“His fight or flight kicked in and here we are”: Investigating the construction of a perpetrator within a dark fandom

Norwood, Evie; Coen, Sharon

Abstract

Dark fandoms are online communities of individuals who express fascination for those who have perpetrated violent crimes (cfr. Broll, 2020 . Much of the previous literature on these communities has studied fans of school shootings. The present study sets out to expand the topic by investigating r/WattsOffTopic – a dark fandom that discusses the perpetrator of a family annihilation.
A deductive discourse analysis was conducted to explore how community members construct the perpetrator, Chris Watts. It was found that community members often presented social media content created by his wife, Shannan Watts, as the prominent source of their knowledge. Posts focused on positive traits Chris Watts displayed prior to his crime and constructed as a victim who was reacting to his situation. Following this assignment of victimhood, posts suggested that future crimes could be prevented by focusing on behaviors displayed by Shannan Watts.
Overall, the findings demonstrate how r/WattsOffTopic use social media sources to establish a shared narrative that reduces Chris Watt’s agency for the family annihilation. By presenting these sources as factual , the community strengthened their narrative and rejected other communities who did not share the same viewpoint. These findings support existing literature suggesting that dark fandoms present themselves as objective and keen to prevent future crimes.
The present study expands on the existing definition of dark fandoms by suggesting that some community members identify with Chris Watts by emphasizing individual similarities with the perpetrator. While explicit celebration was not apparent, the study proposes exploring the foregrounding of positive traits and shifting agency as potential forms of implicit celebration in dark fandoms.
Keywords: dark fandom, family annihilation, Reddit, online communities, discourse analysis

Citation

Norwood, E., & Coen, S. (in press). “His fight or flight kicked in and here we are”: Investigating the construction of a perpetrator within a dark fandom. Psychology of Popular Media Culture,

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 3, 2024
• Deposit Date: May 7, 2024
• Print ISSN: 2160-4134
• Electronic ISSN: 2689-6575
• Publisher: American Psychological Association
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed