If one Canadian indie band dominated the '00s — it was Tegan and Sara.
The identical twin sisters from up north radically stepped into the indie music scene as a woman-led queer duo in a music space that was so rife with straight white indie rockers, finding a community with many young, queer people like themselves. But in Erin Lee Carr’s Hulu whodunnit documentary, "Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara," their fans' closeness began creepily bordering on something else.
Simultaneously, the duo rose to fame as the birth of online fandom and fan culture began. With websites like LiveJournal, MySpace and eventually FaceBook, these spaces gave access to the Quins in a way fans didn't have before. This allowed fans to feel like they had developed an intimate relationship with Tegan and Sara, one that was outside of limited glances on stage, merch table meet-ups or briefly chatting with their favorite musicians before a show.
However, Tegan and Sara's online fandom would never be the same after a fake version of Tegan or "Fegan" began reaching out to people and starting intimate friendships and relationships with fans. Since 2008, the impersonator enmeshed themselves with countless people — all under the guise of being real Tegan. This documentary uncovers the tangled web of a catfishing conspiracy.
Here are five of the most mouth-dropping revelations from "Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara":
Alongside developing a relationship with fans and duping them into thinking Fegan was real Tegan, Fegan crossed other boundaries with Tegan's personhood.
In one of their relationships with a fan, Julie, they sent a shared drive with a password that included passport photos of Tegan and Sara and all of their band members. This opened the gateway for Julie to learn they were communicating with someone impersonating Tegan.
One of Tegan's managers said that alongside the passport scans, Fegan shared an unreleased demo from Tegan and had knowledge that Tegan and Sara's mother, Sonia, had breast cancer.
"The fact that they knew that my mom had had cancer and that wasn't something we publically talked about . . . It's not something we publically talk about now . . . It was creepy. It introduced the idea that someone we know . . . is it possible that someone who knows intimate details about me is pretending to be me?" Tegan questioned.
A former Tegan and Sara super fan who other fans interacted with shared that she had also had an intimate relationship with Fegan.
She shared with Carr that their messages "were very sexually charged a lot of the time," saying, "When it started to get like really volatile, I would get texts like, you know 'I'm drinking all the time and Sara's really worried. This is all your fault.'"
Tara said Fegan would say "'None of your friends actually care about you. They're all going to leave you.' It just got really ugly."
Another person, a musician and an actual casual friend of Tegan, JT, also developed an intimate relationship with Fegan. The pair talked for years and the relationship grew sexual in nature.
"When it turned sexual, it caught me off guard for sure. But I didn't really think twice about it. In my mind, I was given the green light and I didn't need anything more," JT explained.
But at a certain point, JT said they became very annoyed that Fegan wouldn't meet with them because they were in the same city. JT issued an ultimatum, "If you're not interested in meeting up, then I'm not interested in talking to you anymore because this is insane."
After Fegan and JT ended their correspondence, Tegan's management reached out to JT to explain that Tegan had a person stealing her identity. However, JT was unconvinced that Fegan was fake and not actually the real Tegan, creating tension between JT and Tegan.
During the hunt to uncover Fegan, Tegan found that there were fans, namely "Tara," who was involved in writing incest fanfiction about Tegan and Sara.
"There were these message boards with incest fanfiction, sexualizing us. It was gross," Tegan explained.
Tegan's tattoo artist, Rene Botha, recalled Tegan calling her about emails Botha sent her asking her for her password for her file-sharing program.
Botha said, "I was very confused. I didn't understand what she was talking about."
She explained that Tegan reiterated that Botha asked her for her password, to which Botha responded, "Absolutely not. I would never do that. And then I was informed there were many emails coming from my email address to Tegan which I obviously didn't send. There was one from my mom as well."
Tegan said, "I mean that just made me question everyone around me, even my managers. It was terrible to be suspicious of people in my life that I loved."
"It felt like somebody had access to your personal thoughts, your relationships. And they had an ulterior motive. They're not there to be an observer — they're there to take something and use it and potentially hurt people I love and care about," Botha described.
Carr's investigation into Fegan led her on a wild goose chase leading to a confrontation with "Tara." "Tara" reached out to many of Fegan's fellow victims, like JT.
JT said they reached out to her stating that they also received some attention from Tegan and tried to connect with JT over the Fegan situation.
"Something felt weird to me because they kept trying to bring Tegan up all the time. They became very aggressive very fast and tried to message me a lot. I eventually had to say 'Hey stop messaging me about this. I literally don't want to think about it. It's over. F**k off,'" JT said.
JT shared that she found a link between "Tara" and Fegan, however, Carr said they didn't have enough evidence to make that conclusion.
"All this paints a portrait of somebody who is obsessive. They got kicked off of forums for inappropriate behavior. They were in touch with the other victims," Carr theorized about "Tara." "So after a year and a half of this and taking in all this information, this is the person it's led us to, but it's circumstantial evidence."
Carr and her investigative team traveled to Maine to interview "Tara" in person but she bailed on the meet-up. Carr then sent a message to "Tara" stating that her team's evidence has led them to accuse "Tara" of being Fegan.
In a conversation with Carr, Tegan and "Tara" over the phone, "Tara" denied any involvement in impersonating Tegan. "I know, in my core, I know that it wasn't me," they said
In conclusion, Tegan said, "This is someone who had a relationship with Fake Tegan, feels totally f**ked over, got conned and is pissed. So I do not think 'Tara' is Fegan. I don't think we've found Fegan."
The documentary ends with a statement revealing that Carr's team found "2,000 emails between Fegan and their victims over the course of 16 years. Recently unearthed evidence revealed that at least one Fegan is located in the U.K."
However, the investigation into Fegan continues . . .
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