Chapter 5: Shipping in Fandom: Structure or Division? A Case Study of Fans’ Negative Behaviour in Voltron Fandom

‘Shipping’ is a fan community term for a romantic pairing between two characters. Fans’ strong emotions towards their chosen shipping and the fictional characters involved are akin to a parasocial relationship. This one-sided emotional bond with fictional characters pushes fans as a collective to use social media as a platform to connect and share their interest. However, social media use algorithms that lead fans to find content that aligns with their interests and ideologies, resulting in echo chamber communities. Such an environment draws division within the fan community and encourages negative behaviour. The case study of focus for this research is on the fandom of the animated TV series Voltron: Legendary Defender, the reboot of the science-fiction Voltron franchise. Since the release of the series in 2016 on the streaming platform Netflix, the fan community of the series has grown on social media, and many fans have begun to ship characters together. Within the fandom, the showrunners and voice actors received death threats and blackmail when the original narrative did not include or validate the fans’ expectations. This case study shows that social media can build a collective that validates divisive behaviour and initiates a toxic environment.