Once again we are reminded that the word “fan” is an abbreviation of the word “fanatic”.
I refer to the blogger who posted images of baseball bats wrapped in barbed wire online and made death threats against Amanda Abbington and Martin Freeman.
The fan blogger in question is, allegedly, a fan of Benedict Cumberbatch’s. I say allegedly. Because, frankly, in my opinion, such behaviour shows that the person has no real love or respect for him, because if she did, then she would not threaten his friends and co-workers!
One of the things that really pisses me off about incidents like this is that all of Benedict’s fans get painted with the same brush of lunacy. This is one of the reasons I refuse to be drawn too deeply into Sherlock fandom, and why I refuse to accept the label of “fangirl”. I barely survived the NCIS fandom, and frankly, the TIVA fanatics have nothing on the lunatic fringe of the Sherlock fandom.
Thankfully, the majority of Sherlock fans are intelligent, sensible, lovely people, a number of whom I have met and like enormously. There is, however, the very small minority, to which this person obviously belongs, that has me shrieking and looking for a very tall tree to climb!
Actors and other public figures have to put up with a lot of shit. They tend to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune more than the average person in the street. What they should NOT have to suffer is the baseball bats and barbed wire of outrageous fruitbats!