‘Swarm’ Examines Radicalized Standom at Its Worst
Donald Glover and Janine Nabers take toxic fandom to the extreme in the TV series Swarm, where a parasocial relationship and obsession with a superstar turns murderous.
By Emma Thimgren
In Swarm, our protagonist Dre (Dominique Fishback) will stop at nothing to defend and try to get close to her idol — the only person she feels really understands her. Dre is convinced they would be best friends if they could just meet. Very quickly, the drama turns into a surrealist and bloody thriller, where eventually nothing else matters but the sun of her universe: Ni'Jah, the superstar not so subtly based on Beyoncé.
Maybe for some people, the connection of fandoms becoming harmful is easier to make. Sure, we’ve seen plenty of examples where stan culture has taken their passion too far. Blindly supporting and stopping at nothing, even making death threats, just because someone tweeted something “mean” about their favorite artist, or sometimes even because their problematic idol encouraged their army to attack. This power imbalance is especially clear in regard to the parasocial relationship that artists are able to build with their fans through social media. As the communication gets increasingly personal the lines become more blurred.
However, at this point, it’s quite the tired trope, used to dismiss passionate fans' interests as guilty pleasures and even undermining their intelligence. Asserting your own musical tastes has more and more turned into making it clear what you don't like. Describing female fans with words like “hysterical” is a master suppression technique. The word hysteria has its origin in the medical diagnosis doctors gave women in the nineteenth century, a condition believed to be caused by the uterus making women predisposed to have excessive emotions and difficult behavior. Making a series about all the worst characteristics of a female fan could therefore seem dicey, kicking down and making this character a laughable stereotype. Luckily, Glover and Nabers are able to nuance and not just hyperbolize.
The chronically online Dre is part of the fanbase dubbed “the swarm”, similar to Beyoncé’s fans the “Beyhive”. Behind their keyboards, the Swarm seeks out everyone daring enough to question their favorite star. Mirroring the real trolls of the internet, threatening violence on people who voice negative opinions. Only here, the empty threats are actually followed through. The series' use of extreme violence really emphasizes the absurdity of how far hateful language on social media has become.
For the extremely isolated and lonely Dre, the love for Ni'Jah is all that she’s got, and the series does a good job of showing how someone in this position could get to this point. To question Ni'Jah is to question her reason for existing, her only happiness and sense of belonging. When Dre loses the only family she has left she gets radicalized in her fandom and loses all grip on reality, going on a killing spree which in her twisted mind finally gives her a purpose. Centering a Black woman as a serial killer in a villain’s origin story is rare. Creator Janine Nabers wants to make it clear that this is a “love letter to Black women,” saying to Vulture that the point was to portray a complex and dynamic character who fights for another Black woman.
There are also more Easter eggs than one could count that hint at Beyoncé, some more obvious than others. They range from exact replicas of her outfits to real-life events (like the time someone bit her at a party) and famous urban legends surrounding the star. It’s so many that even the most clueless couldn't possibly miss who this is inspired by. While she is the obvious starting point for a show like this, the painfully evident copying is also quite annoying. Clearly, it’s a legal issue, you can’t make a show like this and just make Beyoncé the center. But as is, Ni'Jah is just an alias, making the viewing an incessant search of where exactly the line between reality and fiction has been placed. It’s probably exactly what the creators wanted.
The less obvious Easter eggs of the star-studded cast do an even better job of emphasizing how meta the series really is. Like making Billie Eilish a creepily convincing cult leader and casting the Beyoncé protegé, Chloe Bailey, as the protagonist Dre’s best friend. (Seems like a good opportunity to point out that Glover is a close friend of Beyoncé, and apparently, she has in fact watched the whole series.) Paris Jackson (daughter of Michael) also makes a brief and very self-deprecating appearance. Castings that solicited outraged reactions from fans concerned with the violent and adult nature of the series. This is a reaction that further proves the series’ point of the fans' perceived ownership of their idols and the dissonance of a public persona and one's private life. The obvious call out of Beyoncé’s “Beyhive” upset some fans, but also prompted stranger reactions of pride, which of course also stresses the series’ themes.
Dominique Fishback’s metamorphosis through a bunch of incarnations of Dre is what really drives the narrative. Even though the pacing of the series is not always equally thrilling, and the Billie Eilish episode not completely getting its point across; the very elegant bow tie and ending more than make up for it. The creators find a way to give Dre her happy ending, without smoothing over the harsh facts of reality. Even though the narrative seldom leaves Dre’s point of view, we also get a sobering outside perspective. Through the elements of horror, Swarm makes us confront ourselves through the lens of parasocial relationships and social media. Leaving an aftertaste that is undeniably sour. ♦