect something back to us that resonates with what we admire in the world. Their attitude or look, what they say or don’t say, how they say it. They light the way forward, give us something tangible to connect to.
I always enjoyed being apart from the crowd. When I was a kid in primary/elementary school all the other kids in my class were into KISS - in a big way. I took much delight in proclaiming that I hated them and watching the horrified faces of the other kids trying to comprehend how I could possibly be that weird. I loved bragging about my love for Randy Newman’s song ‘Pants’, for Suzi Quatro’s ‘Devil Gate Drive’ and Tina Turner’s ‘Nutbush City Limits’. I was trying to push different boundaries, find the people that were different like me in the world. If you can’t join them, beat them with your freak stick.
When I was a teenager most of my friends were into darker Australian underground rock like The Birthday Party and The Scientists, along with goth-leaning music like The Cure and Siouxsie and The Banshees, much of which I loved, but I also went hard into schmaltzy 70s/80s country music, Bob Dylan, girl groups and deeply into Dolly Parton. So deeply, that I attended a Dolly Parton concert alone at 17, dressed up as Dolly Parton. Not weird at all.
Not sure what I expected from doing that either, except maybe the idea that wearing my love on my literal sleeve might lead to being picked up by Dolly Parton and taken off on tour as her backing singer or under her wing. Or something.
When Facebook first became a thing and my teenage daughter signed me up, telling me I had to have a Facebook account if I wanted to be a musician in the modern world, I took great delight in being part of an ‘I Hate The Beatles’ club with a couple of similarly contrarian musician friends (I know you’re out there, it’ll stay our little secret!), contemptuous of the slavish devotion the Beatles received, seemingly without any discernment.
Years later, I made a decision to consciously abandon being the musically judgemental bitch I’d always been and open myself up to the possibility of just liking the same stuff everyone else liked, I discovered I actually was just a basic bitch who absolutely loved those monstrous KISS riffs and The Beatles and basically anything and everything with a catchy hook. I wasn’t different at all! It was wonderfully freeing.
There’s a certain kind of entitlement involved in really truly loving a particular artist, positing yourself as an expert, a true believer, far more knowledgeable and appreciative than the average fan. A parasocial relationship begins, where we imagine that there is an actual connection between us. We forget that the connection is entirely one sided. Its easy to believe we are the only person with this special understanding of the artist, that we get them, in ways other more casual listeners would not.
Eminem released a song called Stan in 2000 about a fan who becomes infuriated when the object of his obsession won’t answer his letters. This gave rise to the term ‘Stan Culture’. You can read/listen to more about that here on NPR.
I read Lauren Hough’s powerful, visceral piece on Chappell Roan and ‘Stan culture’ (this is paywalled but so worth it) a while ago - an essay that makes clear how we all think we are separate from the crowd and have a special, personal relationship with an artist, but when all those separate fans add up to one huge entitled crowd it becomes fucking terrifying for the artist in question - and then just recently I read this piece on her early obsession with Dolly Parton that led to an eventual understanding of what might constitute crossing lines. Both are exceptional and highly recommended.
As a musician without any representatives between me and the world, I have occasionally made some bold moves in attempt to get my music heard by people I felt would respond well to it and might be able to reach out a hand and help lift me up. This lifting up does happen - music people are generally sensitive and kind. One of the best stories I’ve ever heard is from a woman I know, an aspiring singer, who met Dolly Parton a long time ago at a party and told her how she struggled to write a good song. Dolly told this woman she had so many spare songs lying around she would send her some to record. The woman didn’t believe for a minute it would actually happen, but Dolly is a woman of her word, and it did. This woman I know has recorded three unheard Dolly songs - beautifully - but to my knowledge she hasn’t released them yet.
Anyway, emboldened by stories like this, when I came across what was supposedly Bob Dylan’s home address in some Dylan blog I read once, I decided to send him my album Lovers Dreamers Fighters on vinyl in the hope that he might hear it and love it and offer me an opening spot on his never ending tour (this is my dream life outcome). I wrote what I considered to be a sweet, short note expressing my intentions. Of course it came back Return To Sender, and I kept it, sealed, for some reason. I think it reminded me to have some chutzpah.
However a while ago I needed to reuse the record mailer cos it’s really hard to find them here in Australia. When I opened it and read my ‘innocuous little note’ I was struck by how creepy it was. For instance, I said ‘I hope you don’t think it’s creepy that I found your address on the internet and decided to send you my album’. Um. Yes that is very fucking creepy and I won’t be listening, thank you, no thank you weird stalker lady. I wondered how many creepy stalker albums turn up uninvited at Bob’s house every day and how he probably has some kid working for him whose job is to schlep all these unwanted albums down to Malibu post office and ask them to slap a Return to Sender sticker on them. I’m so sorry Bob.
Being in the world is scary. Being in the world with the feeling there are eyes upon you, always wanting more from you, wanting to know where you live or where you go or what you think or personal information about your family is really scary. I have experienced some milder versions of this and felt under the microscope and invaded and I did not like it one bit. It made/makes me extremely anxious.
I’ve always been a fairly private person. I don’t walk around imagining most people, even those in my inner circle, have anything more than a cursory interest in my actions or comings and goings but I’m careful about giving away too much personal information on social media. I respect my family’s privacy and leave them out of it. I don’t read direct messages from people I don’t know and don’t want to engage in any kind of private conversations behind the public scene. In the past I have been too open and too nice and it has led to some dark experiences that I don’t want to go into now because they still affect me and make me second guess my safety and everywhere I go. I can’t imagine how difficult and frightening it must be to be actually famous. I’m amazed that some of these people can even function.
Taylor Swift said in a BBC interview recently "There's definitely something really confusing about people following you and being allowed to. I don't think it's necessarily that paparazzi are taking pictures of me that freaks me out, as much as the fact they're hanging out with you all day. I asked to be a singer, I wanted this, so I can kind of understand it when they're waiting outside a radio station or on a red carpet. But it gets to be a bit irritating for me when they're waiting for me outside my house, or when I'm on vacation and they're there too.’
Taylor’s security team have installed facial recognition software at concerts to protect her from the known stalkers she has accumulated. In an Elle piece she wrote about life lessons for her thirtieth birthday she said she lives with a fear of personal violence: ‘I carry QuikClot army grade bandage dressing, which is for gunshot or stab wounds. Websites and tabloids have taken it upon themselves to post every home address I’ve ever had online. You get enough stalkers trying to break into your house and you kind of start prepping for bad things. Every day I try to remind myself of the good in the world, the love I’ve witnessed and the faith I have in humanity. We have to live bravely in order to truly feel alive, and that means not being ruled by our greatest fears.’
Billie Eilish’s dad started sleeping on the couch near their front door after Billie’s home address was leaked online and fans started turning up at all hours of the day and night trying to connect with her.
In a September 2024 Rolling Stone article, Chappell Roan says her sudden fame has been ‘a really hard adjustment’ and that she experiences extreme anxiety, insomnia, panic attacks and outrage. She says strangers call out her birth name in the streets, grab her and kiss her, call her family home and turn up at the airport to meet her flights.
In an Instagram statement she wrote:
Asking fans to back off created more backlash and ridicule than understanding, leading to an outpouring of other female pop stars revealing the terrifying stalkers and fan expectations and invasions they had endured. Lorde gave her tips on how to avoid paparazzi and fans at the airport. Chappell showed the Rolling Stone journalist an email she received from the artist Mitski that reads ‘I just wanted to humbly welcome you to the shittiest exclusive club in the world, the club where strangers think you belong to them and they find and harass your family members’.
Jewel revealed she that quit performing because of the intensity of the fans and that she had ‘hundreds’ of stalkers. She says she went grey overnight aged twenty one as a new mother with a stalker leaving fire bombs outside her house and trying to break in.
Harry Styles was harassed by a woman who sent him 8000 cards in less than a month, traveling to London from Brazil to hand deliver some of them to his home address.
I read about a young Japanese pop singer who was stalked, followed home and sexually assaulted by a man who obsessively studied her social media selfies and managed to identify where she lived and what train station she used by blowing up an image of her eyes and finding reflections of signs.
Another young Japanese singer, Mayu Tomita, was stabbed 61 times out the front of a small concert venue by a fan who obsessively commented on her social media, and then turned hostile after she returned his gifts. She blocked him online and reported him to the police who dismissed the threat. The man, described as ‘gentle and child-like’ by his family, tracked her down and stabbed her in fury at her rejection of his gifts and her inability to explain why.
Korean boy band singer Kim Jae-joong, formerly of TVXQ! revealed on a radio show that he constantly had to move to escape stalkers and once dreamed he was being kissed, waking to find a strange woman on top of him in his bed. He said ‘I hope people realize that love taken to an extreme turns into fear.’
Bjork had a stalker in the mid 90s - described as reclusive and shy and ‘enthralled by celebrities’ - who posted video diaries of his obsession with her online for months, mailed her a letter bomb to her home address and eventually filmed his live suicide by gunshot while Bjork’s music played, in distress over her relationship with the artist Goldie, who Bjork was no longer with. His psychiatrist had assessed him as not appearing to be dangerous.
Selena, "Queen of Tejano Music", was shot and murdered by the president and founder of her fan club, who had taken advantage of the singer by embroiling her in an elaborate web of lies.
John Lennon was murdered by a former security guard out the front of his apartment, an obsessive fan who turned against John Lennon after his comments about the Beatles being ‘bigger than Jesus’ (he was religious and offended by this) and because he believed him to be hypocritical - singing about peace and love but living a life of luxury. He first waited outside John’s apartment to get John to sign his copy of Double Fantasy, which John politely obliged him with before heading off in his limousine, then the fan waited until he returned later that night and shot him in the back.
Sorry, that all got very dark and horrifying didn’t it.
I guess that’s what happens when lines get crossed, when a pure love and admiration takes a downward turn and slips into a toxic destructive obsession. When people are encouraged to feel entitled to make judgements and comments about the people they connect with so much they forget they’re people too, just the same bundle of flesh and blood and anxieties and insecurities and hopes and dreams as them.
I guess what I wanted to think about here is how easy it is to believe that we are special and different from everyone else, but really en masse we are all pretty much the same, which is kind of disappointing on a personal level but also important to understand so we can exist in a righteous place without thinking we have the right to control or judge or comment or force any kind of engagement without invitation.
Live and let live. Love hard. Don’t let the bed bugs bite. And let’s normalise simply enjoying the output of an artist without normalising ‘Stan’ culture as the pop culture seems to be pushing us all towards.
Happy New Year everybody! Don’t forget to leave me hearts and thoughtful comments and share with someone if you enjoyed!
Lo x
Also, if I happen to have any lovely music fans out there in Sydney or Melbourne, Australia, I am doing a few rare shows with my band The Great Beyond end of Jan/early Feb to finally properly celebrate the release of Transatlantic Light - please do join us for these very special shows!
A brilliant piece Lo - Freak Stick Beaters unite! I’ve still got mine. I hide it to get on the world…it’s a secret weapon…and while I use it more judiciously in these advancing years of mine, I ain’t never gonna let it go. ⚡️
A great and thought provoking piece of writing and a very interesting topic to explore. Oh my gosh...I remember writing a long letter to Michael Jackson when I was 9 years old and being heartbroken at not receiving a response. It's terrifying being hassled by a stalker and there's nothing rational about it. My husband turned his stalker experience into a song and it's quite cleansing to put it into perspective this way and sing it out of the soul!