Antifans are people who are passionate about a media text, but negatively so; they loathe or detest what they take it to represent. Anti-fandom therefore appears to revolve around a negative stereotype of the particular text or genre and its assumed audience.
This has been supported by the rise of the internet anti-fan in the digital age. Anti-fans are everywhere and can therefore ruin the success of a film by promoting negative reviews, for example, via the internet. The studios insisted that the publication of several negative reviews on the internet was largely responsible for the disappointing cinematic release of 1997's Batman and Robin, which can thus suggest that anti-fans have more influence over the perceived fans than in previous decades.
Anti-fans hate the person they're reading or listening to, but can't seem to stop. They obsessively hang around on the YouTube channels or blogs of their anti-idol, waiting for a hate-fix to fulfill their lust for anger, constantly seeking opportunities in which to explain their contempt for the work and its author.
Something particularly important to note about anti-fans is that they can gather together in order to share their hate for a particular celebrity or icon. Groupings of anti-fans can be termed as 'anti-fanclubs', also known as virtual communities of disregard, hate listings and diss-share sites.
One specific example would be 'Daniel Craig Is Not Bond', which brought together both traditional Bond fans and anti-Craig fans. The latter people can delight in pointing out the shortcomings of Daniel Craig as Bond, whereas there are other anti-fans who simply 100% 'hate a character', and do not find delight in doing so.
Like traditional fans, anti-fans can go to extreme lengths to prove their hatred, which therefore emphasises how passionately opposed they might be to a certain franchise, celebrity etc. For example, in America a woman brought about the first known anti-fan hunger strike, in an attempt to 'get Sanjaya Malakar kicked off American Idol'.
Anti-fans might also perceive a media text in its different levels: a rational-realistic level (do I believe this? does it make sense?), a moral level (do I approve of its morals?), a political level (how do I react to its politics?), and an aesthetic level (is it artful or beautiful?), to name some key ones.
However, just as with traditional fans, anti-fans might not have a particular reason for their dislike or contempt for a media text. For instance, in regards to David Cronenberg's Crash, Martin Barker, Jane Arthurs and Ramaswami Harindranath noted how most of the people behind the push to have the film removed from English cinemas had not actually watched the film. Therefore, this meant that the fans who often devote their time to consuming huge portions of the text and its accompanying paratexts tended to be anti-fans, who may only have read negative reviews or taken what certain people, particularly those they trust, have said at face value.
Furthermore, this meant that it would be difficult for people to watch the film without taking the public outrage into account. For instance, if you read a negative review about a film, then it might be difficult to not take the review into consideration while watching the film.
Anti-fandom is significant as people can define themselves just as much by what they like as what they dislike. Hence anti-fandom can allow one to understand the impact and meaning of media texts on the lives of their fans.
Therefore, anti-fandom plays a large role in influencing fans as they might offer alternate readings of media texts that can allow people to decide whether they're a fan or an anti-fan. This also suggests that anti-fandom lends a voice to those who are otherwise unable to speak out against a particular media text, for fear of ridicule or angering people. Since fans are vocal in their support and devotion to particular media texts, then anti-fans should be given the chance to have their views and opinions taken into consideration, as well as be allowed to explain why they might be against certain media texts.
