Madonna fandom



Madonna fandom refers to the fan community of American singer-songwriter Madonna. She attained cult status amongst different audiences according to professor Sheila Jeffreys. Unlike other fandoms, her fan base does not have an official moniker, although "Madonna wannabe" became a popular media label to talk about her fans over years. The fanaticism surrounding the singer, and also called Madonnamania initiated no later than 1985. She produced consecutive successful singles in various major music markets, established numerous international records and impacted the fashion industry. Thousands of her female fans were dressing like Madonna around the world and the term "Madonna wannabe" was born. Author and scholar Lisa Lewis believes she is "one of the first women to attract the kind of devotion of young female fans normally associated with male rock stars".

Over the course of various decades, her fandom attracted diverse scholarly analyses, with her wannabes being the most studied audience at some point, flourished during the emerging of the fan studies. Her interaction with the audience has been also commented on, also as part of audience studies and media coverage. Before and after the solidification of Internet and social media, related Madonna-fan demonstrations, as well her fan clubs, fanzines, fansites, conventions and other fanatics demonstrations received significant media citations. A subject of diverse collections, Madonna topped the list "100 Most Collectable Divas" made by Record Collector in 2008. Her fandom set the world record of the biggest fan letter ever written. Madonna has also had a long list of obsessed fans and stalkers, many of whom she had personal encounters with and other of whom expressed a desire to kill her. American cult leader, David Koresh is an example. Some celebrities and other personalities, who identified publicly as her fans, were influenced by that feeling in their works, including Mexican painter Alberto Gironella, whose latest works were dedicated to or inspired by the singer.

Origins


The Madonnamania (also typeset as Madonna mania or Madonna-mania) was documented in numerous parts of the world. Lucy O'Brien set its origin by 1985, describing in Madonna: Like an Icon that the fanaticism around Madonna "spread from city to city" in the U.S. Internationally, Teenager stated in 1985, "Now Madonnamania has swept countries all over the world". In Europe, Music & Media informed in September 1985, that the Madonnamania was spreading all over the continent. That year Argentine magazine Pelo, commented the Madonnmania "exceeds the limits of what is humanly bearable". Andrew Morton stated that around these years, the singer "reached a natural constituency with her fan base among young women, gays and blacks". Conversely El Siglo de Torreón held in 1993 that the Madonnamania started in 1983.

Her first international tour, Who's That Girl World Tour continued the frenzy surrounding Madonna. Italian writer Francesco Falconi felt that with this tour, Madonna had a very precise goal: "To spread Madonnamania all over the Planet". In 1987, Russell Baker observed the case of United Kingdom where media reports from London documented that the arrival of Madonna and its Madonnamania, "agitated" her young fans so "severely". At this point, Nick Robertshaw from Billboard commented that the arrival of Madonna at London's Heathrow Airport was a "fan hysteria on a scale rarely seen since the days of the Osmonds". According to biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli there was a crowd of 25,000 hysterical fans who turned up to greet her at the airport in Japan. The Sydney Morning Herald informed the singer "set off a wave of hysteria among hundreds of thousands of fans". Madonna's performance debut, also influenced by her TV commercial for Mitsubishi, local newspapers labeled her reception as the "Madonna Fever", or "Madonna Fee-ba". In the 1990s, the term continued to be used by media, including for her 1993 tour Girlie Show due to her fatest-selling gigs in the UK and Australia, or during the releases of her 1991 documentary Truth or Dare, and her first book, Sex in 1992.

Madonna quickly achieved breaking-sales and consecutive successful singles in countries such as United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. She also impacted the fashion industry, as millions of her fans around the world were dressing like her and the term "Madonna wannabe" came out. In the following decades, she continued to breaking these kind of records and also sold-out numerous concerts.

Subsequent years


In the following decades, the Madonnamania was also reported and revived in many parts of the world. Stephen Brown of Ulster University, felt that although Madonnamania "has slackened somewhat since the heady days of 1984, her staying power is as remarkable as her dramatic ascent". El Mercurio editor Sofía Maluenda in a 2018 article, argues that the Madonnamania "continues to be almost a religion".

After its first wave, in the 1980s, the most-well documented feeling of Madonnamania was perhaps when she lived in the United Kingdom with her then husband Guy Ritchie. It received press coverage by journalists like John Cassidy in 2000. According to American journalist Michael Musto: "the British are delighted that Madonna lives in London, where she is perceived as the new 'Princess Diana'". Cassidy also mentioned by some British, Madonna replaced Diana as "Fleet Street's favorite mother". Taraborrelli also explored UK's particular affection for Madonna. In 2005, British channel ITV Granada created the TV special Madonna-mania.

During her concert tours, the Madonnamania usually resurrect either because she visited for the first time a country or city, or because she hadn't been there for a long-time. With regard to the latter, when she toured with the Sticky & Sweet Tour after 17 years of absence in South America, promoter Arthur Fogel said that the continent was "over-the-top amazing for Madonna", so "it was Madonna-mania" ended. A similar situation occurred in 2012 with the MDNA Tour in Mexico. Also, for her debut performance in Russia (2006) or Colombia (2012).

Groups and nicknames
While "Madonna wannabe" became a popular media label to talk about her fans, there is no a universal agreement or an official name for her fan community. In 2017, Pier Dominguez from BuzzFeed News suggested that her online fandom called themselves "Iconers" (derived from the Madonna official fan club: Icon). Some Spain's media outlets have called her fans as "Madders". However, Jason Richards from The Atlantic said that themselves just call in plain old "fans". In Madonnaland (2016), author Alina Simone wrote that her fans "aren't necessarily cuddly" and don't have a "cute name".

"Madonna wannabe" has been a nickname associated with her fandom, or part of her audience over years. According to Annalee Newitz in 1993, her "youth audience" was called during the 1980s, Madonna wannabes. In 2019, Stars Insider commented "this label isn't for her fan base as a whole, but rather for those fans that love her so much they try to be her".

Demographics, levels and audience studies


In her early decades, Madonna received significant commentaries within audience studies reception and professor Sheila Jeffreys once concluded she gained cult status amongst different audiences. French academic Georges-Claude Guilbert described as an "essential aspect" that in her beginning, the composition of her public was mostly constituted by teenage girls, then, it gradually spread to a mass public. American social scientist and ethnographic researcher, James Lull, commented in 2000 that she appealed to a multiple fan base. Madonna's audience was later described as a diverse in terms of class, race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation, while Lull further commented:

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Music critic Joey Guerra from Houston Chronicle, referred to her different groupings and levels of fandom in 2007, identifying "five most common types", including what he called "The Madonna Complex" to a group of thinkers who are not necessarily interested in her music, but appreciate her impact on society. Associate professor Tracy L. Tuten of Longwood University has concurred saying that "we can think of groups of Madonna fans", concluding that "each cultural grouping might emphasize different elements of the commercial production of the entity known as Madonna". She further adds that on a wider level, "they all had a connection to Madonna, they would all be united in the Madonna fan culture on that similar level, and probably other ones as well". Authors of The Italian 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Cultural, Scientific, and Political Figures, Past and Present (1998) reported that "some fans become so obsessive about Madonna that they will endure hours in the rain or the cold just to get a glimpse of her".

One of her most important fan bases is the gay community, which a large portion have also embraced her as a gay icon. In an interview with Ellen DeGeneres in 2010, she told: "I wouldn't have a career if it weren't for the gay community". She also has had an important intellectual audience and academic fan base. Reviewing social media networks in 2009, AtData website estimated her fans were predominantly female.

Multimedia


The first and only authorized fanzine by Madonna was reported to be Like a Fanzine (later called Icon after its third edition), founded in 1990. MLC (from her name Madonna Louise Ciccone), founded in 1987 became according to media reports, one of her best-covered fanzines. In her career, some other fanzines have been created, including Dare Star (previously Madonna Magazine), edited both in France and Spain, and also Justify My Life. Her figure has seen fan fictions as well through Internet.

Inside The Groove – Madonna's Music, is believed to be the world's most listened to Madonna podcast according to PinkNews in 2023, with Elle magazine reporting 50,000 downloads by 2020. MLVC: The Madonna Podcast, broadcast on iHeartRadio and Apple Podcasts, achieved a nomination at the 2023 Queerties Awards.

Visual media and other works


Material Pipol a 2009 documentary made by official Chilean club, MadonnaChile was well-received and gained attention of national media publications, including a cover in La Cuarta. Russian Oxana Nabokova presented in 2019 the documentary Like a Prayer in several U.S. cities and other European and Latin American cities, which focuses on five long-time Madonna fans, including Nabokova herself. Mad for Madonna (2015) is a film about her fan base.

In 1987, Argentine writer Enrique Medina created the novel Buscando a Madonna (English: Seeking Madonna), based in the life of a Madonna fan named "Lucy" who wants to be like her. Since 1993, Emilia Mazer has starred in the theaters adaptation throughout Argentina and Spain, having various functions in 2002, 2013 and 2018.

Fan clubs and websites


In Representing Gender in Cultures (2004), Elżbieta H. Oleksy and Joanna Rydzewska wrote that there is literally "hundreds of webpages and newsgroups devoted exclusively to Madonna". Some of them received both nominations at awards ceremonies and press coverage. A fansite called Madonnalicious.com created in 2001, received the BT Digital Music Awards in 2004, for the People's Choice Award in the best music website/unofficial site category. According to El País in 2009, DivinaMadonna.com garnered 20,000 unique hits daily. German designer Michael Michalsky once confessed be a reader of AllAboutMadonna.com. MadonnaTribe.com, an original bilingual Italian and English website created in 2003, was shortly after translated into French and Spanish due an increase of its international visitors according to Italian writer Francesco Falconi.

Clubs
Madonna official fan club is Icon. Madonna's fan site has been recognized in some ceremonies, including at the 2016 Webby Awards for the General Website Celebrity/Fan category, and a nomination at the 2000 My VH1 Music Awards.

She has had different fan clubs around the world. Some were supported by her then record label, Warner Bros. Records, like MadonnaChile, created in 2007, garnering the label of her "official" club in the country. In Spain, the official fan club is Divina Madonna founded in 1987 according to El País, and is the oldest fan club of an artist in Spain. According to Colombian website Shock, the club served as a reference for Madonna's fan clubs for both Spain and the Americas, as well for other artists fan clubs in the region. Lucky Star from Argentina, was mentioned by media outlets when she filmed Evita, and was subject of analysis by sociologist Mario Margulis.

Fan activities


Madonna's fan-related activities garnered press coverage, while Hispanic scholars in Bitch She's Madonna (2018) felt the contests related to Madonna "[were] one more expression of the impact of the artist". In 1993, a three-day TV special show AllAboutMadonna was broadcast in Los Angeles by Continental Cablevision along with Century Cable and in New York by Manhattan Cable Television, chronicling the "excesses" of the performer and her fans. Flashmobs have been documented by the media as well, including SF Station announcing two in the city of San Francisco in 2011.

Conventions and tribute shows
Some fan conventions received local, national or international media citations as well. The first international convention was the Madonnathon, organized in 1992. The inaugural edition received fans from 3 continents, including people from Australia, Canada, Portugal and Switzerland, and received the media attention of media outlets such as Billboard, People, MTV and the program Day One of ABC. The second edition, also known as Madonnathon '93 reached a higher attendance, as fans from Mexico and United Kingdom travelled to the States. Another convention, also called Madonnathon was created in 2003 to celebrate her birthday and other themed dates. According to BroadwayWorld in 2018, is "the largest Madonna tribute show and dance party in the world".

Brisbane Madonna Party was established around 2006, and is Australia's longest-running Madonna party. Divina Madonna Party, organized by her Spaniard official club, is an annual event which takes place in different cities of Spain. In Brazil, Club A Lôca devoted an entire month Madonna-themed party from at least 2000 to 2007. Festonna, is a tribute show to the singer created in 2005 by DJ Rafael Augustto in Brazil. In 2019, they created a carnival block for the Carnival of São Paulo, named "A Madonna Está Aqui".

Around 2003 or 2004, it was established the annual party Madonnarama in the United States. Created by DJ Ed Bailey, he began with small parties in his Washington D.C. home base. In the following years, the gatherings upward of 3,000 people, and it was at some point regularly hosted in D.C., Houston, Atlanta and Philadelphia. In 2007, Joey Guerra, music critic of Houston Chronicle described the events of Houston as "one of the year's most popular nightlife events, thanks to Madonna's enduring catalog".

Fan activism and charitable activities
Fan-led campaigns were also noted. For example, in 2006, 3,300 fans signed the "End the Madonna U.S. Radio Boycott" on petitionline.com, reacting to low chart performance in the U.S. of singles from the release of Confessions on a Dance Floor, as well as conspiracy theories about why Madonna was not played on the radio. Bedtime Stories, originally released in 1994, became the subject of a fan-led social media campaign amid the COVID-19 pandemic, promoted with hashtag #JusticeForBedtimeStories. The campaign resulted in the album reaching number one on the iTunes albums charts in several countries. Madonna confirmed her delight a few hours later on Twitter, expressing gratitude to all the fans in isolation for making this feat happen.

In January 1986, Terrence Ross, an anti-nuclear activist and Madonna fan, created the Association to Save Madonna from Nuclear War (ASMNW), an effort to have portions of areas where the singer lived or socialized declared as nuclear-free zones. Ross received coverage in national publications such as Saturday Review, Harper's, and Nuclear Times among others. In 2018, French fashion photographer Vincent Flouret, also a fan, recreated many of Madonna's looks with his Golden retriever. The earnings from the photo session, called Maxdonna, were destined to Madonna's charity Raising Malawi.

Admission proceeds from the two first editions of the international convention Madonnathon (c. 1992) went to AIDS charities, including the Midwest AIDS Prevention Project. In 2013, fan clubs Madonna Celebrate and Madonnalicious hosted a sold-out benefit party in aid of St Stephen's AIDS Trust in London.

Memorabilia
Author Alina Simone found that there is a least one investment fund dedicated almost fully to Madonna: Marquee Capital, founded by Chetan Trivedi. Marquee Capital have contributed to numerous of Madonna exhibitions, including one in Macau. Reuters also reported they have participated in the biggest collection of Madonna items ever to come to auction at one time in partnership with Julien's Auctions in 2014.

Madonna's interaction


Madonna has interacted with her community in many ways; including final decisions that were incorporated in her works. An example of the latter occurred with her album Celebration (2009) as her songs on the compilation were selected by Madonna and her fans. An invitation to her fans to be part of her video "Celebration" was made through her official website.

Madonna has been also active on social media, interacting with fans and audience. In addition, her cut "Broken" from Celebration was given to Madonna's fanclub Icon's official members as a free 12" vinyl, as a part of their membership in late 2012. During the Rebel Heart Tour, the singer promoted fan artworks. Madonna: Tears of a Clown was given as a special concert to her Australian fans, due she dodged the country for way too long during her previous tours. Tickets were free, but made available to only members of her official fan club, Icon, and were non-transferable. In 2017, she discussed the idea of intimate shows and being able to talk directly to the audience. Her all-theater 2019 tour Madame X Tour, explored this idea.

In 2013, Madonna gave her fans the opportunity to ask her (almost) anything as part of a r/IAmA of Reddit. In 2015, Madonna chat with five selected fans on Grindr as part of the promotion of her album Rebel Heart. The same year, she had an interactive video chat with her fans as part of an AskAnythingChat for Romeo Saturday Night Online. In 2019, during the release of her album Madame X Madonna interacted again with her fans in the LiveXLive of iHeartRadio, and in the MTV interview "MTV Presents Madonna Live & Exclusive: 'Medellín' Video World Premiere".

Controversies, incidents and criticisms


Madonna's relationship and interaction with her fans have sparked diverse commentaries. In positive views, Randal C. Hill in Spotlight on Rock Stars (1989), argues that "she hates to disappoint her fans". In similar remarks, Spanish music writer Joaquín Luqui felt she gives herself to the "maximum". Others recognize and noted that she later inspired a love/hate relationship.

Madonna often disgusted some of her fans in various of her tours (mostly since 2010s) for being late or cutting performances length. Madonna or her team, for instance, were sued with class actions, including by 3,000 attended of her Chilean gig of the MDNA Tour in 2012, a fan from Miami during the Madame X Tour (2019-2020), and in the Celebration Tour (2023-2024). In 2024, Jon Bream from Toronto Star, dedicated an article of high-profile artists with a background for being tardy, saying that Lauryn Hill "battle Madonna for the queen of tardiness".

Some incidents between Madonna and her fans were also reported by media. For instance, during the Celebration Tour in 2024, the singer accidentally called out a fan in a wheelchair for sitting during her performance, although she quickly apologized after realizing it. According to media reports, the fan was not offended, although Madonna garnered online criticisms.

Madonna's use of social media channels such as Instagram and TikTok since mid 2010s, where she has used them also as a platform of leisure, have also often generated criticisms from her audience and media. Nancy Jo Sales echoed in an article published for The Guardian in 2023, that "stories about fan 'concern' over Madonna's 'bizarre' behavior have abounded [...]" forcing her to ask to retire. Nancy suspects and explored many things, including her nature as a self-marketing celebrity where she interprets the singer is aware of things she does, also recalling a post on her TikTok account when a reporter in the 1990s, asked her "When Madonna is 50... 60, what will she be doing? "Who knows?", with the singer responding, "Hopefully I'll be having fun".

Fans


Some personalities achieved fame in some contours for being known as Madonna's fans at some stage; in 2001, John Hand from BBC News, commented, "It's becoming increasingly common for Madonna fans to achieve mini-celebrity status themselves".

Some fans-Madonna impersonators, including Adam Guerra, known by his stage name Venus D-Lite, also received media attention. Some of her collectors, were also the subject of media coverage and some appeared in documentaries and TV specials of the subject, including Vh1's Totally Obsessed in 2004 with Chris Gennaro, and the first Gaffa dedicated section to music fan collectors in 2012, with Danish collector Marek Poulsen. Madonna's largest European collection was reported in 2006 by EFE, belonging to Steven Christen (Switzeland), while James Harknett (London), has the world's largest private Madonna collection, according to The Daily Telegraph, whom contributed with a 2009 Madonna exhibition. BBC's journalist, John Hand, was called by Australian newspaper The Age in 2002, as a Madonna-phile. In 2024, a Madonna fan earned the Guinness World Record for the most tattoos of the same musician on the body.

Public figures


Various celebrities have declared themselves to be Madonna fans. Mexican painter Alberto Gironella talked about his obsession with Madonna, and before he died said that his latest works "spin around her". Spanish actress Claudia Molina performed the tribute show ''Remember. Live tribute to Madonna'' (2019) as a result of her fandom. Sonic Youth member Kim Gordon explored in one of the chapters of Goodbye 20th Century the band's admiration toward Madonna. According to author Tyler Conroy, the band "refashioned itself as a Madonna tribute band" with the project "Ciccone Youth".

According to Benyamin Cohen in 2019, some of "Israel's biggest stars are also Madonna fans", including Gal Gadot. Other public figures who have declared themselves fans include Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, and Taylor Swift. Journalist Mark Bowden has reported that North Korea's president, Kim Jong-un, is a fan of her music.

Stalkers
Through her career, Madonna experienced death threats from obsessed fans and house-break in by stalkers. Examples include Todd Lawrence in 1994. During 1995 and 1996, Robert Dewey Hoskins, scaled the wall outside singer's Hollywood Hills estate. Hoskins, whom treated to kill Madonna, was condemned to 10 years in jail in 1996. In 2012, professor of forensic psychology Katherine Ramsland discussed his case and concluded that "Madonna's obsessive fan reflects our celebrity-centered culture". In 1993, media reported David Koresh was obsessed with Madonna and sometimes wanted to kill her. Through the 2000s and 2010s, similar situations and cases were reported by media.

Madonna was also affected by fan hackers. In 2011, the "Madonnaleaks" conducted to arrest a Spaniard fan, after illegally leaking the demo of her song "Give Me All Your Luvin'". In 2015, after an international investigation assisted by the FBI, Adi Lederman from Israel was jailed for 14 months in Tel Aviv for hacking Madonna's computer and leaking her album Rebel Heart.

Cultural analysis


The Madonna fandom also attracted numerous cultural analysis flourished in the emerging fan studies and also, the Madonna studies in late twentieth century. Professors Gail Dines and Jean M. Humez, cited that "the most visible and most scrutinized Madonna fans [were] the wannabe's adolescent white girls". One of the first to study Madonna and her fans is John Fiske, whom studies have been cited by various other academics over years. In the compendium The Madonna Connection (1993), it was written: "[There are], media scholars interested in Madonna fans, whom they interview to reconstruct what meanings viewers derive from Madonna concerts, records, videos, magazine articles, and so forth."

The earliest studiers focused about Madonna herself: her appearance, clothes, what she does and says, and what she represents for them. The main impact of these descriptions was found in her wannabes. A contemporary comment from 1985, says: "She appears to her fans as one of them, a young girl simply". Fiske seen Madonna offering "her fans access to semiotic and social power, which in turn, may empower the fan's sense of self and thus affect her behavior in social situations". Similarly, Graham Cray concurred that she provided a "vehicle for escape" for the majority of her fans, saying that "she erects a screen on which the public can project their own fantasies".

During this century, also proliferated the studies of video music and the audience reception theory; various analysis on Madonna fandom were conducted in this vein. In 1990, professors Jane Brown, Anne Barton White and Laurie Schulze, presented the videos of "Papa Don't Preach" and "Open Your Heart" in three different universities and used a newspaper poll to set college student responses toward Madonna. Students were classified in genders and races; as well to determine level in Madonna fandom: Madonna haters, fans and neutral viewers. Another student's reaction was conducted by Thomas K. Nakayama and Lisa N. Peñaloza in 1993; Canadian professor Karlene Faith argues that such studies "give indicators that Madonna's fans as much as her detractors, bring a multicity of interpretations to her work".

Online fandom
Frances Wasserlein is one of the first to devote studies on Madonna and her online fandom; those analysis were part of the book Madonna: Bawdy and Soul (1997) by Canadian professor Karlene Faith. In her research, Wasserlein denotes: "[...] Madonna's fans, an interestingly international lot, have put literally billions of bytes on web sites all over the world. Anyone looking for information about Madonna will face what I did: an overwhelming rush of facts, photographs, lists, comments, dreams, fantasies, and downright weirdness, on web sites from Singapore to Denmark to Canada to the United States, on sites at universities, on sites beautifully designed and others which are, at best, 'under construction'".

Other researches cited Wasserlein while exploring Madonna online fandom. Is the case of Matthew Hills in Fan Cultures (2003). In Media and Memory (2011), Joanne Garde-Hansen of University of Warwick also explored Madonna's fandom online, and cited Hills' work as a "groundbreaking work". In her analysis Garde-Hansen concludes: "Madonna is not dead at all, far from it, and yet the archiving, commemoration and remembering of her has already begun" citing archives commemorating her works and contributions.

Criticisms


In her early career, Madonna achieved a significant amount of criticisms for her perceived corrupting influence on her fandom. Some argued that the furor aroused by Madonna or The Beatles devastates men and women equally, "sometimes enhanced by the Dionysiac use of intoxicating drugs".

Her fan base of teenage girls were cited, by researchers with severe concerns for many reasons. For example, when she released "Papa Don't Preach" in 1986, American journalist Vanessa Grigoriadis explained she attracted a lot of criticism about corrupting her little girls fans or "encouraging teenage pregnancy". Overall, Cornel Sandvoss from University of Surrey, explained this fan base was deemed by critics "as one of the most disempowered groups in society". Some critics called them "cultural doped", able to be manipulated at will and against their own interest by the moguls of the cultural industry. And such a manipulation "would be not only economic, but also ideological".

Commentator Gil Troy also said she was accused of fostering a generation of "sluts", as her teenage girls fans "adopted" her messages. Biographer Adam Sexton also wrote that for her critics, there is no shortage of evidence to support this view: Madonna's videos exploit the sexuality of her face and body. Thus, all this would suggest that "she is teaching her young female fans to see themselves as men would see them; that is, she is hailing them as feminine subjects within patriarchy and as a such is an agent of patriarchal hegemony". An editor of compendium The Madonna Connection described that "little wonder that they often were positioned as a passive audience or that there was a moral panic about the effects that Madonna was having on them".

Responses
Some responses were made over criticisms about her early influence in her young fans in the 1980s. Historian and journalist Garry Wills commented in Certain Trumpets: The Nature of Leadership (2013): "Madonna fans have not acted on the subversive values scholars find in their idol. Her audiences were notably well behaved, with little evidence of the alcohol and drug abuse found at other rock stars concerts". Professor Karen L. Anderson from Stonehill College gives also a sympathetic view in her book Sociology: A Critical Introduction (1995), saying that "there is another way to look at Madonna and her fans": If her fans actively choose to listen to and imitate her, "rather they see in Madonna meanings that connect to their own social experiences".

Public perception
According to biographers and journalists such as Mark Bego and Belinda Luscombe (Time), Madonna represents different things to different people.

Madonna has provoked strong reactions through her career. Bego, said: "The mere mention of Madonna's name conjures strong reactions: she is the kind of girl you either love, hate, or love to hate". In 1992, American journalist Maureen Orth, referred "Madonna's celebrity is unique in that it seems to depend as much on repugnance as on acceptance. Her fame frame, unlike that of most other mega-stars, rests very much on people who love to hate her—while monitoring her every move—and on others who hate to love her". Editors of Cassell's Queer Companion (1995), similarly stated its remarkable that she inspired both intense reactions. Furthermore, Madonna's credibility and rejection to her figure has been found in individuals from diverse communities, including LGBT, virtual and religious communities. After the release of her first book, Sex (1992), Faith said she lost a lot of her older fans, feminist fans and credibility.

Anti-fanaticism


Anti-fan manifestations have been circulated since she burst on the prominence in mid-1980s. Books such as I Hate Madonna Handbook (1994) and I Hate Madonna Jokebook (1993) were published denoting her as the worst representation of many things in popular culture of the time. Sophie Gilbert from The Atlantic commented on the subject in 2023: "Her haters often respond to the same quality that her most ardent fans do". IndieWire's Hayden Wright elaborated: "If Madonna has inspired multiple generations of fans, she's also revved up multiple generations of haters [...] In the Madonna ecosystem, life depends on several sets of organisms".

In 2019, Matthew Jacobs from HuffPost commented "Madonna naysayers had a bigger platform than ever" with the advent of social media networks. In 2009, Priya Elan from The Guardian placed her at number 10 amid Google searches of "I hate..." with 276,000 results. John Marrs, from the same publication, referred to Madonna Blows Chunks created in 2003, then largest anti-Madonna website. As of 2009, the web received 70,000 hits and 300 members regularly add to its 30,000 anti-Madonna messages. Kim Knight, in an article titled The Madonna Complex for The New Zealand Herald in 2016, also explored the anti-Madonna fan material from publications to social media groups and websites. Tyler Cowen, who cites the I Hate Madonna Jokebook (1993), overall commented that public figures are "criticized by millions every day". On the other hand, Israeli writer Amos Oz once mentioned about "a universal" idolisation on Madonna.

Impact


In The Music Diva Spectacle (2021), Constantine Chatzipapatheodoridis gives credit to Madonna for help shape the contemporary music landscape in her generation, in areas that includes fandom. Jonathan Borge from InStyle believes that "before stars could easily take to social media to instantly share a behind the scenes glimpse of their lives", Madonna pioneered a relationship with her fans in Truth or Dare. In 1990, Lisa Lewis wrote that Madonna "was one of the first women to attract the kind of devotion of young female fans normally associated with male rock stars". In 1993, scholars Peggy Phelan and Lynda Hart have concurred that "more than almost any other artist whose identity seems patently intelligible, she has provoked immense pleasure in her fans by courting their identities as a component of her own". In 2015, Adam Holz from Focus on the Family perceived she continued to have influence when it comes to shaping the worldview of her some fans. In 2011, Patricia Coralis from Catholic University of Portugal analyzed her public image and fans, concluding that her fan reactions reaffirms Madonna as a significant personality in the context of Western society. Mary Cross wrote in Madonna: A Biography (2007) her "over-whelming success of her music, videos/DVDS, concert tours, and sales speaks volumes" about both her popularity and fan base.

In 2012, Lojas Renner helped to create with some of her Brazilian fans, the world's biggest fan letter ever written, a one kilometre message put in line of Ipanema. According to Emily Mackay of BBC, the singer has "inspired some very serious collections". In 2008, Record Collector placed her at the top of their 100 Most Collectable Divas. She also inspired others related records.