The 'Alan Doyle Fan Club'... A fan response.

For those fans of Great Big Sea and their individual band members who don't participate in the fandom or any genuine onlookers, 'The Alan Doyle Fan Club' is a fan created online fan club that can be located primarily on Facebook and other social media sites such as Twitter and Instagram. While I stated on my last blog post that the last post would be my last post, I thought that writing and posting this post would help new members to the fandom navigate their way around the fandom. Mostly I wanted to help those fans who run fowl of the head administrator or the 'ownerKrista' and the other administrators of this fan page and let them know they are not alone.

The 'Alan Doyle Fan Club' has often been wrongly confused by fans and new fans entering the fandom as a kind of 'official' fan club. Several years ago the fan club included 'official' in the title but that has since been removed to avoid confusion after complaints were made over it's administration. Many new and old Great Big Sea fans and active social media participants over the past couple of years have run fowl of the head administrator or the 'ownerKrista ' and other administrators as they navigate their way through a complex collection of rules and regulations designed I guess to keep order and make sure the site runs smoothly. (And for reference no one 'owns' social media pages, for example on Facebook. Individuals and groups use them at the discretion of their legal owners as long as the users abide by the conditions of use.)

To begin with I have never seen the 'The Alan Doyle Fan Club' on Facebook which boosts to have over 3000 plus members. I have never seen the page because it has always been a 'closed group'. Over the years there have been attempts by head administrator or 'ownerKrista' to set up official pages on other social media including Twitter, Instagram and a blog post on Wordpress. Both the official 'Alan Doyle Fan Club' Twitter and Instagram accounts have between 50 and 100 followers. From those open social media accounts I can see there are very few active fans and the sites act as another extension of the head administrator or 'ownerKrista' to share the posts by Alan Doyle, to share her own posts from events she attends and to make on occasions anonymous comments. Despite the massive amount of fan material produced and shared by this fandom there is little or no sharing by 'The Alan Doyle Fan Club' on these sites. I imagine this extends to the official Facebook page.

Fans and in particular new fans participation in fan generated fan sites varies a lot. Their involvement can be from just receiving information distributed, to posting likes and shares, participating in fan related discussions and sharing information and personal experiences. Fans use these fan pages to meet other fans, share their love of the musicians and their music and experiences. The head administrator or the 'ownerKrista' has used these fan sites to share tweets, photos, autographs and personal stuff that she receives from her contact with Alan Doyle that has implied that she is more than a fan. She has used the fan sites and her personal sites to ask for money, accommodation, tickets and other benefits from unsuspecting fans to travel to concerts on mainland Canada and in St. John's, Newfoundland.

Fans and in particular new fans over the years have been involved in a number of arguments with the 'Alan Doyle Fan Club' mainly on Facebook for any number of reasons and are often blocked. Some fans for nothing more than sharing a post about another member of Alan Doyle's former band Great Big Sea, answering a question that the head administrator or 'ownerKrista' thought was meant for her and being kind and considerate to the 'ownerKrista' when she was having a 'bad day'. Me, I was recently blocked from the Alan Doyle Fan Club Twitter site for standing up for a fan that I believed was being used as an example by correcting a mistake about a song title and then laughing about it and for me bringing this to the attention of fan group and correcting the head administrator or 'ownerkrista's' grammar. The head administrator or the 'ownerKrista' is known for finding faults with people's knowledge about a range of topics and in particular their grammar on her own social media (despite the fact some people may have learning difficulties such as dyslexia) so I thought it appropriate for me to mention to her that she does not on many occasions write grammatically correct sentences using a capital letter and a full stop.

The Alan Doyle Fan Club Twitter site responded to me by asking me nicely to stop and then blocked me. The post was not signed. For a fan site with allegedly a number of administrators I would have thought the head administrator or the 'ownerKrista' would have written in her extensive list of rules that all administrators they would sign their posts. Although this does occasionally happen when head administrator or the 'ownerKrista' wants some recognition. The head administrator or the 'ownerKrista' went off at me on her personal sites (as she often does about the members of the fan page) and called me a bitch and troll and gleefully added that I had been blocked. 

The head administrator or 'ownerkrista' also accused me of harassing her despite the fact I have never contacted the official fan club site on Twitter in the three years it had been operating, or on the official Facebook page because it is a closed group or the Instagram page. I have never contacted her on any of the other Facebook fan pages she runs or her personal pages which there are many. I am blocked (and I blocked her) from her personal Twitter page after a dispute several years ago over the photographs and interview she was constructing for a hockey fan page about Alan Doyle. I have never written about the Alan Doyle Fan Club on my blog. She has tried to steal my ideas about writing about the fans for the fans on other created webpages like Wordpress. And some of her administrators following her liked her tweets. To be honest I have no interest in these fan pages as they have no genuine fan input and seem to me to be an extension of the head administrator or the 'ownerKrista's' personal pages to use as she pleases and often anonymously.

I certainly understand how the impact of the exclusion of fans from these types of fan pages can be quite devastating without a valid reason. Fans can lose their own social media online 'friendship' base and make life going to concerts difficult. Calling people names, exclusion through blocking and talking behind people's backs (the head administrator or the 'ownerKrista' tweets about people in the fan groups on her personal pages without using their names) is outright bullying and trolling. While some fans like me are happy to move on from this toxic environment that changes on a day to day basis depending on the mood of the head administrator or the 'ownerkrista', this bullying and confusion doesn't leave a good impression on some of the fans of the musicians they are trying to promote through social media. 

Other administrators involved in the fan pages have tried to make excuses to other fans for her, explaining that the head administrator or the 'ownerKrista' is on the Autism spectrum and has Asperger's syndrome. Personally from my experiences with children with autism and reading I don't believe this is an excuse for unregulated and unrelenting bullying and trolling on fans. The head administrator or the 'ownerKrista' and her fellow administrators circulate resources about Autism and Asperger's syndrome, some from a range of unreliable social media sites that while may explain part of her condition and behaviour, it can give a wrong impression of what the condition is about in particular involving social interaction. Most of all many children and adults with Autism and Asperger's syndrome can learn appropriate social interaction skills that make them successful participants in all aspects of life. 

In 2016 or 2017 the musician Alan Doyle fielded complaints about the 'Alan Doyle Fan Club' fan site after a fan was blocked for answering a question by the head administrator or the 'ownerKrista'. Alan stated clearly on his official Twitter account that while grateful for the support from fans he has no affiliation with any fan pages including the 'Alan Doyle Fan Club' page on Facebook. Alan also stated he doesn't have the time to monitor fan pages and he is willing to investigate complaints by fans that are referred through his management. Alan has also asked the head administrator or the 'ownerKrista' to be kind on these fan pages, a request that she has forgotten over time. 

From my personal experiences in these fandoms and in particular on social media, fans should enjoy the music and concert experiences any artist and musician brings to their life. Fans should be very wary about becoming too reliant on fan pages and fans such as the head administrator or the 'ownerkrista' and other administrators who while on the one hand can be generous and share selective information about the musicians and artists, they can also be exclusive about sharing other information that leave a fan feeling a little pissed off and often blocked. My advice is always to follow the musicians and artists themselves, regularly check their official webpages and social media sites for information and updates and meet and interact with other fans at concerts and outside of these online social media fan pages. Always maintain a happy and healthy life offline away from these fan pages.