A catfish scam showed Tegan and Sara the dark side of fan obsession

Her wife would say otherwise.

“My wife would tell you that I shook through the entire L.A. premiere,” Tegan said. “I think my nervous system is still experiencing the film.”

The film is “Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara,” which began streaming on Hulu on Friday. The documentary, directed by Erin Lee Carr, delves into an intricate years-long scam, when a person — or group of people — began impersonating Tegan online, leaking demos, sharing personal info (including photos of friends and loved ones) and starting sexual relationships with fans.

But the film isn’t just about Tegan’s impersonator (referred to in the doc as “Fake Tegan” and “Fegan”), or the pain and confusion left in their wake. Italso examines the pitfalls of fandom, how it’s changed in the social media eraand how fans can end up harming the very people they claim to love.

The movie and its themes feel prescient at a time when celebrity culture has become both more pervasive and invasive. With varying degrees of irony, fans now fawn over everything and everyone — from politicians to pygmy hippos. Musicians, in particular, seem particularly vulnerable to fan fixations and, in some cases, they have drawn criticism for pushing back.

This year, Chappell Roan said she had pulled back from “anything to make me more known” after disturbing fan behavior. In 2023, Doja Cat made headlines — and lost more than 180,000 followers — after a fan asked her to say she loved them; Doja Cat responded, “I don’t though cuz I don’t even know y’all.”

Even Taylor Swift, who helms one of the world’s largest and most powerful fan bases in the Swifties, appeared to address overzealous fan behavior in 2024′s “The Tortured Poets Department.” In “But Daddy I Love Him,” the pop star sings: “God save the most judgmental creeps/ Who say they want what’s best for me.” (The song is believed to reference fan criticism Swift faced for dating The 1975′s Matt Healy.)

As difficult as reliving — and confronting — these fan violations are for Tegan, she’s glad to be sharing her story at this moment.

“It feels very zeitgeisty to be joining our voices to a chorus of many artists who are stepping up and saying, ‘It’s too much,’” Tegan said.

Carr, who also directed “Britney vs Spears” and the Gypsy Rose Blanchard documentary “Mommy Dead and Dearest,” has long been “obsessed with obsession,” she said.

As a teen, she was enthralled with the TV show “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” At her Catholic all-girls school, she jokes, “the computer lab ran out of all the ink because of how many collages I was making.” As an adult, she’s a sucker for a Reddit rabbit hole.

“I know what it’s like to feel obsessed,” Carr told The Washington Post. “But that line of trying to be that person? I found that so confusing.”

In 2011, Tegan discovered that someone had hacked her email address, accessing a trove of personal information. The hacker had been impersonating heronline since at least 2008, convincing severalfans that they were in genuine friendships — or more — with the musician. A fan named Julie flagged the deception for Tegan and Sara’s manager at the time, telling him that Fake Tegan had sent her song demos and pictures of Tegan’s and Sara’s passports. Through Fake Tegan, Julie even knew that Tegan’s mom had breast cancer — something that was only known to a very small circle of friends and family.

“Fanatical” features multiple interviews with these catfished fans, who describe how Fake Tegan lured them in slowly through email and DM exchanges. Fake Tegan would ask about their days and tell them she missed them. She would flirt with them; she would get mean. She would share photos of the real Tegan moving into a new home.

One fan pointed out how meticulous the hacker was: If Tegan and Sara were performing in Denver, Fake Tegan would send messages saying she was in Denver. Fake Tegan even seemed to avoid messaging people when Tegan and Sara were onstage performing.

Tegan was shaken by the revelations but for 16 years said little about the experience, in part because she was afraid talking about it would only embolden her impersonator or inspire new ones, she says in the documentary.

The project, which started in 2022, took 2½ years to complete, Carr said. Over that time, Carr and Tegan attempted to uncover who was behind the fake accounts and pursued a list of possible suspects.

As they dug into Fake Tegan and her web of deception, they revealed how obsession can dull someone’s ability to empathize with the people they idolize.

One disturbing discovery centers on a fan’s participation in a Tegan and Sara incest fan fiction forum. For Carr, the fan fiction was emblematic of a specific and disturbing kind of violation, and earlier edits of the film leaned more heavily into that storyline. Her argument: “We need to be as disturbed as possible to understand” how targeted the group felt.

For Tegan, the incest fantasies written and distributed by their own fans was a painful betrayal.

“I thought it was bad when the media would be sexual about us,” Tegan said. “The misogyny and sexism we faced in the early parts of our career were horrifying and humiliating enough.”

“And then when your fans start to do it, you’re just like, ‘Right, the world sucks.’”

Another startling encounter takes place later in the documentary, when Tegan and Carr confront a person they suspect may be behind Fake Tegan. The person, who goes by the pseudonym Tara, denies impersonating Tegan (in fact, she claims to be a victim of the impostor) but admits to attacking her online, getting in touch with Tegan’s then-girlfriend and trying to confront and intimidate her at shows for perceived slights.

When Tegan presses Tara for answers, Tara questions why she’s so invested: “You weren’t affected,” Tara tells Tegan. The musician is clearly stunned.

“I was just so caught off guard,” Tegan said, recounting the conversation. “You did all this scary s--- to get my attention — I’m assuming to take me down a notch and get to me. And the whole time you thought it wasn’t affecting me.”

“Those parts of the film are very hard for me to watch,” Tegan admits. “It was bewildering that they didn’t think that I had any feelings or emotions about this.”

The movie has given Tegan an opportunity to unpack her complicated feelings about Tegan and Sara’s fandom and the strange demands of fame. From the beginning, Tegan and Sara embraced their identitiesas young, out, queer women and prided themselves on the “safe space” their music and their shows created for LGBTQ+ fans.

For Tegan and Carr, it was important that the fans in the film — victims of Fake Tegan — be portrayed with compassion. After all, the vast majority of the people Tegan and Sara have encountered over their 26-year career have been “nice and kind and generous.”

But Tegan also felt personally conflicted when talking to some of the fans featured in the doc: “All of these people are victims, but they also victimized me,” she said.

“They were all online trying to get my personal information. … They thought they were entitled to my number and my email.”

Now, 16 years after Fake Tegan first reared her head, Tegan feels like social media platforms have only acceleratedthis sense of entitlement. For some of the most devout fans, it’s no longer enough to have a personal relationship to the music — the music must be picked apart to gain insight into the artist’s life. Message boards and podcasts surveil and unpack every interaction, interview and misstep. We may consider ourselves wise in our disdain of the paparazzi culture of yore, Tegan notes, but they’ve effectively been replaced by superfans demanding selfies and candid recordings.

Tegan takes exception to the idea that celebrities enjoy this level of fanaticism. “You think that famous people want to spend seven figures a year on security? You’re out of your f---ing mind,” she said.

“You’re supposed to be turning my music into a soundtrack for your life,” Tegan said. “You shouldn’t be so focused on me.”