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TeaHis mask has officially fallen off. The woman behind the viral fan account Hollywood actor Timothee Chalamet This is not a 17-year-old girl tapping away on her iPhone, but a 59-year-old full-time healthcare industry worker from California. Simon Cromer, who founded the Twitter account Club Chalamet in 2018, has become a micro-celebrity in specific corners of the Internet — oddly praised and often mocked for his dramatic and sweeping statements. Chalamet’s career and personal lifewhen timmy’s relationship keeping up with the Kardashians Kylie Jenner was the star Revealed in September 2023, snow White Star Rachel Ziegler wrote online: “Will Club Chalamet be okay.” Cromer and Chalamet’s selfie on the red carpet at the movie premiere has gone viral; hollywood reporter She even covered the news of her house burning down in the Los Angeles wildfires earlier this year.
But Cromer has also become a strange source of investigation and trouble. In his first profile interview with wall street journal Last week, Cromer – posing awkwardly in photos with one leg raised on a bench, wearing black skinny jeans and a T-shirt depicting Chalamet playing Bob Dylan – spoke about the backlash she has received, namely about claims that she has an unhealthy romantic interest in Chalamet or that she is too old to be a true part of the fans. She told the publication: “I can’t change the fact that I was born in 1966. I don’t want to be a 24-year-old white girl running Club Chalamet. I am who I am.” Viral reactions from viewers ranged from “My diva” to “I’m crying she’s older than both my parents” and then… “Why are they giving a platform to a stalker?”
There are several reasons why Cromer has become so divisive. Her age – she is 30 years older than Chalamet – is at the root of this amusement and bewilderment. But then there are the posts. What began as honest updates about Chalamet’s latest release turned into lengthy, passionate, and sometimes overly protective statements about his personal life – leading Cromer’s detractors to label him as “incontinent” and even “dangerous”. When the unlikely romantic pairing between Chalamet and Jenner was revealed, Ziegler was clearly onto something — Club Chalamet was not okay. In a live stream, Cromer claimed that the relationship was fake because they never went to the Olive Garden together, and that Jenner was stalking her. After a PDA video of the couple went viral, she told other fans: “If you feel distressed by the video, that’s okay. But please take care of yourself. Stay off social media for a few days.” (This post was shared and remembered without hesitation.)
But if you put aside the tone of her Club Chalamet post, it’s worth asking, if Cromer had been a 17-year-old girl, would she have been seen as such a divisive figure? Imaginary discourse is often an excuse to laugh at women. When women grow up, laughing and joking also starts. Our thought-provoking conversations about parasocial dynamics and fan empowerment often end with the idea that female fans are simply lustful, uncontrollable, and obsessive. It is worth asking whether ageism and misogyny are at the root of Cromer in particular being the center of constant ridicule.
Among Chalamet’s widespread fanbase, Cromer has spoken of not being accepted by some members due to his age. talking to WSJCromer recalled exchanging messages with another fan account owner shortly after the release of Chalamet’s career-defining debut in the queer romance film in 2018. call me by your nameWhen the fan asked what high school Cromer attended and realized she was about 30 years older than him, her response was: “‘Oh! Oh my God!'” — before immediately blocking her,
According to Dr. Lucy Bennett, a lecturer specializing in media fandom at Cardiff University, there is a clear double standard in fan culture that creates an informal age limit for participation. “There are powerful cultural assumptions about who the police see as ‘legitimate’ fans and who they don’t,” she tells me. She says, “Older women in particular often face criticism or ridicule for enthusiastic participation, even though their participation is often no different from that of younger fans.” Bennett believes that the idea that some women are “too old” or “inappropriate” to express the same passion as younger fans stems from a “widespread cultural discomfort with women displaying visible emotional investment in popular culture”.
Fan accounts have become a fundamental part of contemporary popular culture – and people like Cromer can wield significant power. According to Bennett, the largest accounts in the fandom sector have become informal stakeholders in the celebrity PR landscape, as they “organize information, disseminate news, and create shared narratives that help bind the fan community together”. These people are not just observers; They “actively contribute to shaping the online environment around an artist” and “play a vital role in helping to increase the visibility of artists.”
This type of antisocial relationship – a one-sided emotional connection developed toward a celebrity you don’t know – is particularly interesting because the fan feels as if they have invested part of their life in the success of that public figure. Bennett says that fans can feel that they have “contributed to the vibrancy of the fandom” and therefore have a stake in it. She explains, “Rightly or wrongly, that sense of labor and dedication can translate into a kind of management or sense of ownership.” So when something disrupts fans’ expectations – such as if their favorite celebrity starts dating a woman they disapprove of – fans can have “very strong opinions about an artist’s career, relationships, and public image”.
Although fans may form based on a shared interest in a celebrity or group, it’s often just the façade that really attracts people: the sense of community. However, Suzanne Scott, associate professor at the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin, says that fandom culture is not immune to the ageism, sexism, racism or homophobia that exists elsewhere. When it comes to ageism among fans, Scott tells me there’s an expectation that women simply grow out of it in their teens and twenties. She says, “Part of it is simply a matter of available leisure time, which decreases with age and often limits full participation in fan culture, even if emotional investment in the celebrity or media object is still present.” “But culturally, there is also a view that older people should focus on less ‘frivolous’ things as they age, and make more decisions about devoting time or energy to fantasy activities.”
While older fans are automatically ridiculed for being angry or dismissing the vibe, it goes both ways, as younger fans are also infantilized and dismissed as naive. Scott says the idea that older women cannot participate reflects old-fashioned ideas about how women of a certain age should behave. “There’s something puritanical about it, like we don’t want to see our mothers or grandmothers as people whose lives came before our care.”
However, the irony is that it is the elders who created it in fandom culture. Scott says that older women “built the infrastructure of the fan culture that we know and enjoy today… Why wouldn’t they still enjoy sharing fan art or theories or writing or reading fan fiction because they’re in their 50s or 60s?”
Of course, we have a right to be concerned about how the boundaries in parasocial relationships have blurred in recent years. As our virtual access to the lives of celebrities has increased thanks to social media, a handful of fans have developed a strong sense of ownership and entitlement towards their chosen celebrity. “Pink Pony Club” musician Chappelle Rhone, 27, has been one of the first to expose harassing fan behavior – she’s spoken of being followed, having a fan grab and kiss her, and how they got her father’s phone number and started calling him. Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande and Doja Cat have also urged their fans to respect their boundaries in recent months. Fan entitlement, then, is at an all-time high.
While Timothée has not publicly acknowledged Club Chalamet other than the occasional selfie, condemning this account would be like biting the hand that feeds him. Like it or not, the fan page is part of the PR machinery that ultimately works in his favor. Cromer said WSJ His sole mission is to help Chalamet win his first Oscar for the drama Ping-Pong this March Marty Supreme – Hardly a critic’s agenda. Whatever your opinion on Club Chalamet, it’s unlikely that Chalamet’s team is losing sleep over his next post; If anything, it enhances it. the viral frenzy that regularly surrounds himAnd for that reason, we’ll probably never know what Timmy really thinks about it,