Some industries attract rabid fans that border on absolutely insane.
Sports teams, certain bands and singers, and especially hobbies.
And sometimes fans will do almost ANYTHING to pledge their allegiance to a person, a group, or a specific thing.
Hey, people are kind of insane.
I’ve been a lifelong Chicago Blackhawks game and I’ve barely missed watching a game in the past 25 years, but even I show a little restraint…most of the time.
AskReddit users shared their stories.
1. High in the sky.
“Skydivers living in their cars. I’ve known multiple skydivers who choose to live out of their cars to be at the drop zone 24/7. These are not people who couldn’t afford an apartment or couldn’t commute.
But they work at the DZ and choose to live in their cars so they are there literally 100% of the time to either be jumping for $ or spending those $s jumping.
I get it. It’s a great sport, but shit.”
2. Disney fanatics.
“I’m going to include this one since I haven’t seen it with Disneyland.
Some people are so rabid for the park that they’ve named and keep track of the stray cats on the property. I’ve seen a few employees/cast members yelled at because they couldn’t tell them the exact location of their favorite cat.”
3. Weirdos.
“In college, I worked on a photo essay about a haunted house that took its job very seriously – actors wore no masks (only special effects make-up, and it was good), had to create full characters and yelling or saying “boo” was verboten.
You had to create a full character and dialogue. It was a super scary house – the highest-level actors who spooked people out front even carried real weapons. I acted there one night, wearing several layers of latex on my face and breaking blood capsules in my mouth for added effect, and it was one of the most fun nights of my life.
The house attracted a lot of D&D/gaming/nerd types, and some of these people took this INCREDIBLY SERIOUSLY. Many of them never showered for the duration of the season – about two months, if not longer – so that you smelled them long before you heard or saw them in the house. It really did add to the scare factor.
But one woman, who had a spot in a wooded trail between buildings, took it to the next level. All day during season, she would binge eat – she was tiny, but she would eat these massive meals all day. Then, when hiding in the bushes, she’d stuff blood capsules into her mouth to make herself throw up massive, bloody puddles. It was … horrifying.”
4. These are MY animals.
“Worked in public education at a zoo.
Every zoo gets some crazies who think if the animals as their pets. One guest, o will call her Now, loved our great apes and jaguars. When our much loved bonobo died, all the staff were sad. He was old and had passed of heart failure.
And then I realized that N was probably coming in that day as I hadn’t seen her the day before. I grabbed my boss, and the next hour was radio calls around the zoo determining who had to be the one to tell N. I threatened to quit if it fell on me.
It was determined the primate supervisor had to tell N as the supervisor had been the one to discover the death that morning. When N arrived at the main entrance, the supervisor was called, and several security people stationed themselves bear the bonobo exhibit. When N got the news, she cried a bit and went home to mourn. We were relieved.
And then N showed up the next day screaming at staff that we didn’t even attempt CPR on a bonobo who’s end we had been expecting for months. Then she started grabbing guests and telling them how terrible the zoo staff were.
Police were called. Within a couple of weeks there was a restraining order in place and N is still not allowed on the property more than a decade later.
I wish that was the only restraining order against a guest in my time there, but it sadly was not.”
5. Groupies.
“Used to be a professional musician.
Did a tour with a band called Bring Me The Horizon. Girls would line up outside of their bus every single night to catch a glimpse of their singer, Oli. One night, some girl who was maaaybe 14, saw me play (in a separate band entirely), and approached me.
This wasn’t uncommon, but the first thing she asked was, “Have you ever shaken Oli’s hand???” I said that I had. She then asked if she could hold/kiss my hand. It was insane.
For the record, I vehemently declined her request.”
6. Coaster enthusiast.
“I used to work at a coaster called Dragon Challenge (Formerly Dueling Dragons) at Universal Orlando. We had a coaster enthusiast known as Raptor Jo (named after the Raptor coaster) who would visit often and give us candy, cakes, and other gifts.
She was usually nice, but she was a bit of a nut and has tattoos of at least a dozen coasters all over her. When Dragons was torn down to make room for a new Harry Potter coaster, Raptor Jo was pissed, decided to boycott Universal, changed her Dragons tattoo to add a gravestone, and added a full window decal to the back of her car that says “RIP my babies 1999-2017″.
She still comments on a lot of team members posts on social media.”
7. They’re pretty intense.
“Historical re-enactors are in an arms race over who can make themselves the most miserable in a weekend because it makes the hobby “authentic.”
I think the most extreme situation I heard of was Civil War re-enactors intentionally soiling their uniforms and rubbing spoiled meat on themselves so when they got “shot” they would smell like rotting corpses.”
8. Here’s an idea.
“Used to work at a Subway when Jared was at the height of his pitch man fame and we had an overweight woman who came there breakfast, lunch and dinner every day without fail.
She would pitch us on the idea of a “Bride of Jared” commercial that parodied “Bride of Frankenstein”, like we sandwich artists had any say in the company’s marketing.”
9. He’s back…
“I worked at Nickelodeon Universe at the Mall of America for 4 years throughout college. One of our regulars was a middle-aged black guy who – no joke – ALWAYS wore a purple suit, 1 white bedazzled glove, and carried a cane (for looks, didn’t seem like he used it to walk).
I literally never heard him say a word in the entire time I worked there, not sure if he was mute/deaf, and he would come in at least once a week. He would ride every single ride by himself, even the little kiddie rides, once and then leave.
Never learned his name or anything about him, but every time he saw me he’d run over and give me a fist bump.
He was a super pleasant guy, just very eccentric. It’s been about 4 years since I worked there, not sure if he’s still coming in or not.”
10. A Pizza Hut obsession.
“Used to work at Pizza Hut.
At least once per week this guy came into our store at 2 orders of spaghetti with extra sauce. He would also do this at other locations so he had Pizza hut spaghetti probably 5-6 times a week.
After eating he would go sit in his car and blankly stair into space for several hours before driving away.”
11. This is a complete mystery to me.
“Phish and Dead fans.
I know a few like this. One has 50+ terabytes of just Grateful Dead shows dating back to before his birth and something like $15k in mint original concert posters framed on his walls.
I would try not to talk to him about music when we were in the work truck together for fear that he would never stop.”
12. College sports.
“I’ve worked in higher ed for 30 years. The obsession over college sports, especially in Division 1, is just nuts. I know people who chose a college because of a team. No mention of whether the university actually offered coursework in their intended major – they just wanted to get tickets.
I’ve worked on campuses where coaches and athletic directors were more powerful than the chancellors or presidents.
Clark Kerr was more correct than he knew when he said that the three purposes of a university were parking for the faculty, sports for the alumni, and sex for the students.”
13. At the water park.
“Worked at a water park. We had this couple that bought season tickets to the park every year. They were avid money collectors. Essentially what they did was they would rotate between our lazy rivers and our wave pool and just collect change that people dropped at the bottom of the pools.
They were there practically every day during the summer. They were obsessed with collecting lost money at the bottom of the pool. They claim that they collect enough money to buy season tickets every year and food at the park (which means they’ve collected several hundred dollars over the course of the summer).”
14. You’re going pro whether you like it or not!
“Hockey dads were the worst growing up. You could tell whose dad was trying to push their kid into the NHL stardom that they couldn’t reach.
Its the guy sitting in the stands watching every practice and screaming like a lunatic.
Wrestling dads are a close second.”
15. This is creepy.
“Okay, so let me just say upfront I don’t think the career I had would generally attract rabid enthusiasts – but I ended up getting a really creepy fan boy regardless. I was a forensic death investigator – forensics police officers that generally work with the DA’s office and/or the Medical Examiners office – so I guess we would get the occasional person who thought it was interesting because they’d seen CSI or Law and Order a few times.
Anyway, fanboy showed up to a suspected homicide scene and was chattering at the poor uni’s guarding the scene and trying to snap a few pics. So I figured he was really nosy, tone deaf press – gave him a scolding and told him that what he was doing wasn’t appropriate and was disrespectful of the decedent.
He agreed and left and I figured that was the last I’d see of him. But no, a week later the same guy showed up at another questionable scene but it doesn’t click that something is seriously off until he shows up at what turned out to be a suicide a complete county away from the last scene.
Apparently I wasn’t alone in my concerns as he was creeping out some of the other investigators that noticed him while working their cases too.
I get one of my coworkers to shake him down – see who the hell he is and what business he has to be here. Sure we get rubberneckers all the time who are curious and a bit morbid but no big deal, once the excitement passes they move on.
Guy has no criminal record and doesn’t work for the press so one of my superiors had a talk with him that he was making people nervous and it looked pretty shady to just start showing up at crime scenes.
Guy takes the hint for a while and decides a new tactic – fucker shows up at one of my favorite dive bars. Now I’m a 5’7” woman who doesn’t look imposing in the least, I also made it a point to live well away from where I work for various reasons.
He tries to buy me a drink chat me up with some of the creepiest shit I have ever heard – “What’s the worst crime scene you’ve investigated?,” “Have you ever worked on a case where the victim was dismembered?,” “Do you think rape/murder cases are really about power dynamics and not sexually motivated?”
I completely shut him down, not even trying to be polite and he seemed a little put off but not apologetic in the least. I put in notice with the DA’s office and ME’s office to give them a heads up and start a paper trail for an RO. He’s served with a cease and desists a few days later.
Not even 24 hours after the cease and desist is delivered he’s back to shadowing crime scenes like it’s going out of style and even gets into an altercation with one of the uniformed officers.
He gets slammed with trespassing, obstruction, and a few other charges but since he has no record he’s let out on bail – and shows up to a scene I’m working. We get into a scuffle after her breaks one of my guy’s nose to get onto the scene and my partner and I finally get him cuffed.
So, turns out he had a police scanner and a lot of creepy journals in his car – as well as notes on where I lived and worked along with info on one of the other female investigators.
Yeah, I never thought people would be that obsessed with crime scenes, forensics, or the like that they’d end up going to jail – but here we are.”
16. That’s wild.
“Train enthusiasts have been known to break into rail facilities and steal stuff off the more unique or rare equipment.
It’s a fairly regular occurrence… and often ruins it for the rest of us, as it’ll put that piece of equipment out of circulation.”
Wow…some people get a little obsessed, huh?
How about you?
Have you ever had to deal with obsessive fans?
Or maybe YOU’RE a crazy fan of something?
Tell us all about it in the comments!
The post People Talk About Fans They’ve Seen Do Totally Crazy Things appeared first on UberFacts.
