THE STORY – Tegan and Sara ascended to global fame as one of the most influential queer indie rock bands of their generation. They worked hard to cultivate an inclusive and passionate fanbase around the world. Listeners were drawn to the duo’s beautifully confessional lyrics, but there was more than just the music. Fans found within the community the only safe space to come out and be queer during a time when few bands would declare allyship, let alone celebrate their own queer identity. But a bad actor took advantage of the community’s trust and comfort, and Tegan and Sara’s world turned upside down when Tegan’s personal files were hacked in 2011, revealing the dark side of fame and fandom.
THE CAST – Sara Quinn & Tegan Quinn
THE TEAM – Erin Lee Carr (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 99 Minutes
In 2011, after having been on the road touring for two years straight, Tegan Quinn of the rising alt-rock duo Tegan and Sara had her world rocked. Someone using her identity had leaked a shared drive full of private personal information, including scans of passports for their entire band, with a fan. Not only that, but this person had been impersonating Tegan for months, catfishing multiple fans into thinking they were creating a friendship with their favorite artist and sharing personal information, pictures, and recordings that weren’t public. The experience took such a toll on Tegan that she admits, on camera, at the start of Erin Lee Carr’s documentary “Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara,” that she regrets agreeing to participate. She hopes she and Carr can get to the bottom of what happened to find out who did this and why. Given how easy it is to hide on the internet, Carr and her team had their work cut out for them, but the resulting film is a fascinating deep dive into fan culture and how the internet has warped our relationships with the artists we love.
Tegan and her identical twin sister, Sara, skyrocketed to fame in the early ‘00s after getting signed to a record deal by Neil Young. Openly queer and singing deeply personal songs about heartbreak, their gigs quickly became safe spaces for young queer people (especially women) to meet and express themselves. As the internet started taking over our daily lives and social media, that community moved online, with fans sharing concert setlists, bootlegs, pictures, and experiences meeting the duo. While Tegan was the more extroverted of the two, spending more time chatting, autographing, and posing for pictures, both sisters loved meeting people and connecting with their audiences at the merch table after shows.
However, when they learned of the fake Tegan catfishing scheme, that changed; paranoia grabbed hold, especially since the personal nature of the things being shared seemingly indicated that someone close to them was behind it. As their fame grew and the twins began to hide more behind security and verified VIP meet-and-greets, the online community of Tegan and Sara fans grew in size and fervor, with the fake Tegan (or “Fegan,” as their camp dubbed the catfisher) doing even more damage, at one point even striking up a sexting relationship with someone in the Canadian music scene with whom Tegan had once been friendly. The deeper their investigation went, the more horrifying Fegan’s actions became. Despite good investigative work leading to potential suspects, the Quinns and their management never found Fegan.
Speaking with several fans who were victims of Fegan’s scheme, Carr circles ever closer to finding the individual responsible, even convincing one fan who seemed to have a vendetta with the real Tegan to speak anonymously. But this was all years ago, and without the original emails, text messages, and files, cyber investigations tend to run dry fairly quickly. On top of that, Fegan’s actions constitute a particularly personal violation, and many victims have likely forgotten or blocked out their memories of that painful time in their lives. Even those who agreed to participate in the documentary still have some trauma associated with it, but Carr shows tremendous empathy, even toward her most combative subjects. This makes “Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara” feel genuinely personal for all involved, as everyone’s pain is treated with the same level of care and seriousness, no matter how stupid they feel looking back.
Given the limitations of how far the investigation can realistically go, Carr smartly devotes equal time to exploring fan culture on the internet and how social media has affected it. While she doesn’t dive particularly deep, in part because the phenomenon is so new, her critique is pointed: While the accessibility of social media has allowed fans to feel closer to their idols than ever before, the anonymity of the internet has gifted them the ability to go farther than they ever would have before in expressing their love. This could have felt incredibly awkward next to all the interviews with those who fell victim to Fegan’s catfishing, criticizing them while also asking the audience to feel sympathy towards them, but Carrexerts tight control over the film’s tone and keeps the focus of the audience’s ire squarely on Fegan the whole time.
While the film’s slick, heavily produced style brings to mind any number of quick, cheap pop star tie-in documentaries that you might see as part of a long-form news program on TV, the content is handled with a level of specificity and grace that marks it as the work of a seasoned documentarian who knows exactly what she wants to say. By the end of “Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara,” the chilling message is clear: You could easily be any of these people, be it Tegan and Sara, Fegan’s victims, or even Fegan themselves. Carr offers no easy answers, but by opening up the story just a little bit, she makes “Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara” an intriguing look at modern society.
