#1 Fan (Pt. 1)
Thoughts on the internet's obsession with Gypsy-Rose Blanchard.
Where were you when you first learned about Gypsy-Rose Blanchard? Were you listening to a true crime podcast? Scrolling through Tumblr? Were you binging a new show? Were you reading a book? Did it come up naturally in a conversation with your friends, where you were trying to outdo one another with messed up true crime facts? Were you scrolling through TikTok, seeing the excitement of her 9.8 million followers, some waiting outside her prison for a glimpse of Gypsy-Rose, now free?
I found out about Gypsy-Rose Blanchard through Facebook as the case was unfolding. I think it was through Buzzfeed, and I was early enough that no one knew how involved Gypsy was at the time. It was June 2015 and Dee Dee Blanchard’s body was found stabbed in her bedroom, Gypsy nowhere to be found. It was early enough that the world still thought Gypsy was a chronically ill child, so the fact that she was missing caused panic to those who knew the Blanchard’s intimately and that worry spread online. As the crime took hold of the internet, Gypsy was found and the true story unfolded, one where a young woman was revealed to be the victim of Munchausen by Proxy who found murder to be the only way she might escape it.
It has all the makings of a V.C. Andrews novel and was compared to that in the beginning when all the details of the Blanchard’s were coming out. I never became a dedicated true crime fan, but I consumed a lot of it after my mom died, which also happened to be the same year Dee Dee Blanchard was murdered. My interest in true crime came before that though, mostly consumed through Buzzfeed articles with titles like “Ten Most F-ed Up Cases to Keep You Up at Night” that offered smiling photos of the victims and bite-sized paragraphs from fans about why these cases scared them and a link to the Wikipedia articles about the cases. I’d lurk various true crime Reddit threads reading about cases and other people’s opinions about what had happened. If I read these articles or subreddits too late at night I was unable to sleep. It just before the true crime boom. While I’m sure some existed at that time the only one of note I can think of is Serial that arguably started the genre (My Favourite Murder didn’t come out until January 2016). It was in December of that year that Making a Murderer also premiered, but it was still too early for many to know or care about Gypsy-Rose as much as they do now.
But the true crime fandom was growing and so was Gypsy’s fanbase, one that pleaded that she shouldn’t have to serve life in prison because she was a victim of abuse who only found the means to escape through an extreme way. It wasn’t long before people started to capitalize on her story. Two fiction books inspired by her case were published when Gypsy was in prison (and I’m sure more exist). Emily Elgar’s Grace is Gone was published in 2017 and the novel’s twist hinges on the fact that not many readers would know about Gypsy-Rose at the time. Stephanie Wrobel’s Darling Rose Gold is more of an “inspired by” what-if fictional revenge story than a direct fictional retelling1. In 2017, Dr. Phil spoke about the case in the episode “Mother Knows Best: A Story of Munchausen by Proxy and Murder,” the same year HBO released the documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest. Wrobel’s novel was published in 2020 and by that point Gypsy’s case was more well-known. Hundreds of true crime podcasts now existed, many of which talked about the case. The miniseries The Act had come out the year before (Patricia Arquette won an Emmy for her portrayal of Dee Dee Blanchard), during season one of Canada’s Drag Race in 2020, drag queen BOA dressed as Gypsy Rose as part of the “Snatch Game.”2 Gypsy-Rose Blanchard became marketable.
During the pandemic, Mia Blanchard posted about Gypsy, her half-sister, on TikTok which garnered attention and excitement. Fans started asking Mia questions about Gypsy which offered an intimate look into Gypsy’s family life. On December 7th 2023, Gypsy posted her first TikTok announcing that she had a book coming out on January 7th 2024 called Released: Conversations on the Eve of Freedom, in her bio she lists herself as “Public Figure/Speaker, Author, Advocating Awareness of Munchausen by Proxy.” In the days coming up to her release on December 28th 2023, many of Gypsy’s fans posted TikToks about themselves waiting outside of her prison, one which shows a young woman waiting in the driver’s seat of her car with the text “Me waiting for Gypsy Rose to get out of prison just in case she doesn’t have a ride.” People were excited to find Gypsy-Rose free and out in the world with her husband, Ryan Anderson, whom she married in 2022 in a private prison ceremony. Pacifica High School in Oxnard, California advertised a “Tipsy for Gypsy” event3 and two girls on TikTok have been posting Gypsy in relation to the musical Chicago from switching her name in the song “Roxie” to changing the pronouns in “Cell Block Tango.” Some commenters have even joked about the Broadway production stunt casting her as one of the leads, Roxie Hart.
Since then Gypsy-Rose and her husband have given interviews with ABC News, The View, a Lifetime interview where they play a “Newly Together Game.” On her TikTok account she’s posted a slideshow video of herself to Taylor Swifts “Bejeweled” with the caption “The evolution of my life <3,” warning her followers about fake accounts of herself (of which there are many), a Get Ready With Me as she prepares for her interview with Lifetime, an Outfit of the Day. Some comments on her videos include: “I LOVE HER MILLENIAL PAUSE OMGG,” “What if your just there minding your business and then see THE GYPSY ROSE I would die,” “QUEEN. WE ARE ALL CELEBRATING WITH YOU. If you’re ever in NYC come say hi <3,” “I don’t know if I want keyshia cole or Gypsy rose *heart eye emoji*,” “MOTHER IS A SWIFTIE.”
Parasocial relationships aren’t a new thing when it comes to fandom. Parasocial relationships are defined as “are one-sided relationships, where one person extends emotional energy, interest and time, and the other party, the persona, is completely unaware of the other’s existence. Parasocial relationships are most common with celebrities, organizations (such as sports teams) or television stars.” Most fandoms contain some sort of parasocial relationships. While celebrities are aware that they have fans it’s the fans who believe this relationship to be much more intimate or personal than it actually is. Sometimes this is because of language, it wasn’t uncommon for many vloggers, podcasters, and especially Instagram Influencers (when Influencers were just starting) to call their fans “friends” or “family,” inferring a closeness that doesn’t actually exist for the sake of gaining followers.
I’ve noticed that parasocial relationships tend to be on the rise in the past few years, though whether this is because social media makes these relationships seem closer and bigger than they are I can’t be sure, but I think it’s a good guest. I went to a live show of a podcast last year and during the Q and A period one fan told the hosts that when she listens to them it’s like she was “listening to a conversation with friends” despite the fact that she didn’t really know these people, just watched the TV show they used to appear on and now listening to them speak to each other on a podcast. Parasocial relationships are an expected part of fandom nowadays, but it’s strange to see it in true crime. It’s weird enough that true crime has a fandom, and the fact that parasocial relationships exist between it’s fans and murderers.4 While I didn’t delve too deeply into it5, there are dedicated fandoms to the Columbine shooters, Ted Bundy, and Jeffrey Dahmer, the latter which grew after Evan Peters portrayed him in Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.
The one-sided intimacy of parasocial relationships typically means the fan thinks they know and understand the celebrity in a way no one else does. Despite only seeing this person in interviews, movies/tv shows, and social media, a belief develops from the fan that they know exactly how the celebrity will act and will project certain expectations onto the celebrity. It’s these expectations, of course, that can lead to the celebrity’s downfall.
What Else I’ve Been Doing:
Reading: Finished reading Don’t Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones, The Joy Divisions by Scott Dimovitz, Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter, Elsewhere by Alexis Schaitkin,
Listening To: Daily Mix 1, Discover Weekly, daylight playlist (does all of this make me lame?), Six Live on Broadway
Watching: Season One of Six Feet Under, Season Two of What We Do In the Shadows, and One Pace
In Darling Rose Gold the titular character doesn’t kill her mother but rather houses her once her prison sentence ends as part of a plot for revenge after being a victim of Munchausen by Proxy.
This makes me too angry to write about.
The account appears to be satire or at least student-run.
I didn’t want to screenshot the post because it made me angry, but you can see a slice of the true crime fandom in action here.
Try to guess how it made me feel?