Football fans have a long history of using their passion for their clubs as a powerful tool in the fight for change. Whether by marching in protest against their club owner or launching donation campaigns to support aid agencies that work with marginalized communities, fan activism is more than just a passing fad. But how exactly do fan activist groups recruit and maintain their members? What enables them to mobilize such a large and diverse group of people? And what does this say about the future of democracy and civil society?
Taking the Harry Potter Alliance (HPA) as a case study, we analyze the organization’s ability to engage with different causes by drawing on a range of preexisting community structures. We find that HPA’s success depends on three emergent elements of experience: shared media experiences, a sense of community, and the wish to help.
As for the media, we find that reporting on fan activism’s role in humanizing teenagers who are targets of police surveillance can help to legitimize these protesters and their cause. However, stories that rely on allegations of criminal behavior do not have the same effect and may even detract from the credibility of these protests.
Finally, we also explore how fans hone their skills in reading and interpreting the canons that they inhabit. Through this process, they become better equipped to resist eroticization of their heroes and to critique their representations as problematically cissexist, racist, or homophobic.