- an enthusiastic devotee (as of a sport or a performing art), usually as a spectator
- an ardent admirer or enthusiast (as of a celebrity or a pursuit)
(according to Merriam-Webster)
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| An enthusiastic devotee |
As we all know, fans can be very diverse, e.g. fans of football or other sports, movies, bands, celebrities, etc. A very interesting fact I realized is, that the object of admiration can not only be famous and successful people, but surprisingly also notorious evildoers.
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| Boston Marathon |
The Boston Marathon bombings on April 15, 2013, killed 3 people and injured nearly 300. The suspects are two brothers of Chechen origin, Tamerlan Tsarnaev (26) who died in a shooting with the police and the younger Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (19) who is under arrest.
In this post I do not want to write about this sad event but the unexpected reaction of some people. What really shocked me is, that there are people who insist on Dzhokhar being innocence and they have even formed Facebook groups to popularize this idea. I quote these fans:
"too pretty to be guilty"
"Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a young man of 19 years of age's life has been stolen and has been made into a public object of hate, created by the inaccurate reports by the media.
Almost without exception teen girls are the members of these supporting groups who nearly worship the 19-year-old, curly-haired, sad-faced boy who is supposed to be responsible for 3 people's death. These girls refuse to believe that he is guilty as they have already made their judgement based on his appearance. This is a really sad phenomenon that the young generation seemingly cannot decide objectively but tends to only accept the beautiful-is-good concept.
We believe in innocent until proven guilty by undeniable evidence, which so far has not been provided."
Psychologists have found out that the case of Dzhokhar's fans is not unprecedented as there are several women who are attracted to men having committed crime. According to psychologists the explanation can be the fact that women want to feel special with a well-known bad boy as a partner. Another reason for the attraction can be that certain women consider it a challenge trying to change these men. In most cases women believe they could be the ones, the notorious man is willing to change for. There are numerous cases where obsessed women make contact with convicts, write letters to them and they meet in the prison. I even heard of a case when a prisoner and a fan fell in love with each other, held a wedding ceremony in the prison, and the woman gave birth to a child. I think, this example could be added to the definitions of fan, as well.
