Graduate Student Alex Hopp Examines How Chappell Roan’s Boundary-Setting Is Changing Fan Relationships

When Alex Hopp first became interested in Chappell Roan, it was because of more than her music. The songs were bold, theatrical and emotionally charged, but they weren’t what drew him into his graduate thesis. What stood out instead was the way people talked about Roan online. Fans spoke about her as if they knew her personally. They described her in intimate and familiar terms, despite never having met her.

That dynamic, where a fan feels a close relationship to a public figure who doesn’t know them, is known as a parasocial relationship. And in a digital world where artists share so much of themselves, these relationships are becoming more common and more complicated.

“I thought her rise was quite substantial,” Hopp said. “She had a lot of discourse surrounding her online, and all of my friends were talking about it.”

Near the end of last year, Roan posted a message addressing her fans directly. She explained what she was comfortable with and what she needed to keep private. She asked people not to approach her in certain settings and not to assume closeness that wasn’t there.

It was a decisive moment of boundary-setting from an artist whose career was just beginning to accelerate. For Hopp, who had been following her rise, the statement stood out immediately. Many celebrities build their fame by encouraging emotional closeness with fans, presenting themselves as accessible and constantly available. Roan chose something different. She asked for space.

“Some celebrities want parasociality because it sustains them,” Hopp said. “It’s like an exchange.”

Hopp said this is especially common among influencers, who often become famous not for a specific artistic output but for their personality or cultural presence. Because of that, fans may feel entitled to continued intimacy and access.

“These relationships can get muddier because there’s not much to co-author other than the celebrity’s personality,” he said.

With musicians, Hopp explained, fans can express appreciation through creativity, such as making edits, remixing songs, writing fan fiction or producing artwork. There is a shared cultural object to gather around. But with influencers, the “object” becomes the person themselves, which can make boundaries more fragile.

However, in terms of Roan, Hopp said her longstanding activism for women’s rights and the queer community may help fans view her boundary-setting as an act of self-advocacy rather than selfishness. This perspective shifts the focus from entitlement to respect and suggests that closeness does not have to require constant access.

That understanding ultimately reshaped Hopp’s research direction. Originally, he had planned to study crisis communication. And while Roan’s statement did spark criticism from some fans, the situation did not unfold like a typical celebrity crisis. There was no formal apology or sustained media scandal. Instead, the response was largely negotiated within fan communities themselves.

To Hopp, this signaled something different: an artist early in her fame actively defining the terms of intimacy with her audience, even at the risk of upsetting some of them. He realized the moment called for deeper study, not as damage control, but as a cultural shift in how celebrity and fandom are being reshaped in real time.

Hopp’s thesis looks broadly at how fans reacted to Roan’s boundary-setting message. Rather than conducting interviews, he is examining discussions that already exist within online fan spaces. He is interested in the tone of those conversations and the language fans use when they talk about closeness, access and respect.

In doing so, Hopp is exploring a larger question: what happens to the fan-celebrity relationship when an artist says they want connection, but not at the expense of their own well-being?

This question also ties into how Roan presents herself publicly. When discussing her public image, Hopp said Roan has described her stage presence as a kind of drag version of herself, one that is louder and more confident than she feels in everyday life.

Drag is an intentional performance, yet many fans still describe Roan as deeply authentic. Hopp said this raises an interesting question about how authenticity works in celebrity culture. It may be less about revealing one’s real self and more about how sincerity is experienced and interpreted by audiences.

Hopp’s study approaches Roan as one example of a larger shift taking place in the way artists and fans relate to one another. His work will be the first academic study published on Roan, but it also considers how access, visibility and emotional closeness shape public life more broadly. As more artists rise through social media, many face growing pressure to be relatable, available and endlessly open.

“If I could use my work to help protect young artists and reveal the ways they can maintain boundaries between them and their fandom as well as protect their mental health while maintaining authenticity, that’s a win for me,” he said.

Hopp’s work suggests that boundaries do not close the door on intimacy. They help define it. In a culture that constantly demands more from public figures, choosing to step back can be a way of choosing to stay. For both the artist and the fan, that can be the beginning of a more honest relationship, not the end of one.