idle gaze 041: we gon’ make it through.
The Fred again..-verse: sparking a collective catharsis.
Sometime in July 2022, video clips from a live-streamed Boiler Room set by ‘Fred again..’ started popping up everywhere. To me, he was unknown, but overnight, my feeds had flooded with video highlights, memes and phone footage from show attendees. The music itself seemed fairly generic - cookie-cutter EDM, interlaced with predictable house and dubstep tropes. But the energy emanating from the clips felt intriguing, featuring the young, sweaty, music producer smashing frantically on a drum pad machine, surrounded by a diverse, lively crowd.
Over the next few months, the Fred again.. fandom continued to break further into my digital echo chamber. Plenty of DJs and artists have blown up overnight before, but this felt different.
There was a unique formula at play here. Fred is clearly a skilled producer (with credits on several global chart-topping hits from the likes of Ed Sheeran and Rita Ora), but also exudes a friendly, relatable, distinctly down-to-earth aura. His albums provide commercial appeal but also feel like a uniquely voyeuristic window into the rich inner life of an introvert.
Tracks feature voice notes from friends and moments with strangers on nights out, each capturing the ethos of the song. From “we’ve lost dancing”, “we gon make it through”, to “I found you”, each song taps into a particular feeling or place, sometimes euphoric, often melancholic. The album and single covers display pensive, emotionally intimate selfies taken in cabs and on evening walks.
Marketing’s current term-du-jour is “worldbuilding”, a term originating from fantasy fiction but recently used to describe the emerging strategy of immersing audiences in extended universes around brands, entertainment franchises and celebrities. The more I was exposed to Fred again.., the more I felt like I was entering the cosiest, most intimate universe of all. A universe orbiting around a guy with nothing more than a phone and MacBook, making music on London buses and in strangers’ living rooms after nights out. This was his world and we’re just living in it.
Fred again..’s meteoric rise has been fuelled by an army of devotees. But there’s a large subset of sceptics too, for whom his seemingly organic entry into the mainstream cultural consciousness at fever pitch has felt too intense and artificial. Smart and well-orchestrated marketing tactics disguised as a down-to-earth artist who by sheer chance and passion became a viral sensation.
But whether you’re a believer or cynic, Fred’s transformation from a relatively unknown producer to a household EDM name over the past 6 months, should objectively be treated as a unique cultural inflection point. Not so much because of the music itself, or the entertainment value of his live shows, but for the fervour of the fans. For years to come, I am convinced the rise of Fred again.. will be treated as an exemplary case study in nurturing fandom and immersive worldbuilding.
Example A: his team’s ability to creatively capitalize on viral moments. Towards the end of his famed Boiler Room set, someone in the crowd gets too close to the decks and accidentally presses the pause button, stopping the music. That moment, along with Fred’s good-mannered reaction, is the most replayed and shared moment of the live show. When Fred again.. won best live act at the DJ Mag awards, he invited the now famous “yellow shirt guy” to accept the achievement on his behalf. That in turn became a viral moment shared generously by fans and media outlets.
Example B: his ability to powerfully mobilize whole armies of devotees around the world, turning city centres into treasure hunts. During this winter’s global tour, his team organized challenges, hiding tickets and prize giveaways on street corners, below park benches and in shops, posting hints on his social channels. Videos emerged of hundreds of fans running around London, Amsterdam and Sydney locating the easter eggs. The scenes were reminiscent of the Pokemon Go craze of 2016, where thousands of teenagers and adults alike would rampage through neighbourhoods to catch geo-located Charizards and Gardevoirs.
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But more significantly, beyond these smart marketing ploys, the Fred again..-verse’s gravitational pull can be attributed to its ability to tap into something much deeper and existential. He recorded and published his first album during the dark depths of lockdown, a moment statically charged with a collective desire for emotional release. In the most intense months of boredom, solitude and despair, he offered a bright beacon of hope, an invitation to a world of total, ultimate cathartic release.
Fred again.. had, intentionally or not, invited people around the world to emerge once again into the real world and connect with others, to be and feel seen. They witnessed live streams of his gigs, the crowd jumping up and down, smiling, hugging and singing along to his track ‘Marea’, featuring a voice note by DJ Blessed Madonna:
“this year, we lost dancing, all thеse things that we took for granted, If I can live through the next six months, what comes next will be marvellous”
And they too yearned to run to the closest rave, to seek thrill and excitement again. To pursue a desire to be around sweaty, dancing strangers again and to connect with like-minded souls again. As Bethan Harper described in DJ Mag’s profile of Fred:
“It’s that emotional connection people feel from [his] music that makes them optimistic: it’s not a joyous feeling of elation, it’s feeling seen and feeling together.”
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The Fred again.. fandom amounts to a symbolic riot against the dominance of hopeless nihilism, elevating him to an athleisure-attired deity. A divine being that dresses like them, acts like them and shares the same feelings as they do.
It’s easy to scoff at the blind devotion and sickly-sweet, enthusiastic engagement of the fans and to treat his organic upward trajectory as suspicious. And perhaps his growth has been more orchestrated and performative than they want to let on.
But with the nature of fandom changing, with followers expecting whole worlds to be constructed around artists, and who demand radical levels of transparency, access and direct connection, this is the blueprint. A creative formula built on much more than just artistic output, a formula where whole universes are built - filled with intimate moments, emotions, and real-life adventure. One that offers fans something to believe in, uniting them in some kind of collective catharsis.
"The Fred again.. fandom amounts to a symbolic riot against the dominance of hopeless nihilism, elevating him to an athleisure-attired deity. A divine being that dresses like them, acts like them and shares the same feelings as they do."
What a heavenly line, I had goosebumps.