I have a habit of checking in on people I went to high school with on Instagram. Many of the girls I spent afternoons eating pizza with and giggling at their father’s Playboy stashes are strangers to me now, adults with lives that are so foreign from mine it’s impossible to imagine we were once best friends. Take, for example, one girl who lived in my neighborhood. These days, she’s a Swiftie, obsessed with posting Instagram stories addressed directly to Taylor Swift, reminding the mega pop star that she’s also getting married and she’d hate to reschedule her own wedding to make it to one of Swift’s future tour dates. Swift hasn’t announced a tour, by the way—in fact, as of writing this, her latest album hasn’t even dropped. If Swift were ever alone with her, I honestly think we’d be in Misery territory fast.
Based on Stephen King’s novel (King began writing Misery in response to his fans’ negative reaction to his 1984 epic fantasy novel, The Eyes of the Dragon), Rob Reiner’s iconic 1990 thriller imagines what would happen if an artist were to come face-to-face with a fan who believes devotion equals ownership.
Bestselling writer Paul Sheldon (James Caan) crashes his car and wakes up in the home of Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates), a reclusive nurse and his self-described “number one fan.” At first, it seems like a miracle. Without Annie, Paul would have surely died, if not from his injuries (including a dislocated shoulder and two fractured legs) then from the raging blizzard. Even better, Annie thinks Paul is a “poet,” the greatest writer of all time. But when Annie discovers that Paul has killed off his long-running romance heroine Misery Chastain, Annie forces him to rewrite the story—at mallet point.
35 years later, Annie reminds me of parts of Swiftie Nation—writing poetry about Swift’s engagement to Travis Kelce, buying up her exact engagement dress, insisting Swift is still in love with Karlie Kloss, mercilessly harassing Gabriette (model and fiancée of ex-situationship Matty Healy). But the madness didn’t begin with her engagement. For years, Swift’s stans (a term coined in 2000 by Eminem’s song about a fan whose obsession turns deadly) have demanded that her life and her art should be tailored to their specific theories, her tours should be Instagram-worthy experiences, and that Swift herself should behave like projections of their own self-image.
Of course, Annie didn’t invent this kind of culture. Neither did Swifties—the Tiffany-obsessed subjects of the 2008 documentary, I Think We’re Alone Now come to mind, as well as the Kpop fans who use social media to criticize a group’s dancing, bodies, or personal lives—but it’s still disturbing to watch fans become increasingly obsessive and aggressive as the boundaries between ourselves and the celebrities we worship blur on social media.
Stans believe they know what’s best for an artist, and, like Annie, would happily burn a manuscript and break ankles if that meant they could “save” their favorite artist. If Swift were to—God forbid—call her fans out, what would they do? I shudder thinking of the possible outcomes.
“I never meant for it to become my life,” says Paul in a meeting with his agent early on in the film, clutching his manuscript to his chest. But the truth is, misery is part of any artist’s life. How could it not be with stans like these?
If you love Misery, let me know: @ashjenexi on Instagram and X.
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