Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan & Sara
If you were gay in the early 2000s, chances are Tegan & Sara were on your playlist. Through their music and their dynamic presence, they cultivated a safe space for queer people at a time when such spaces were sorely lacking. As they collected fans from all around the world, they spread love and happiness everywhere they went. However, what many people didn’t know is that something much more sinister was happening behind the scenes. Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara tells the story of how a deranged fan from somewhere in the world hacked Tegan Quin’s personal information and has spent more than a decade impersonating them and infiltrating their private life.
When the documentary opens, Tegan says that they’ve spent so long not talking about this issue in public spaces that it feels scary to do it now. An experienced hacker, who is exceptionally talented at covering their tracks, accessed a file that contained all of Tegan’s personal information – passports, personal photos, addresses, you name it, it was in that file! So far the hacker hasn’t touched their money or their assets, but Tegan’s personal life, and the lives of those connected to them, have been completely violated and exploited.
The hacker started impersonating Tegan back in the early 2000s when social media spaces were young and just evolving. Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok didn’t exist and fan spaces gathered in places like Livejournal and Tumblr. It wasn’t uncommon for people to rely on email as a form of communication in those spaces at that time. So when the hacker started emailing fans pretending to be Tegan, it wasn’t so much of a stretch. Especially considering they had personal information about Tegan that a stranger shouldn’t have access to.
Multiple fans were lured into the scheme, believing that the person they were communicating with was actually Tegan Quin. Often, the relationships turned sexual and the person imitating Tegan adopted an abusive edge to their communication. This catfishing didn’t just stop with fans though. The hacker infiltrated Tegan’s own personal circle and lured one of her acquaintances in real life into the same kind of relationship.
JT – also known as Steph for the purposes of Fanatical – talks candidly about how the situation negatively impacted her life. She genuinely believed that the person she was communicating with, and developing a relationship with, was in fact, Tegan Quin. When she publicly called Tegan out on the behavior, things in the queer music spaces in their hometown became hostile for JT. It was difficult for JT to believe that the real Tegan was hacked and the person she had been talking with all along wasn’t Tegan, but eventually, JT came around.
Tegan’s team has been carefully investigating the trail hoping to uncover the identity of the hacker for years. At one point during Fanatical, it looks as if they might have found their person. They manage to convince this individual, who goes by the name of Tara in internet spaces, to get on the phone with Tegan and the filmmaker and Tegan confronts them about some of their shady behaviors that lead Tegan and the team to believe that Tara might be the fake Tegan. At the end of the call though, they’re no longer convinced.
As Fanatical comes to a close, the team reveals that they are aware that at least one person who is currently impersonating Tegan lives in the UK, but that’s all the information they have. They’re unsure if there is more than one person behind this operation, and the hunt to find whoever is responsible for this is ongoing.
Fanatical is a shocking reminder that online spaces can be incredibly unsafe places. It’s a reminder of just how easy it is to pretend to be someone else in this very digital age that we’re living through. However, Fanatical is also a subtle examination of just how insane fan culture is, and provides commentary on the dark and sinister side that comes along with fandom. These spaces are intended to show appreciation for artists and build community with other like-minded people who share the same interests, but there’s always someone who takes it too far.
Fake Tegan is a perfect example of that.
In fan spaces, where there is love, there is also hate – the nature of the industry has evolved in such a way that the two seem synonymous now. Fake Tegan, and what is happening to Tegan Quin epitomizes the absolute worst parts of public life and exemplifies just how scary fandom culture can be.
Tegan talks fondly of the Tegan & Sara fans and comments on how they cultivated a close relationship with them over the years. But Tegan also agonizes over how obsessive some people can be and laments over the fact that she’s always so surprised about how much personal information fans can find out about celebrities. “How do they know this?” she exasperates.
Tegan Quin’s life has been irrevocably changed by this experience, but so have the lives of every single person Fake Tegan has made contact with. Perhaps this documentary will be enough exposure to encourage Fake Tegan to stop their antics and let people get on with their lives. Mostly though, we hope Fanatical provides more of a spotlight on the whole thing and justice for Tegan Quin, and every single person impacted by this ordeal is finally served.
Fake Tegan is a predator who infiltrated a safe queer space and took advantage of impressionable queer women, leaving a trail of broken, violated people in their tracks. Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara is provocative, shocking, and utterly terrifying. It is a must-watch for everyone and it will leave you absolutely speechless.
Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara is available to stream on Hulu now. Follow us on X and Instagram for all queer stuff!
Featured Image: Via Hulu
