"If you come to Texas, I will give you the signed photo of Guy Fieri I have from high school," is one of the many DMs Alyson Luskey, a 28-year-old social media coordinator in Texas, has sent to Joshua Hong, a member of the K-pop group Seventeen, over the past four years.
DMing celebrities has become an outlet for fans to talk about their lives and vent with the imagined audience of their favorite celebrity.
These fans have no expectation that their fave will ever read the messages, let alone reply, which creates a unique space for them to share their achievements and grievances all while pretending the person they admire most is listening to them. It’s the stan equivalent of journaling.
It’s the stan equivalent of journaling.
Sonia Ter-Saakyan, a 24-year-old associate research specialist at the children’s hospital in Los Angeles and self-described "number one fan" of Lady Gaga, started DMing the "Born This Way" singer last year. Ter-Saakyan DMs her approximately once a month. "It's a place where you can just vent and not have to worry about anyone reacting to you. No one is going to give you any unsolicited advice, and you don’t have to worry about what they’re gonna think or what they're going to say. Because realistically, she's never going to read these, so it just feels safe for me to go in and say what I want to say and not have to worry about anyone else," explains Ter-Saakyan
Social media allows fans more access to their favorite celebrities than ever before fostering intense parasocial relationships. Fans watch every interview and performance and closely follow their faves’ every move on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, which creates an idealized version of a celebrity they can feel close to. In the past, a fan hoping to contact their idol might have written fan mail, but today fans can simply DM them on Instagram.
"I fully understand the parasocial relationship and the idea that these idols are meant to be seen as the one and only for their fans," Luskey tells Mashable. "I don't typically buy into it, but Joshua speaks English, he's from LA. He talks a lot about his childhood, and I find there are a lot of similarities to how we grew up. It's kind of like talking to a friend even if that friend doesn't respond. It's a way for me to pretend just for a second that he's my best friend."
K-pop groups like Seventeen are capitalizing on fans’ desire for more contact with their favorite idols. Fandom community apps like Weverse and Bubble facilitate real-time communication between an artist and their fans.
On Bubble, which charges fans a tiered subscription fee based on how many artists they want access to, these messages mimic the design of a DM. It’s a personal chatroom between you and the artist. Here, idols will share details about their day and can send photos, videos, and even audio in the chat. The fans can respond, and the artists have access to all of their messages. However, the user experience for the fan is a lot different than the artist's user experience. An artist can get hundreds of messages every second, whereas the fan can only see their individual chat log with their idol. So while the app creates the illusion of a DM, in reality the artist is talking to all of their fans at the same time — and these fans respond knowing that their messages might never actually be read.
Ultimately, like DMing a fave on Instagram, it becomes a means of expression.
Seventeen is one of the handful of groups on Weverse, a free platform that acts as a community messaging board. Fans can purchase a fan club membership for more exclusive content. On Weverse, everything is public, and an artist can respond directly to a fan’s comment — which is then seen by everyone else who has access to the group’s feed. It’s not as private as a DM, which is why Luskey is glad that Joshua keeps his direct messages open on Instagram. It’s one less barrier between the fan and the idol.
Over on TikTok, it’s now normal to vent to celebrities. Last summer saw a popular trend set to Katy Perry's "Swish Swish" where fans showed off which celebrity they DM. The trend isolated Nicki Minaj’s verse in the song, and TikTokkers posted videos with the caption, "When they apologize, but you already told [a very important person in your life]." Users would then show the hundreds of unanswered DMs in the background. In @anakonatarr’s video, they post all of the voice memos they sent to Kylie Jenner with the text, "When they try to apologize, but I already told Kylie everything."
In another TikTok trend, @tierneylcrieghton posted a video with the message, "When there were bomb threats in hs and my first thought was to dm Harry Styles on Twitter." Then the long Twitter DM dating back to 2016 is displayed.
It’s videos like these that inspired Ter-Saakyan to start messaging Lady Gaga. "I had seen a TikTok where someone had DMed a bunch of random things about their lives to a celebrity, so I just DMed Gaga and said, 'Hey, I have been listening to your album a lot because my back hurts, and it's really helping and then it kind of just evolved from there," explains Ter-Saakyan.
Imerda Mokili, a 20-year-old student at San Diego State University, recently uploaded a TikTok where she explains how her incessant DMs to comedian and Sex Lives of College Girls actor Mekki Leeper got her mentioned in one of his stand-up sets.
"He’s one of my comfort comedians. I have a playlist of his stand-up that I rewatch whenever I get sad. One day I was really upset, so I watched my playlist and I thought, ‘Wow, I really hope he sleeps well,’ so I went on my private Instagram and texted him, ‘Good night Mekki, I hope you sleep well,’" Mokili tells Mashable.
Life is stressful. School is hard. Texting Mekki [Leeper] is something to look forward to.
Mokili has since DMed Leeper nearly every day to tell him the highs and lows of her day. She’s shared everything from her thoughts on Pete Davidson and Kim Kardashian’s relationship to how she failed a test. "Life is stressful. School is hard. Texting Mekki is something to look forward to," says Mokili.
DMing celebrities allows fans to feel the catharsis of telling another person private information without any repercussions or judgment. "Texting Mekki, in a way he's imaginary, even though he's real. Sometimes I have information that I just want to share, but I don't know where to put it out, and Mekki is an outlet," adds Mokili.
Similarly, Lena Welch, a 29-year-old attorney from North Carolina, occasionally DMs Key, a member of the Korean pop group SHINee. She does so for the relief of sharing things about her life with someone. The first time Welch messaged Key was to tell him that she was taking the bar exam.
"[I message him about] things I don’t actually want to talk about, but I want that sensation of telling someone and that I didn’t feel were appropriate to post about," says Welch. "I don’t necessarily want anyone to see what I am writing. That’s why I am DMing someone who's not going to look at it, instead of posting about it."
"I'm a 29-year-old single person," explains Welch. "There's no one who is required to listen to me, so I am writing to them about things that I feel like I don’t have other people to tell or enough people to tell."
Unlike journaling, where you’re venting to yourself, DMing a celebrity allows for a different sort of catharsis. "Sometimes, I don't want to bother my friends complaining about things because I feel like I complain a lot. So it's nice to get that catharsis from somewhere else without having to kind of put that burden on anyone to listen to me and validate me. It allows me to get out what I want to say out with the illusion that there's someone there listening to me," says Ter-Saakyan. "When things happen, I'm like, 'Oh, let me tell Gaga the tea.'"
While there is the expectation that the celebrity in question will never reply, fans differ on whether or not they would even want their fave to respond.
When things happen I'm like, 'Oh, let me tell Gaga the tea.'
"There's always that fear, that teeny-tiny inkling, that one day, I will send a message and for some reason he will see it," Luskey says, "And then I think that I will just die."
On the other hand, Mokili wouldn’t mind Leeper reading her messages. "He is like family to me! He knows so much more than my friends."
DMing celebrities is just one of many ways that fans can engage in fandom and feel connected to their fave. For some, it’s an emotional outlet with relatively low stakes. "If I'm feeling sad, I can message Joshua," Luskey says. "And I know he's not going to respond, but for some reason that kind of helps. It makes me feel lighter."
