Hardcore pop fans have become increasingly sophisticated in the social media era. They fill their Instagram feeds with pictures of their idols, give themselves tribe names on Twitter like "Beliebers" or "Rihanna Navy", and use Tumblr to create elaborate fan fiction in which they "ship" their favourite band members. "Larry", for example, is a portmanteau used for stories and drawings imagining a romantic relationship between One Direction's Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles. But some fans are prepared to go much, much further, as these tales of somewhat O.T.T. devotion prove.
Being a superfan can affect personal relationships.
After she spent £30,000 on tickets to around 60 their concerts, Jane Holmes' second husband gave her an ultimatum: "Choose Westlife or me." Sadly for her spouse, the Nottingham woman's marriage came second to her passion for the Irish boyband. "It's my only hobby. I don't smoke, I don't drink, so Westlife are my only addiction," she told The Mirror after their split.
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It can become a way of life.
As a teenager in the '90s, Coventry-raised Claire Blake devoted more and more time to following Take That on tour. After the band split in 1996, she won a six-figure sum on the lottery and spent two years shadowing Gary Barlow during his short-lived solo career. She's since recounted her experiences in a 2008 book titled Mad About the Boys: My Life as Take That's Biggest Fan. "For me any scrap of contact with my idols was enough. I met Jason in the hotel lift, had my vodka and orange stolen by Robbie, watched Gary stumble back to his room worse for wear and saw Mark hiding behind a wall to try to escape the fans. It was fantastic to get so close – and addictive," she writes.
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Superfans don't just give their idols underwear and chocolates.
Pop fans have always shown their dedication by sending presents, but occasionally their idea of "personalised" can be slightly misguided. When a fan baked him a cake a few years ago, Ed Sheeran was initially touched – until he discovered an unusual secret ingredient. "I thought, 'It's very sweet to be given a cake. I shall eat the cake,'" the singer told The Sun in 2012. "Then I found a clump. Someone cooked it in a cake, a big clump of hair. Don't ask me how I found it out... I tried to eat it!" Heaven knows what Mary Berry would think.
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Other fans are hoping for something in return.
When The Wanted were touring the U.S. in 2012, a fan approached brandishing a pair of scissors and asked for a lock of hair from band member (and current Strictly Come Dancing star) Jay McGuiness. "He said 'yeah' and when she did it, she cut it off and put it in her mouth and just swallowed it,” Jay's bandmate Max George later told The Metro. "And she said, 'You'll be with me forever.'"
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Some fans will do just about anything to get a selfie.
A few years ago, a 1D superfan was so desperate to get closer to Harry, Zayn, Louis, Niall and Liam that she hid in a stinking dustbin outside their hotel for four hours. Sadly, her dedication didn't pay off, with Zayn telling The Mirror: "They got busted. They hid in a bin and tried to come in the back entrance." Fortunately for the fan in question, a range of very affordable One Direction perfumes are available in all the usual outlets.
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It's not just Brits who can get a bit carried away.
When Japanese pop singer Nana Mizuki teamed up with a snack brand for a seemingly harmless competition, one of her fans ended up in trouble with the police. In a bid to find one of ten backstage passes hidden in packets of crisps, an office worker called Kazuki Fukumoto spent £1,700 bulk-buying the brand, but soon lost his appetite. After dumping 87 cardboard cartons of unwanted crisps in fields and forests, the 25-year-old was arrested and charged with violating local waste disposal laws.
But remember: Approval means everything.
Carl McCoid, a 42-year-old father of three from Yorkshire, is so enamoured with Miley Cyrus that he's spent £2,800 decorating his body with 29 tattoos of her face, name and album titles. However, he's now planning to have many of them removed because they're affecting his love life and his idol doesn't like them anyway. "She mentioned they were creepy in an interview. It made me realise I didn't like them," McCoid told the Daily Mail in June.
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