Many people find a character or celebrity with whom they resonate after watching a new television show. The emergence of social media apps has given fans an outlet to express their love and creativity for these shows, celebrities, characters, and songs.
The History
Fan edits have yet to become a recent development; in fact, the first fan edit can be found in the 1970s, when a fan of Star Trek made an edit of the outtakes to the song “Strawberry Fields Forever” by the Beatles. Following the invention of YouTube, fans would continue creating edits and distributing them on VHS Tapes. However, access to viewing and creating edits became relatively more straightforward with the invention of the social platform YouTube. On this platform, edits became popularized and have evolved from using full-length songs to the short clips we recognize today. As time continued, edits became more popular, and with the social platforms of Instagram and TikTok, fans had more access to view and create them. Now, if you search for any TV show, character, or celebrity, there will be some type of edit on a platform featuring them.
Rafe Cameron
With the recent release of season four of the Netflix original series “Outer Banks,” there has been a resurgence of edits of the character Rafe Cameron, played by Drew Starkey. For the past few seasons, he has gained a fanbase, mainly people attracted to him. His character has had a negative storyline and has been a villain in the series for some time. He has struggled with mental health and drug issues, and with the death of his father in Season 3, he is even more lost in the new season.
The emergence of this new season has created an opportunity for edits to be released, and combined with favored music, these edits have had a breakthrough on the internet amassing millions of likes and views. Another contributing factor to the fame of these edits is the physical appearance of Drew Starkey. In his portrayal of the character, he balances out the bad behavior with his physical attractiveness, which is the critical factor in these edits. Although many edits focus on physical appearance, others focus on friendships, relationships, plot points, and character growth.
Bad Boys
This is not the first time TikTok and its editors have glorified these ‘bad boy’ characters. It’s seen with the character of Nate from HBO’s “Euphoria” or Joe Goldberg from Netflix’s “You.” Many edits of these characters have also been made on TikTok despite the abuse and stalking they implement on other characters from their show. One reason why the allure of the ‘bad boy’ may be the physical attractiveness of these characters, which many fans say outweighs the poor character decisions they make.
This phenomenon of ‘bad boys’ doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon, and bodes the question of who will be the next trending villain?