“We came for the Sluts, but stayed for the Slutsk”: FK Slutsk Worldwide Facebook page between ironic and genuine football fandom

Abstract

Abstract In spring 2020, with most national football (soccer) leagues being suspended, fans from around the world turned to the Belarusian Premier League — Europe’s only championship to continue amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In March, a group of Australian football fans created the FK Slutsk Worldwide Facebook group, dedicated to the eponymous Belarusian club, which quickly transformed into a diverse online community. Initially, the group demonstrated many features of ironic fandom, with members producing various humorous forms and performing exaggerated loyalty in recognition of the peculiar circumstances behind the intense international focus on an otherwise unremarkable team. As time passed and the Facebook group community evolved, however, the practices of ironic fandom began to give way to attributes of a genuine fandom. Through an examination of the group’s development, this paper makes a case for viewing the relationship between ironic and genuine fandom not in oppositional, but in temporal terms. It argues that, in order for a fandom to sustain itself, it must be rooted in a shared sensibility that is not limited to a sense of irony, and that a transition from ironic to genuine fandom stems from this sensibility taking precedence over the ironic aspect.