I suggest you read these wonderful considerations by Maura Pucci on the subject: Il Volo and their fans.
I can not explain the phenomenon “fan of Volo”. Instead, I have feelings certainly to be verified. And these feelings lead me to conclude that it is difficult (nothing is impossible!) to find something similar elsewhere.
There are singers, who fill arenas and stadiums, have a huge but less … cohesive fan, much more diverse. Same thing I have to say, thinking about my children, regarding the world-famous foreign bands, of which they are fans since they were young.
When these bands come to Italy, there is great enthusiasm, ticket hunting, they go to applaud them in other cities, sold out concerts, woe to those who touch them etc … Despite this, my children do not follow and have never followed these bands, in the same way that we follow IL VOLO.
From one concert to another they leave them, they do not think about them in the least.
The fandom de Il Volo is something different and it is also necessary to make distinctions.
In Latin America we find the younger fans who constantly follow their idols, especially on Instagram, which is daily fed by the guys themselves. Their appreciation is manifested above all with smiles and little hearts, also because young people do not like to write ….. In the US and in Italy their audience is different, more adult, musically more prepared and appreciates more the voices that the appearance physical. In the US they heard them sing professionally since they were kids. Effect “infant prodigy”……
But, unlike what they did with Shlrley Temple, they did not abandon them once they grew up, on the contrary … The numerous transatlantic flights on the occasion of the Italian concerts, in particular in Taormina and Verona, are showing that their love is “forever”.
In Italy some of us have known them almost like brats and then they found them already great, others have discovered them in their twenties or so. All of us were struck by sounds now obsolete, melodies and forgotten harmonies, finally true voices. And we all adopted them or we fell in love with them, depending on age ….
The pages dedicated to them have sprung up like mushrooms. I think, that in the world no singer has a number of fan pages superior to IL VOLO and not even in Italy as regards the “our own” singers …. Too bad there are no comparative studies in this sense!
So, it formed a hard hoof of Italian and American fans that follows them on Facebook in a manic and obsessive way and that follows them, if he can, in concerts from one end of the peninsula to the other, not sporadically …. but DAILY .
We always know where they are, with whom they are, where they sleep, what they eat (of this subject we are very well informed …) and if they go to a place without letting us know why, we get angry too …. We are even able to follow the route of their planes step by step when they travel. And we look forward to knowing when they land. We travel with them, we live with them. Let’s make a local mind: is this normal? Does it happen to fans of other singers ?. Personally I can not believe it.
To conclude …… Our attachment to Il Volo, which makes us a permanent fan “in service”, I would call it type,…. morbid / familiar, that is visceral: we feel them part of our affections. In fact, we can not bear to be left without news of them.
Through videos and photos, which fortunately the guys generously do not make us miss, we live in symbiosis with them … It is as if, every day, we put them under a microscope to learn everything about them: nothing escapes us, a look of understanding, a gesture, a grimace, even a sigh.
And all we try to interpret, each according to their sensitivity and their desires. That being the case, the deep feelings that our guys inspire us, it is inevitable that they translate into POETRY, on the part of those who are able to transform emotions into words. Very difficult, in my opinion, to find something similar in fans of other singers.
And you do not think that they, feel suffocated by this our great love for them?
No,they are instead gratified and consoled by all the negative things they undeservedly receive.
Personally, I like to imagine them wrapped in a giant bubble of love, a sort of protection, to proof of the bullets of those who do not love them.
If they did not know they are so loved, they would not be smiling and happy as they are actually our dear Gianluca, Piero and Ignazio !!!
Congratulations Maura, you made a beautiful analysis, in which I find myself, because I am a fan of IL VOLO and I confirm it with pride!
Daniela
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Credit to all owners of photos.