In the column Straight Nonsense, columnist Moises Mendez II takes a queer eye to the insanity of straight culture.
Frankly, I’m scared to write about anything related to Heated Rivalry ever again because the last time I did, the fandom exploded. It seems as though not much has changed, given that one of Connor Storrie’s fans allegedly assaulted the woman behind the Club Chalamet account on social media while the pair waited outside his Paris hotel to see him before he attended some shows during Paris Men’s Fashion Week.
For context, Club Chalamet, whose real name is Simone Cromer, is a 59-year-old woman who runs a fan account on X dedicated to Timothée Chalamet. Following the release of Heated Rivalry, she joined the fandom and made a new account in his honor called Storrie Glorrie. This pissed off a lot of fans who don’t like her because, at the end of the day, they’re mainly just weirded out by an older woman fawning after young men in their 20s; many in the fandom allege that she’s a stalker and exhibits dangerous behavior — pot meet kettle.
Anywho, earlier this week, while a group of fans was waiting outside Storrie’s hotel in Paris, an X user with the handle @mikadontyoudare uploaded a post that reads: “Fck. clubchalamet is here. Tf do i do,” and then wrote, “So um, just had a fight with club chalamet.” The person behind the account has not shared their identity, but they do use they/them pronouns. This person claims to have seen Club Chalament run towards Storrie as he exited his hotel, telling Louis Pisano (the journalist who writes the Discoursted substack) that they panicked and grabbed Cromer’s backpack, which led to a heated exchange.
In her own post on X, Cromer detailed her account of the events: She claimed that her trip to Paris was booked a year in advance to meet up with family from Michigan who had plans to be there. She was only three Metro stops away from Storrie’s hotel and decided to stop by to see what was up. Cromer misgendered the fan in her post about the interaction, writing that as she moved with the crowd and noticed someone forcefully pulling on her backpack, she turned around and noticed it was the person who’d been allegedly staring at her the entire time she was standing with the crowd. “She glared at me and said, ‘I know who you are. I know who you are, bitch. You bitch!’” she recounted.
Cromer continued, “And she tried to remove my fucking dermatologist-recommended fucking SPF mask from my fucking face, and I moved her hand away. What the actual fuck?” She claimed that as Storrie and his stylist entered the car, the fan stood in front of her, blocking her as she tried to leave. The fan denied trying to take Cromer’s mask off, telling Pisano that they only grabbed Cromer’s arm because they believed she was capable of harming Storrie.
I’d like to make it extremely clear that I don’t think waiting outside for your favorite celebrity is the issue here — that’s a completely normal practice, and one that is welcomed in fandom spaces as long as everyone is respectful and calm. Yes, Club Chalamet isn’t the shining example of what it means to be a fan — she’s made some misogynistic comments, reshared a lot of questionable political content, and knows how to dole out a good clapback. That doesn’t excuse the misogynoir and ageism she faces. Nor does it excuse anyone putting their hands on another person while standing outside the hotel of a celebrity — the same exact thing Cromer was doing, and by all accounts, seemingly peacefully and without bothering anybody.
There isn’t a handbook on how to be a good fan, but every fandom knows that basic human decency is at the core of it all.
The idea of stalking in fandoms is not something new. Who else remembers when a devoted One Direction fan was given the nickname “Stalker Sarah,” even to this day? My friend Kat Tenbarge, who writes the fabulous Spitfire News newsletter, penned a column about this situation in her most recent post and expertly broke down why waiting outside someone’s hotel isn’t considered stalking.
“Stalking is a very real, very serious crime. It’s most frequently perpetrated by individuals who are already known to their victims. The most common kinds of stalkers are former intimate partners and acquaintances, not fans,” she writes. “Stalking results in the victim fearing for their safety and experiencing distress. This is not an accurate term for what most fans do, and it actually waters down the reality of stalking and how terrifying and devastating it is for everyday people.”
I’m not here to cape for Ms. Club, as she’s been referred to online, but Tenbarge also makes an astute point in saying that the more attention you give to someone who is a bad actor online, the more power you give them. Attention is the most valuable asset in the digital age, which is why she was able to secure a profile in The Wall Street Journal. You could argue the same attention was given to right-wing influencers like Andrew Tate, Nick Fuentes, and Clavicular, making them household names.
I won't paint in broad strokes about the inner machinations of the fandom, as I've learned my lesson the last time I did that. But if there's any piece of advice I could offer as someone who's been a part of the Rihanna Navy since 2012 (and I have a Rihanna tattoo), ignore the people you don't like in your fandom. We're in an age where attention (whether that be likes, views, or comments) is converted into dollars (though I won't pretend to understand Cromer's social media strategy).
Fandom is supposed to be fun, and yes, there are bad actors, but the more fans focus on the bad actors rather than the task at hand — supporting their faves — the worse off everyone is. My other friend, CT Jones, an incredible culture writer at Rolling Stone, surmised how the fans might have gotten to this point: "Fandom thrives on strong emotion. And in the world of fan accounts, where enthusiasts follow a person’s every move, anything can feel like a life or death threat: a poor review, a doomed relationship, or new attention on an actor you feel like you have ownership over."
They write, "But what’s perhaps most ironic is that if the plan was to keep Cromer away from Storrie — or at least out of spaces his fandom is claiming as their own — the fight had the exact opposite effect."
Moises Mendez II is a staff writer at Out magazine. Follow him on Instagram @moisesfenty.
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