The Death Of Casual Fandom

How Para-social Obsession is Reshaping Music Culture

At some point over the past year, hip-hop lost the plot.

What was once a genre built on artistry, competition, and cultural significance has devolved into a numbers game—where first-week sales are debated with the intensity of a stock market crash, and fans of the biggest artists have become unpaid forensic analysts, scouring the internet for evidence that their favourite musician is not, in fact, a criminal.

The latest ongoing battleground? Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar.

It’s a beef that started almost a year ago as an artistic rivalry and has now spiralled into something completely unhinged. Drake fans are personally emailing his lawyer, scrambling to prove their favourite artist isn’t a condemned pedophile, while simultaneously launching full-scale investigations into Kendrick’s streaming numbers. Analysing chart placements, pulling up DSP metadata, and genuinely believing his music is being suppressed to a grand scale.

Meanwhile, Kendrick fans have appointed themselves as rap’s moral arbiters, convinced that if they tweet enough times about pedophilia and industry plants, they can single-handedly erase a man’s legacy. It’s less about music now and more about winning a case. The problem is, no one actually knows what they’re fighting for anymore.

It’s two sides of the same coin—both operating on grandeur levels of delusion.

We do not know these people. If Drake were to retire tomorrow or Kendrick never released another album, we would have no choice but to continue on with life as normal. But that’s not how it feels to the modern fan.

Because in 2025, being a fan is no longer about appreciating the music. It’s now about defending an artist’s honour like a medieval knight. It’s about proving superiority over rival fanbases. It’s about winning.

And when that happens, music stops being music. It becomes a commodity, and we, the listeners, become investors.

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When Did Fans Become Record Executives?

There was a time when rap music didn’t operate like this.

Battling for the #1 spot was something reserved for pop culture—Taylor Swift vs. whoever her industry rival was at the time, One Direction fans frantically refreshing iTunes charts like Wall Street traders monitoring stock dips.¹

Rap, on the other hand, was always about culture over commerce. Sure, numbers mattered, but they weren’t the only metric of success. Some of the most celebrated hip-hop albums of all time didn’t debut at #1 or break streaming records. They were respected because of their influence, their impact, their artistry.

That’s no longer the case.

The moment this Drake vs. Kendrick war turned into a debate over first-week sales, DSP placements, and “who has the better industry connections,” it became clear: rap fans have been infected by the same disease that ruined pop fandoms.

We’ve all become fake A&Rs.

Every other Twitter account now operates like a self-appointed music executive, confidently spewing pseudo-intellectual nonsense about how the industry works, as if gaining 2K followers for posting sales updates has given them insider knowledge on the inner workings of UMG.

It’s no longer:

“Hey, I really liked this album because the beats were great and the lyrics were deep.”

It’s now:

“XX is washed, they only sold 50K first week.”

There is no room for personal taste anymore. Everything is about metrics. And if an artist doesn’t hit some arbitrary sales benchmark, they’re discarded and reduced to nothing more than a flop, a failure, a relic of an industry that no longer values art over analytics.

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How the Music Industry Became a Stock Market

It’s not just hip-hop. The way we consume music has fundamentally changed and it’s largely because we no longer listen to music the way we used to.

Streaming services have turned music into a numbers game. Instead of buying albums, sitting with them, and forming our own opinions, we now have real-time access to stats that tell us exactly how “successful” a song or album is.

That dopamine hit that used to come from connecting with a song on a personal level has been replaced by the validation of seeing an artist you like dominate the charts.

Music has been gamified.

And the more invested fans become in “winning,” the more the artistry itself stops mattering.

That’s why we’re seeing:

• Accusations of bot streams – If an artist sells more than expected, their success is “fake.”

• Conspiracy theories about DSP suppression – If an artist underperforms, it’s not because of natural decline. It must be a coordinated industry attack.

• Rival fandoms dedicated to tearing each other down – Instead of celebrating their favourite artist’s music, fans spend hours trying to discredit their opponent.

It’s absurd.

And long-term, this obsession with numbers is going to ruin how we consume music.

Because when every album release is reduced to first-week sales discourse, and every artist is judged by their chart position instead of their artistry, we stop engaging with music the way we’re supposed to.

We become passive consumers, more interested in how something performs than how it sounds.

And that’s how creativity dies.

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The Takeaway: Music is Not a Sport

Drake vs. Kendrick should have been a rap battle, not a corporate power struggle. It should have been about who made the better music, not about which fanbase could tweet the most delusional theories.

But this is the industry we live in now.

A world where music isn’t just music, it’s a competition, a war, a business deal.

Where fans don’t just enjoy their favourite artist. They feel personally responsible for their career.

Where every song, every album, every feud is less about artistic expression and more about “winning.”

And when music stops being music, what’s left?

At some point, fans will have to ask themselves:

Do you actually like the artist you’re fighting for, or do you just like feeling like you’re part of something bigger?

Do you enjoy the music, or do you just enjoy the rivalry?

And most importantly—who exactly are you trying to impress?

Because no matter how many sales numbers you tweet, no matter how many arguments you win online, Drake and Kendrick do not know you exist.

And whether they sell 10K or 1 million, your life will remain exactly the same.

1. I, too, was guilty of this in my teenage years.