Our Favourite Fandom Moments From 2023
From Bohemian Rhapsody sing-alongs at Harry Styles’ Love On Tour to wholesome cinema singalongs at the Ears Tour screenings, 2023 has been huge. As we approach the end of another jam-packed year for fandom, it’s time to embark on a journey through the most heart-warming, entertaining and outright brilliant fan moments that have left an indelible mark on 2023.
Queen Charlotte
Shonda Rhimes is known for her iconic TV shows. Her breakthrough show, Grey’s Anatomy, is still going strong today with a new cast of characters and the same loyal fans. More recently, Rhimes took on the Bridgerton universe, adapting the books by Julia Quinn into a highly successful Netflix series. The first season of the Regency show dropped on Netflix on December 25th, 2020 and followed Daphne Bridgerton as she made her debut in society and how she navigated being the diamond of the season. Season two followed Daphne’s older brother, Anthony, in his own journey to find a spouse.
Both seasons gave viewers glimpses into the Queen’s life as well, especially the King’s mysterious illness. In May of 2023, Queen Charlotte was released on Netflix. The show, which starred India Amarteifio and Corey Mylchreest, followed young Queen Charlotte and young King George at the beginning of their marriage. The show gave fans a closer look as to what exactly Geroge’s illness was, how he dealt with it, and how it affected his relationship with Charlotte. Fans loved the inside look at the King and Queen’s earlier life, but particularly loved Charlotte’s “I will stand with you between the heavens and the Earth” monologue. Countless fans took to TikTok to recreate the iconic scene, some in regency hair and makeup. The audio on TikTok, titled “my heart calls your name”, has over 142,000 posts, and the power of fandom kept it popular for months after the show’s initial release
Dressing up to see Barbie
The summer of Barbie was filled with iconic moments. Margot Robbie’s Barbie-inspired red carpet looks, the perfect soundtrack, and perhaps most iconic, the fans’ outfits to see the movie. Light pink, dark pink, hot pink, all these shades were present in moviegoers’ outfits. Some fans dressed as specific Barbies, some had Barbie plastered on t-shirts and pants, and some dressed in head-to-toe pink. Theatres were filled with choruses of “Hi Barbie!” and “Hi Ken!”. The dressing up even trickled over into Oppenheimer. The two movies, which were so different, released on the same day, leading to the nickname Barbenheimer. Fans had so much fun dressing up to see Barbie that some decided to also dress up for Oppenheimer. One woman even created a reversible dress, one side pink and one side black, for the event. This era was the epitome of the perfect fandom moment.
Beyonce Mute Challenge
This year Beyonce returned to stadiums across the globe with her Renaissance tour. During her song Energy, Beyonce sings the words “Look around, everybody on mute”. She then pauses while the audience freezes in silence. Fans took quickly to the challenge and each show wanted to out mute the other. Fans who attended shows with friends or family who were not familiar with the challenge made sure to explain it before the show, so they wouldn’t disappoint Beyonce.
The Beyhive recorded themselves participating in the mute challenge at their shows and even side eyed those who didn’t participate. Celebrities even took part, including Lupita Nyong’o, Zendaya, and Tom Holland.
Predicting Nonsense Outros
Sabrina Carpenter has slowly but surely been making a name for herself as a main pop girlie. In 2023 she had the second leg of her emails i can’t send tour in North America and her first UK and Europe headline tour. Carpenter also opened for the Latin America leg of Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour. An integral part of Carpenter’s set is her song Nonsense and more specifically the outro of the song, which Carpenter customised with raunchy lyrics for each city. For example, in Nashville, she came up with “Maybe you won’t date me, but your dad will. Tonight I will be drinking, who got advil? Did you know I wrote this song in Nashville?”. Fans looked forward to hearing what Carpenter came up with every night and even took to predicting what custom lyrics she would sing. TikTok user @sadgirlshows predicted multiple outros for Carpenter’s London show including “This crowd is so hot you are all 10/10s. I wish someone could come show me his Big Ben. Cause you know that I love to sing in London”. The actual lyrics ended up being “Harry Potter, Peter Pan, and Big Ben. Sherlock Holmes, Adele, and bloody West End. Dua Lipa, Nandos, I love London”.
Regardless of accuracy, fans loved coming up with their own predictions and later on hearing the lyrics that Carpenter came up with.
The Eras Tour Movie
Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour took the world by storm in 2023. The singer’s three hour long set featured songs from each of her albums, and two surprise songs every night. While hundreds of thousands of Swifties were able to snag the coveted tickets, there were plenty who were unable to attend the tour. The North American leg of the tour concluded on August 27th in Mexico City and four days later on August 31st, Swift announced the Eras tour movie was hitting theatres on October 13th. Swifties worldwide were thrilled with the news.
The movie allowed for fans who couldn’t see the show live to see the performance in high definition, rather than a grainy livestream, and fans who had attended shows could relive the magic. Theatres were packed with Swifties in Taylor Swift inspired outfits and costumes the same way that stadiums were packed for the tour. Seeing so many fans be able to see their favourite artist’s legendary tour without breaking the bank was an incredibly heartwarming fandom moment.
The Hunger Games Resurgence
The Hunger Games. Divergent, The Maze Runner. The era of YA dystopian novels and their film adaptations was iconic and hasn’t been replicated since. In May 2020, Suzanne Collins, author of The Hunger Games trilogy, released The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. This prequel focused on President Coriolanus Snow as a schoolboy and how he mentored his tribute, Lucy Gray Baird, from District 12 to win the 10th Hunger Games. On November 17th, the film adaptation of the prequel was released. The film’s stars, Rachel Zegler and Tom Bylth, were showered with love from fans after seeing their performances in the movie. In the lead-up to the release, Hunger Games fans also rewatched and reread the original trilogy. Fans were reminded of how good the books and movies were and suddenly The Hunger Games was everywhere, just as it was in its prime. Edits of both Lucy Gray and Coriolanus and Katniss and Peeta were all over TikTok, and theories about both the prequel and original trilogy, and more importantly how they tied together, were discussed at length within the fandom.
Here’s to all the iconic fan moments in 2023, and to all the iconic fan moments to come in 2024!
