The Beatles: Beatlemania
Mania: -noun, “enthusiasm, often of an extreme and transient nature.”
The Beatles were pretty much the band that spawned the original crazy-ass superfan. With their kooky British haircuts and risqué talk of hand holding, it seemed that the ladies of planet Earth just weren’t mentally prepared to deal with the Fab Four.
Watching some footage of The Beatles, you realize that the term “Beatlemania” wasn’t just a clever reference to the band’s massive popularity, but an actual psychological condition many young women of the era may have suffered from. These days, every new Justin Beiber that pops up on the scene gets the same treatment, but The Beatles ignited the craze in the ‘60s when it had never been seen before and... was kind of terrifying.
People really lost their shit in unprecedented ways over these guys, and early on, The Beatles gave some of the worst performances of their careers because they couldn’t even hear themselves play over the shrieking of the crowd who probably couldn’t hear them either.
The Grateful Dead: Deadheads
In the ‘70s, Grateful Dead concert tours consisted of the band, the crew, their equipment and the hundreds of fans that would follow right behind forming their own little ultra-high hippie community.
These are people who would give up their everyday lives to follow this band around, with the goal of seeing as many consecutive shows as possible while the band was on tour. At the shows, fans realized they could sell random things like tie-dye t-shirts and vegetarian burritos as a way to make some dough and continue the tour, effectively ignoring reality for another few weeks.
These fans didn’t just like the music, but equated a Grateful Dead show with a certain kind of spirituality, almost as if they were experiencing something of religious significance. GD publicist and Jerry Garcia’s biographer was once quoted as saying of the Dead, “They got people high, whether those people were on drugs or not.” But they usually were on drugs: lots of them. Many people speculate that they were called Deadheads because they did so much acid at Grateful Dead concerts that their heads actually died.
KISS – The KISS Army
If ever there was a gimmick that worked out for a band, that band was KISS and that gimmick was dressing up like demon circus performers. It’s hard to tell if they would have made it as far without all the flash, but who really cares.
The KISS Army was started by a couple of KISS superfans in Indiana who called a radio station trying to get them to play KISS songs, and referred to themselves as the KISS Army in the process. Then as with anything good, it caught on for no real reason.
The key word when it comes to these fans is “loyalty”, and that loyalty goes both ways. KISS is one of those bands that never seems to let it’s fans down, and even does stuff like mixing vials of their own blood into the ink used to print their KISS comic books, just so it would add authenticity. Fans repay them by still dressing up like warrior-clowns 32 years after it was fashionable to do so.
As I write this article, the latest online member of the KISS Army joined 12 hours ago.
Insane Clown Posse – The Juggalos
Easily the creepiest and most disturbing of the bunch are the Juggalos. This is what Insane Clown Posse superfans call themselves. In doing a little research into Juggalo culture, you immediately notice an eerie cultish vibe at work. These disciples set themselves apart by devoting their lives and ideologies to a band that was never all that popular in the first place.
While on the subject of cultish behavior, every year up to 20,000 Juggalos attend something called the Gathering. This is a music festival sponsored by Psychopathic Records and basically stands as an excuse for a weekend of drinking, hard drugs, orgiastic sex and often, violence too. As Violet J, a member of ICP explained in an interview, “I imagine it’s like what it’s like for Muslims to visit the holy land of Mecca... That’s what it’s like for a Juggalo to visit the Gathering.” Thanks Violent J, could you be any more offensive?
One riot broke out shortly after police tried to stop some Juggalettes from exposing their breasts. Sounds like a nice group of people, huh?
We’re opening up the forum here and asking all our fans if they can think of any other crazy fan goups. Maybe you’re one of them; it’s okay to come clean… even if you’re a mother of three and still like dressing up like Alice Cooper on the weekends. Python included.