The ‘Heated Rivalry’ Fandom Is Tearing Itself Apart
When Passionate rivalryConnor Storrie and François Arnaud stepped out together at a Grammys after-party on February 2, the X account Connor Storrie Updates was waiting to post about it.
Starring in a truly global phenomenon has catapulted the show’s cast to superstardom overnight and countless accounts on X and Instagram follow every appearance, interview and career move. Storrie and Arnaud’s relationship has been the talk of social media and in newspapers over the past month, with thousands of tweets analyzing their recent outing to Paris fashion week.
When Gina and Anna woke up the morning after the Grammys and saw that the photos of Storrie and Arnaud arriving at the party were from a paparazzi agency, they decided not to share them until more official photos were uploaded. The two friends who run Connor Storrie Updates, Gina and Anna, have a rulebook for how they share content with their nearly 85,000 followers on X.
“We don’t like posting anything without knowing where it came from,” read the guidelines, which are not public but were shared with me via DM. “If there are photos/videos taken without consent/without Connor knowing he is being filmed/photographed, we are not publishing them. This includes paparazzi photos.”
Unlike most content shared on their account, the two knew they had to monitor responses a little more than usual.
“People are going to be mean in the comments,” Gina, 28, says during a video call. She and Anna, 26, live in different Brazilian states and met online before the show aired. Both asked to use pseudonyms to protect their privacy. “We have to be careful. [François] generates a lot of hatred, but at the same time, it’s a delicate position. If we post something, some people may leave hateful comments. But if we don’t publish it, people will accuse us of bias.”
Lately, the Passionate rivalry The fandom has been a battleground.
According to Rachel Reid Game changers books, the series, which premiered on Crave in Canada and HBO Max in the United States in late November, follows a star-crossed romance between professional hockey rivals Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Storrie). The previously unknown lead actors now have a fan base that rivals the world’s biggest pop stars. Arnaud plays a smaller role, that of fellow gay hockey player Scott Hunter. (None of the actors were available for comment.)
For some, admiration for the series has turned into a real obsession. A month and a half after the finale aired, bars offering watch parties are still going strong, and according to Crave, of those who have rewatched (a phenomenon dubbed “rewatching” by fans), 15% have seen an episode five or more times. A Reddit thread asks the question: “Is anyone else too emotionally affected by this show?” » Commenters admit to being so obsessed with scenes from the show that they can’t do their jobs or live their lives. Many concluded that they needed to take a break.
Others have gone the extra mile to mine Storrie and Williams’ pre-fame digital footprints for content. Storrie’s preteen YouTube videos quickly went viral. And when some actors claimed to have found Williams’ Letterboxd account, less than complimentary reviews of Rachel Zegler and Pedro Pascal’s performances trickled down to those actors’ accounts. own fan bases, leading to a Stan account war and a “semi-cancellation” of Williams. He later revealed that most of those critiques weren’t even his.
Still, the screenshots were enough to make Williams the target of Stan Twitter’s online haters, who seemed to be looking for a reason to end his career. His alleged relationship with a woman led many people to accuse him of gay harassment. Anti-Asian slurs have been hurled at Williams by detractors with relative ease on X. Although Williams has not spoken out about racism, during an appearance on SiriusXM’s Radio Andyhosted by Andy Cohen, he said he only respected the opinions of people who have a “developed frontal cortex.”
