All language subtitles for Fanatical.The.Catfishing.Of.Tegan.And.Sara.2024.1080p.WEBRip.x264.AAC5.1-[YTS.MX]

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[plane engines roaring]

[♪ "Walking With a Ghost"
by Tegan and Sara playing]

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♪ No matter which way you go ♪

-♪ No matter which way you stay ♪
-[crowd cheering]

♪ You're out of my mind, out of my mind ♪

♪ Out of my mind, out of my mind ♪

♪ I was walking with a ghost ♪

♪ I said please, please don't insist ♪

♪ I was walking with a ghost ♪

♪ I said please, please don't insist ♪

♪ No matter which way you go ♪

♪ No matter which way you stay ♪

♪ You're out of my mind, out of my mind ♪

♪ Out of my mind ♪

♪ Out of my mind... ♪

[♪ song fades out]

[Tegan Quin]
In 2011, we'd come off the road.

I had been on tour
for two years straight,

around the world multiple times.

I just was relaxed, post-tour Tegan,
living in LA.

[distant sirens wailing]

One night, I went to a birthday party.

I remember being really excited
to see everybody.

I was barely in the door,

and somebody had put
a tequila on ice in my hands.

And I just remember going out on the deck

and the sky was so beautiful
and everybody was so happy.

[party crowd chattering]

The night starting off so positively.

Maybe an hour after I got to the party,

someone came up and um, said
that my sister was looking for me.

I'm fairly certain I brushed them off.

And then someone else
came up to me and said,

"Sara's trying to get a hold of you."

And at that point I was convinced,
like, someone in our family had died.

I don't think Sara's ever
"tried to get ahold of me" before,

so I was like, "Oh, God."

I remember going inside
and looking for my phone

and seeing all these missed calls.

It's-It's like a surreal thing
to imagine now

because I'm at a massive queer party.

I'm like, you know, finger in one ear

trying to, like, make out
what they're saying.

Probably a little intoxicated,

and they start to unravel
this super terrifying story.

[♪ dark music playing]

[Piers Henwood] In the beginning
we thought it was just a leak of a demo,

and then we realized email addresses

had been directly hacked.

This hacker had access to
Tegan and Sara's personal information,

passports,

their mom's medical history.

They also knew where we all lived.

But all of this was just step one
in something much worse.

[Sara Quin] The more
we started to zoom out

and understand
how far-reaching, how invasive,

the more we understood
how little we really knew.

[Tegan] It got darker
when we realized multiple fans

had been catfished and thought
that they were talking to me.

It's not something that happened,

it's something that currently happens
and is happening.

And 16 years later,

there's someone still out there
pretending to be me.

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

[keyboard keys clacking]

♪♪

[Erin Lee Carr] Why are
we sitting here today?

We are sitting here today
to talk about Fake Tegan

and my experience
with someone pretending to be me.

[Erin] Why did you
never talk about this publicly?

Why have you kept it a secret?

You know, as soon as
we got the green light

to do this project,
I immediately regretted it.

I actually regret it now.
[chuckles]

[Erin] That's amazing.

This is gonna make
a lot of people uncomfortable.

It puts our fan base under the spotlight.

I don't wanna accuse the wrong person.

I...

had to go against...
a decade of instinct,

which was that if we talk about it,
it'll make it worse.

And yet, I...

can't stop thinking about it.

Someone can still pretend to be me,
they still do.

I just wanna know what the fuck happened.

♪ Tegan didn't go to school today ♪

♪ Left me all alone to play ♪

[Sara] I loved
the moments of discovery

that we could make music.

One day you don't know
how to do it and the next day,

"Holy shit, I know how to make a song...

[♪ guitar music playing]

...and so can my sister."

And then we can sing together
and that feels pretty amazing.

[Sara] Tegan was like,
"Let's borrow money and make an album.

"Let's go on tour.

Let's put posters up
with our faces all over the city."

♪ Complicated, graced by icons ♪

♪ Touched by saints, I am powerless ♪

[Tegan] The first people
that knew our music well enough

to sing along were our friends.

And then in high school,

we won a contest at the local university

and every major label in Canada

tried to sign us.

Signed by Neil Young,
that's gotta be exciting.

Uh, yeah, it's very exciting.

[audience cheering]

[Neil Young] I'd like to bring out
a couple of friends, Tegan and Sara.

[cheering, whistling]

[Tegan] Our first tour was huge
opening for Neil Young.

You know, we were 20,
late '90s, early 2000s.

We were very queer.

♪ I hope I never figure out
who broke your heart ♪

♪ And if I do ♪

♪ If I do ♪

The early part of our career
was really tough.

We were in indie rock,
very male, very straight.

We weren't really sure
that this was gonna be our career.

We coul-- We couldn't
really sustain a living yet.

[Jenny Eliscu] Tegan and Sara
would often be described

as "lesbian folk duo."

The music that did well in that time

in a mainstream way was really boring.

♪ The years start coming
and they don't stop coming ♪

♪ She says she's no good ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah ♪

It is just sort of all generic,
it's all general interest music.

That did provide the ideal space

for underground and alternative
and indie music

to bubble up in a real way.

[♪ "Walking With a Ghost"
by Tegan and Sara playing]

[Tegan] When we put out So Jealous,

college radio stations started playing us.

So young people started
to come to the shows.

♪ No matter which way you go ♪

We started playing bigger venues,

thousands of people showing up
every night, singing along,

wearing our faces on their shirts.

♪ Out of my mind ♪

That's when we felt the shift

and it started to feel like fandom.

[interviewer] What's your favorite band?

[fans] Tegan and Sara.

And it was like, "Oh, I think, like,
this is, like, a real thing that we do."

[cheering and applauding]

Thank you very much, everybody.

[cheering continues]

[cheering fades]

When we started to have fans,
we started to talk to them.

You know, we'd go out
to the merch table after every show

and be out there for an hour, two hours.

[fan 1] I see it.
[giggles]

[fan 2] I just want a picture behind bars.

[both chuckle]

Taking photos,
but mostly just talking to everybody,

just getting to know them.

Similar to us,

like, had, like, mullets
and asymmetrical haircuts,

started to feel like
there were people who understood

what we were trying to do
and understood us.

We just started to see ourself
reflected in our audience

and it felt really nice.

[Jenny] In the summer of 2007,

I was sent to interview Tegan and Sara.

It really made a huge impact

to know that part of their identity
was that they were queer.

It's shocking to think
that it's not that long ago

you know, that it was that rare.

[Jaime Wojdowski] I didn't know very many
queer artists at the time at all.

You just didn't really
have a lot of chances

to see yourself, you know, reflected
in, in somebody else on stage.

[Tegan] Being a fan of Tegan and Sara
meant something.

That was code for like,
"I'm queer" or "I'm different,"

or "I went through a horrific breakup,"

or all three. [chuckles]

[Sara] We'd get letters from women
around the world who would say,

"I can't talk to anyone
about the fact that I am gay,

but I'm telling you."

That was when I started to feel like,

"Oh, something about us
is drawing in these people

and making it safe for them
to share things,"

and that's different.

[Tegan] Our shows and the spaces
that we created as a band

became really important places

that we hoped they'd feel comfortable in.

It felt absolutely our responsibility
to take care of them.

[all singing]
♪ Happy birthday Tegan and Sara ♪

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

[fans cheering]

[Jaime] These are all the shows
that I've been to

in the last 18 years.

When they go to new states,

I go there just so I can add to the map
of the states I've seen them in.

These are where I have shoved
all of my concert tickets

and, yeah, here's one
of my earliest ones from 2007.

These are all Tegan and Sara shirts.

Put these in, in rainbow order

so I can find the ones I'm looking for.

We decided we wanted to do, like,
an evening with Tegan and Sara

and feel-- Like, we've played
a whole new record

and then do old stuff

and just give everybody their
money's worth, you know?

[Jaime] I started filming in 2005

when I got my first digital camera.

And at the time, YouTube didn't exist,

so I, you know, would upload my videos,

uh, to a, like a file sharing site

and then I would upload
those links to LiveJournal.

So, LiveJournal, you know, early on
it was a little corner of the Internet,

and it was like one of the only places
I found to meet fans.

You know, when you start being a fan

and you don't have anybody else
to talk to about the thing

that you're interested in,
it's kind of lonely.

And so you look for your people.

[keyboard keys clacking]

Once you meet other people,
then you just enable each other.

[laughs]

[Julie] I started listening
to Tegan and Sara in college.

I was going through a really tough time
realizing that I was queer.

It was just-- fear is the,
the dominant feeling,

when I think back, I was just afraid.

The community aspect is--
was a huge part

of the early Tegan and Sara days for me.

It was just, it was magical.

Like, you had to have
been there to understand.

[Piers] This was a new era
of social media

and different kinda
communication with fans

and all the dialogue
that was made possible

by, by networking sort of
added fuel to the fire

of people's desire
to talk about Tegan and Sara.

The thing that happens
at shows is now happening

in an "online space."

Like, I remember that becoming an idea.

That was new, that was totally new.

It was like opening a door at a party

and finding a bunch of people
are talking about you

and you're like,
"You're talking about me?"

Like, "I'll leave, I'll leave,
I'll stay, I'll come.

No, you, you guys stay, I'll leave."

[keyboard keys clacking]

I was the front-line of communication
for any social media,

any, you know, email, anything,
that c-- it came to me first.

And so, I got to see
all these heartbreaking stories

and heartwarming stories about how much
their music meant to people.

[indistinct chatter]

[Piers] They were incredibly good
at building community.

[chatter continues]

When we came on board,
there was already a groundswell

of Tegan and Sara fans around the world.

Many of them communicated
with Tegan and Sara

through burgeoning social media
and, and mailing lists

and sort of at shows,

and Tegan and Sara
really were very good at

fostering and building
that relationship with their fans.

[Kim Persley] It was
a lifeline for a lot of people.

These people connected
with someone being out and proud

and living their life on stage.

And they were like, "These are my people,
this is my community."

♪♪

[Julie] Around the fall of 2008,
I remember being on Facebook

and I got a message
from another Tegan and Sara fan.

She said, "Here's Tegan's profile
and it's the real Tegan."

Hi, everyone, we're Tegan and Sara
and we are...

[Julie] Tegan and Sara were
super known in the community

as being very accessible.

-We're in Copenhagen.
-[crowd cheering]

[Julie] And so I thought, "Why not?

I'll reach out."

[keyboard keys clacking]

Eventually she replied.

We started talking on Facebook.

Sometimes, we would talk every day.

[keyboard keys clacking]

[♪ light music playing]

♪♪

At some point she started
sending me song demos.

♪♪

[keyboard keys clacking]

Eventually, I did tell a couple of people

that I had become friends with Tegan.

They were excited for me,
they thought it was really cool.

And then I remember
Tegan had bought a new condo.

[keyboard keys clacking]

And she had sent pictures
of this new condo,

you know, all the rooms in the house.

Tegan's partner, like,
the back of her head was in a couple shots

as they're looking around the rooms.

At one point, Tegan had told me
that their mom had breast cancer.

[keyboard keys clacking]

I remember thinking it was
a very deeply personal thing

to share with someone

and I thought,

"Wow, they must really trust me."

♪♪

It felt really cool to be that trusted.

At this point, it had become
a long-term friendship

at a time when I really needed it.

[♪ music slowly fades out]

[keyboard keys clacking]

In 2011, she sent me a shared drive

and a password...

that included passport photos
for Tegan and Sara

and all of their band.

[♪ dark, suspenseful music playing]

This was a moment where I had to
kind of sit back and digest it

and--

because it felt really off
and my gut said,

"Why would she be sending this to me?"

♪♪

So, I reached out to my friend who I knew
had connections to her management

and I'll never forget I got a text...

[♪ dark, suspenseful music continues]

...that said, "She has no idea
who you are."

And I said something like,

"Well, then Tegan has a big problem."

♪♪

I remember our worlds
exploded Friday, May 20, 2011.

I spoke to Julie
that day for the first time,

and I, you know,
was completely dumbfounded.

She had been carrying on what she believed

was a, you know,
Internet-based relationship

with "Tegan" for two years.

And as I asked, you know,

what types of information
and things had been shared,

there were three things
I'll never forget she told me.

She told me that she had a song
called God Help Yourself,

which was a demo
Tegan had written a few months ago.

And this was an era where demos
were kept under, you know,

lock and key very carefully.

And so, a-a leak of a demo
was a really big deal to us.

And then she told me
she had Tegan and Sara's passports,

that Fake Tegan had shared passport scans.

And when I saw them,
they were the real thing.

And that of course completely haunted us,

because obviously a passport scan
can be the beginning of identity theft.

And then possibly the most alarming thing

from a personal standpoint was that

she knew that Tegan and Sara's mum,
Sonia, had breast cancer.

The fact that they knew
that my mum had had cancer

and that wasn't something
we publicly talked about.

It's not something
we publicly talk about now.

It was creepy, like it was-- it--

'Cause it introduced the idea
that it's someone we know.

Is it possible that someone

who knows intimate details about me

is pretending to be me?

They just need to know me or know someone

one or two steps from me.

As soon as we found out
someone was pretending to be me,

we just started to refer to them
as Fake Tegan or Fegan.

No one was operating at a high level

with knowledge
of how to protect people online.

Like, we were way out of our depth.

It was the Wild West.

So, we sent out
a very clear message on socials,

on our website to let people know

that we're not carrying
on personal relationships

with any fans over email.

[keyboard keys clacking]

[♪ soft suspenseful music playing]

[notifications chiming]

Multiple people came forward
from all over the world

saying that they too
had been corresponding

with someone who said they were Tegan
for varying amounts of time,

in some cases it had been for years.

[keyboard keys clacking]

[♪ suspenseful music continues]

[♪ music intensifies]

[♪ music softens]

Because Tegan and Sara
were so close and open to their fans,

communicating, a part of the community,

they believed it.

So, whoever Fegan was,
took advantage of that for sure.

But taking advantage of young queer women,

like, just disgusting.

[Tegan] This whole new
really scary universe opened up

and it started
to make me feel paranoid about everyone.

At that time, it was like
this weird map populated

with all these other people where--
So it was like,

"Here's my life, here's what
I'm doing, here's the truth,

"here's what everyone
who loves me and knows me

knows about me
and I know about myself."

Running parallel
to that true story about myself

was a fake story about me,

where Fake Tegan is connecting

and making all these relationships

with a whole world of other people.

[distorted glitching sounds]

-Hi.
-[Erin] Hi.

[Tegan] Hi, I'm Tegan.

[Jana] [on laptop]
Hi, Tegan.

Erin, it's such an honor
to meet both of you.

I'm a huge fan.

Today, I'm hoping you could take me back

to, like, when you
first started talking to, to Tegan.

It was the time of the Internet forum,

so, LiveJournal and Tumblr,

and where I found, like,
people talking about,

"Hey, Tegan's got
a personal profile on Last.fm."

And I messaged that profile

and then eventually got a response.

[Mindy] [on laptop]
I had gone to a show

and at that show, real Tegan,

you, had handed me your set list

and I went home and I got on Facebook

and, uh, I got a message
from "Tegan Quin"

and I thought it was just like a fan,

but at some point Fake Tegan added me
as a friend on Facebook.

I, of course, go to, like, their profile
to see, you know, who this person is,

and I'm looking through
everything and I'm like,

"What is-- What is going on?

This is, this is strange."

Because the people

that were writing
on Fake Tegan's wall

were your actual friends.

They were people from in your life.

-[Tegan] [through video call] Right.
-And it just, it felt very real.

Can you talk about what it was like
to be receiving these messages,

how many times
it would come in per day,

that kinda thing?

In the beginning, it wasn't
that conversational at that time.

It was like, you know,
throwing me little tidbits,

[on laptop]
like, three-word responses that I'd get.

But Tegan was talking to me.

It was like this, you know,
secret that I had.

Like, I was thinking this is Tegan.

And are you talking, like, all the time?

It was pretty constant.

I mean, you could--
if you look at the emails,

it was, like, every day.

[Mindy] [on laptop] We'll talk more about,
"Oh, what are you doing today?"

And they're like,
"Oh, it's freezing, I'm in Denver."

And I would look at your tour schedule

-and you would be in Denver for that day.
-Right.

[Mindy] And I'd be like, "Oh, okay."

And then, like, I started thinking,

"Well, if it's really Tegan, like,
they wouldn't be talking to me

when shows are going on."

They would never talk to me
at the wrong time.

It was always, like, the "correct time"
when you would be available.

You know, I would get
music from this person.

[on laptop] Like, I was getting
unreleased music

and after maybe, like,
a month-plus of us chatting,

it was really hard to deny at that point.

Yeah.

[Jana] [on laptop]
Oh, it was very exciting, yeah.

It-- You know, we had
some intimate back and forths.

It became more flirty at that time.

Okay, did it feel like
it escalated to a point

there was almost like a relationship?

-Yeah! Yeah.
-[Tegan] Yeah.

[Mindy] Like, I just felt like
you didn't want people to know

that you were talking to people

and, like, it was
a super big secret that I had,

and, like, I wanted
to be respectful of you,

so I didn't tell anybody.

-Yeah.
-[Mindy] They were leaning into

that notion of knowing that, like,

as a group of fans of this band

that, like, we loved
Tegan and Sara so much

that we, you know,
would protect them at that level

of not embarrassing Tegan.

They definitely left a mark on me,
that's for sure.

When you found out
that the person you were talking to

all that time
that you thought was me, wasn't me,

what-- what did--
what did you feel?

It was shocking, you know?
To hear the, the finality of like,

"Yes, it was in fact not real."

And, like, going back and
reliving some of it,

I'm like, "Man, this stuff
was really convincing,

and I... I wasn't dumb for believing it."

-Like, it seemed so real.
-[Tegan] No.

How did it end?

She got kind of upset with me.

She found out that I had
sent the demo to Tara,

another Tegan and Sara fan.

She was just somebody
that I had this communication with

and I would tell her--

She was somebody else
that I could talk to about it.

Tegan emailed me one day saying,

"Why did you, you know,
send these to anybody?"

And I'm, and I-I was thinking like,

"How are you--
how do you even know about this person?"

[breeze blowing]

[Jaime] Tara sent me a direct message,

because she had been talking
to Tegan for one or two years

and she was very upset
because as she'd been talking to Tegan,

she, she told me that Tegan
had gotten progressively... meaner

and even a little abusive
as the time went on.

And she was devastated by this.

But this girl, you know, was like,

"I-I can't stop talking to her
because it's Tegan

and this band is really important to me."

Um, and so, she just felt, you know,
really conflicted about, about that.

It was really upsetting to her.

Were you an early fan?

Lie, what was your fandom like
with Tegan and Sara?

Do you still have access
to that old phone?

Um, if it's, if it's at all possible,

if you'd feel comfortable,
like, sharing any of it.

Like that's-- We're trying
to basically figure out,

like, what the, the patterns were like
and stuff like that.

I mean, that would be
so significant, right?

In the old days, the hacking was
they're these criminal people

and they're stealing things.

Catfishing basically,

now we're talking about someone

who's trying to manipulate
another individual.

[keyboard keys clacking]

[message sends]

[notification dings]

They are making a connection.

[keyboard keys clacking]

They create the possibility
of an intimate relationship.

There's a real motivation

and attraction
for insecure people to do this

because they, they get to sort of
act, uh, confident and secure.

[♪ slow suspenseful music playing]

There's a, a significant
psychological reward in it.

♪♪

You're deceiving somebody
and you're manipulating somebody

and then having that power over them.

Being in control,
being able to get somebody to do

basically what you want them to do
or say what you want them to say,

get them to wanna
do things to please you.

♪♪

Once you taste that, it's like,
"Oh, this is a really fabulous feeling.

I feel good about myself."

And so, you want to do that again.

This could become an addiction.

[Erin] Do you get a sense
of Fegan's age and gender

in these early exchanges?

Female and young.

Young women are particularly good
at this kind of catfishing.

They have the social and emotional skills

that basically make them
really expert at this.

[♪ slow suspenseful music continues]

[Julie] After talking
to their management,

I just spent the entire week
sending all of these documents,

all of the chat logs that I could find,

sending anything I could to help to Piers,

because at this point it was--
my mind was just blown.

It was like somebody
punched me in the gut.

[keyboard keys clacking]

[♪ solemn music playing]

I was devastated, I was humiliated,

I felt ashamed.

It ruined, uh, their music
for me for a long time.

I didn't listen for a long time.

♪♪

I didn't travel to shows
to meet up with people anymore.

I became so paranoid
that I cut most of my acquaintances out.

There, there are really only
a couple people I talk to this day

from that time period that I trust

because it was just too much for me.

I just couldn't trust anybody.

[♪ slow suspenseful music playing]

But the fear, of course,
was that we didn't know

if this was just step one
in some unfolding series of events

that could get much worse.

What if they did try
to steal all our money?

What if they did try to
somehow get to me and Tegan?

Or what if they did try
to get to our partners?

It immediately got into the-the-the fear
of sort of physical safety.

You know, someone with
ill intent could show up

at one of their houses.

It totally felt like a stalker.

[indistinct chatter]

[Tegan] I felt so under attack,
it just got worse.

Tegan called me

and she asked if I remembered
the email I sent her

asking for her password
for her file sharing program

and I was very confused.

I didn't understand
what she was talking about.

And she's like,
"Well, you asked me for my password

for my file sharing."

And I was like,
"Absolutely not, I would never do that."

And then I was informed
that there were many emails

coming from my email address to Tegan,

which I obviously didn't send.

There was one from my mum as well.

And that felt, I mean,
that just made me question everyone

around me, my--
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, obviously.

So they're not there
to just be an observer.

You know, they're there
to take something and use it

and potentially hurt people
that I love and care about.

Quickly, over the next few days

it just became, we're all leaking.

Like, our emails, our phones,
like, I mean, who knows?

I mean, we started
to have conversations, like,

"We need to get rid of our computers."

At that point, like, if we're a house,

I felt like someone might be in the yard,

but suddenly I realized
they were in the house with us.

People who were very close to me
all of a sudden were involved.

[♪ dark, ominous music playing]

I met Tegan early February 2006.

A friend of Tegan and Sara's, he hit me up

and said, "Hey, do you
wanna be my plus-one

at this Tegan and Sara show?"

[♪ "Call It Off" by
Tegan and Sara playing]

[Tegan] Met Lindsey at a show

and started a two-year pursuit of her.

I was, like, mesmerized by her,
it consumed my life.

We just started exchanging long emails.

I thought, "This person is so cool."

Really exciting,

and also terrifying.

We talked 1,000 times a day in, in text.

It was, like, five hours on the phone.

It was flirty.

But then she didn't wanna date me.

♪ Call ♪

♪ Break it off ♪

-♪ Call, break ♪
-♪ Call, break ♪

♪ My own heart ♪

♪ Maybe I would have been
something you'd be good at ♪

[Tegan] After years
of pining for this person,

we ended up actually starting to date

and in that time wrote
an album called The Con,

about someone who I chased for years
to try to convince them to date me.

And I talked about it on stage.

I was so desperately in love
and obsessed at the same time.

And I would, I would get up
in the middle of the night.

I would be waiting for a text
from this person I liked,

and I would get up in
the middle of the night

and there would be no text,

so I would pop out the battery

and restart my phone just in case.

-[crew member laughs]
-[audience cheering]

But I think the heartbreak and mystery

and devastation of The Con,

made people feel like
they had really gotten behind the curtain.

♪♪

[keyboard keys clacking]

Fegan created emails for Lindsey.

So there would be these exchanges

where "Lindsey, Fake Lindsey,"

was talking to Fake Tegan,

and they would copy in a victim.

I was literally like,
"Are you fucking kidding me?"

And I was like, "Oh, my God."
I mean, like, my stomach dropped.

Lindsey was
a public person herself, you know?

She was a photographer,
she'd been in a band.

This is the person that I love.

I just moved to
a new country to be with her.

You know, it was my whole life,

like, feeling violated,
feeling embarrassed, feeling angry,

like, shutting right down
but also feeling guilty,

because I had spoken about her publicly.

I felt very singled out,

and that's a weird feeling as a twin,
an identical twin

where everything has been about we and us,

and, and all of a sudden
this was very much just...

someone was obsessed with me,
pretending to be me,

my girlfriend, coming after my friend,
stolen my demos.

I feel like I'm out here
searching for answers,

um... like, defending myself alone.

And it's not her fault,
like, I don't mean alone

'cause she's, like, abandoned me.

It's just like what is she gonna do here?

I just felt like a burden
on everybody around me

and I just was like,
"Please make it stop."

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

So when we got as far as
we could in the investigation,

we did go to the police.

There was an officer
that we had dealt with in the past

who advised us on...

you know, situations that had
come up with fans, obsessive fans.

He believed that we didn't
have enough at that point

to, you know, pursue criminal charges.

The next step was to secure... our world.

So, we brought in this
cybersecurity expert

to look into all the information we had

and help us figure out
who was pretending to be me.

We quickly were able to establish

that our manager's iDisk,

like, where they stored a lot of
documentation and information about us

that, that it had been breached.

We started analyzing the materials
that Julie had shared with us,

trying to figure out what was going on.

One of the items was
a forged tour document.

♪♪

[Piers] We got into the properties
of that document

and saw it had been created by a person.

First name was Joanne
who was based in the UK.

And we quickly found
a MySpace page that existed

that was tied to a student in the UK

that also listed Tegan and Sara
as one of her musical interests.

And so, we thought that we found her.

Yay us, we, we found-- [laughing]
we found Fegan.

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

[Piers] So, we believe we have
this case solved essentially

-within the first weekend.
-[laughs]

So, we're high-fiving ourselves.

We're, we're detectives.

We've got this
basic trail of evidence leading us

to Joanne in the UK,

and then a few days later
on Wednesday, May 25th,

we got another email that shook us again.

-[Kim] This is from Jenny.
-[Piers] The mom.

♪♪

[Kim] "I'm writing in regards
to some very sinister things

"that have been going on.

"For the past week,
my daughter's been receiving emails

"from websites canceling accounts
that she has not created.

"Yesterday afternoon,
she received an email

from a MobileMe address."

And that's the email
that Fake Tegan's been using

all along with Julie.

Yes, and the email says,
"Your fucked, sorry."

[both laughing]

-[Piers] I'll never forget that line.
-[Kim] "You're" spelled, Y-O-U-R.

-To boot.
-Yeah.

We felt the same way at the time.
We were all fucked.

Yeah, we all felt
very fucked at this point.

Oh, and it continues.

This is what points us in
a different direction for the first time.

The first appearance... of Mark.

This email purported to say

that her daughter Joanne
had been the victim of identity theft.

That it was perpetrated by this guy, Mark,

who was based in the US, in Maine.

And so, for the first time
we're hearing another name

after we thought we had Joanne,

all of a sudden it's pointing to,
to Mark, a man who is American.

Never forget reading
that email and thinking,

"Oh, my gosh, we are in
a very crazy tangled web right now."

[distorted glitching sounds]

It wasn't outta the question

that it could be a guy
doing this, in fact.

-Yeah.
-But this again made us worried,

because we also thought,
"Where is this gonna end up?

Is this a predator situation?"

And so, we suddenly had
two possible culprits now,

and so, we decided to issue
cease and desist letters

to both Joanne and, and Mark.

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

This is when I just started absolutely...

having my mind blown,

was we received an email
from a lawyer in the UK

saying that that email that we thought
was from Jenny was not.

So, who sent that?

[♪ suspenseful music continues]

"Although my client's
mother is called Jenny,

"she was not responsible
for sending the email

received by your client managers
on May 25th."

♪♪

Is this all a ruse?

Is the law-- UK lawyer fake?

Is Joanne doing this whole thing?

Is she the ringleader?

That was my-- my mind exploded
and I said, "We know nothing.

"We've been outfoxed,
I'm in a Sandra Bullock movie,

The Net."

I don't know that we understood
what was happening.

I mean, quite honestly,
after speaking to the police

and then our lawyers...

you know, we just tossed
a ton of cease and desists out there

and hoped for the best.

Honestly, I feel like
we all were so fucked.

[♪ solemn music playing]

[♪ music fades out]

I really blamed myself
and I really felt responsible.

And I do have to
consistently remind myself

that when this all started,

I was really young

and social media was young.

[♪ soft somber music playing]

Right outta high school we made a website

and put an email address at it.

I worked at a coffee shop in the mornings

and then in the afternoon
I would answer emails,

and that was my first interaction
with the Internet.

Tegan and Sara, we have to remember
were way ahead of the curve

on social media
and interacting with their fans

and creating meaning between their fans.

[Tegan] I was more of
the extrovert of the band.

I was very out there,
I was very personable with fans.

Always walking the lineup
outside of the venue,

standing at merch to talk to people.

I-I never said no to taking photos
or signing things

or making a video saying
"Happy Birthday" to your cousin.

-Like, that was me.
-...people from Dublin.

[Tegan] Like, I had
opened the door too wide

and made it really believable
that this person could be me.

Tegan and I at the time,

it wasn't that we didn't see
eye to eye about our fan base in general.

We loved our fan base, we loved touring.

But I think the way that we learned
to manage the downside of fame

and the downside of, um,
success was different.

Tegan really leaned into it.

She felt really like
she owed it to the fans.

Like, "It's fine." You know?

Um, "I'll go out, I'll-I'll do it
tonight, Sara, don't worry.

I'll go sign for two hours
next to the tour bus."

I think everyone around
me was kind of like,

"Well, you're pretty open, you know,

you're pretty friendly with everybody."

And I thought that that was--

that's something about me
that was, like, good.

And then Fegan came along

and I was like,
"This is a bad thing about me.

"This exposes me,
this makes me vulnerable.

"This made
our whole organization vulnerable.

This hurt so many people
and so now I can't do that anymore."

They pulled back big time,
Sara especially, but Tegan too.

This was also leading into the era

of where they took another big leap
in their popularity

and it's, like, an inverse relationship.

Like, the more fans you have,

the less ability you have
to be able to connect with them.

We immediately introduced
VIP, you know, ticketing.

So, there was no more
going out to merch table,

no more standing in front
of the buses signing things,

no more walking the, the lineup.

Like, I just created more
of a formal process to, to, to connect.

We had their names,
their email addresses,

there was a photo
of each person that met us.

It was just more controlled.

And they were mad, like, they were upset.

It really hurt their feelings.

It was kind of a hard time to be a fan,

as someone who had been
around for a while.

It felt like they were
trying to go somewhere

that we weren't going to fit anymore.

[Tegan] This was the fan night
at the recording studio in Vancouver.

Yeah. It's, it's funny,
'cause a lot of these people,

these are people
who flew in from other, other cities

but they're like so recognizable to us,

'cause they were usually the people
who were in the front row at concerts.

Yeah, I threw this photo in,

because, like, as much as
this was a very stressful time

and a time of so much change

and violation in a lot of ways,

it was also, like, a really fun time.

Please welcome back
to the program Tegan and Sara.

♪ All I wanna get is ♪

♪ A little bit closer ♪

♪ All I wanna know is ♪

♪ Can you come a little closer? ♪

♪ Here comes the breath
before we get a little bit closer ♪

-[Tegan] We started to do Late Night.
-[Sara] Mm-hmm.

[Tegan] We did Letterman,
like, we did Jay Leno.

We'd done a bookstore event,
signing for hundreds of fans

and we'd had armed security.

It was a different time.

We were entering a different time.

There was so much heat on us,
it was just different.

♪ It's not just all physical ♪

♪ I'm the type
who won't get oh, so critical ♪

[Tegan] We saw our star rising,
it was just meteoric.

Thank you to all the fans
who have stood by us

through all of our different incarnations.

-[♪ "Closer" by Tegan and Sara playing]
-[crowd cheering]

♪ I won't treat you like
you're oh, so typical ♪

♪ All I want to get is ♪

♪ A little bit closer ♪

[♪ song ends]

[cheering]

Thanks very much you guys.

It was crazy and there was
so much going on,

but there was also an influx of wild,

obsessive, unwell,

stalker-y intrusive stuff
that was happening.

Our videos would leak online
two nights before they premiered.

Our record leaked online
24 hours before it came out.

Everything we would get in our heads

and be like, "Is it Fake Tegan?"

But it wasn't until October of 2013

that it became a focus again for us.

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

[ambient street noise]

I was out for dinner
with a bunch of friends,

one of whom Rene,
her account had been hacked.

That night, I was giving
an update about Fegan

as I was sort of recounting
where we had gotten

with the, the Fake Tegan thing.

The big thing being, like,
there were multiple fans

who'd been talking
with Fegan for years, exchanging emails,

photos, like, access, like, you know,
they really proved they were me

and Rene just got, like,
the funniest look on her face.

And her and her then girlfriend,
they kinda kept looking at each--

I mean, it was clear something
was happening for them in their head.

It was like a light bulb went off.

And she stopped me and she said...

like, "It's so crazy what you're saying.

"Like, Steph's been telling people

that you've been having
a secret relationship for years."

Steph was someone we both knew
in the Vancouver scene.

My mind was blown.

It was a-- just a awful moment, you know?

I just remember my face, like, burning.

This wasn't just a random person,
this was a person I knew

through multiple groups of friends
who I'd socialized with,

who I'd gone out for coffee with
a couple times,

who worked at the bar I hung out at.

I was like, what a weird tale.

I hadn't talked to her in years
and I was like, "Oh, my God."

And I just immediately went home
and emailed my management

and said, "I think this is,
I think this is Fegan.

I think Fegan's back
and I think that they're in my email."

[♪ soft, pensive music playing]

[JT] I'm told that I was
previously being referred to

as Steph as nobody was sure

if I was gonna be a part of this project.

My name's actually JT
and I'm a Vancouver musician.

[Erin] How do you feel
about the name Steph

that I picked out for you?

I am horrified.

[crew members laughing]

[♪ light music playing]

I grew up in Edmonton, Alberta,
partially in a group home.

My mom ended up giving us
away to social services.

Once you put your kids in the system,

you pretty much can't get them back.

♪♪

Music for me was like
the one thing that made sense.

That was the only place
that I could truly express

what I was feeling in the moment.

And it was, like, safe.

As a young person
when I first moved to Vancouver,

like, I started working
at the only lesbian bar that was here,

just, like, working the door
for, like, extra money on the weekends.

It was definitely
one of my first instances

of a real community.

It felt like I finally found,
like, my people

and, like, my space
on this earth, you know?

♪♪

One day, my friend texted me...

"Tegan's coming over for dinner.

"I know that you mentioned
that you liked her

and I think you guys would vibe."

At the time, Tegan and Sara,

they were like a local lesbian band,

and I found that interesting.

So, I, like, went over there

and I all, but pretty much ignored her,
to be honest,

because, like,
I'm not very good in, like, situations

like that where somebody's
trying to, like,

force me to meet somebody.

But later on I got a text
from Tegan being like,

"Hey, like, let's connect
and, like, hang out or something."

[Erin] And so was the vibe
friendly or sort of flirty? Like...

I-- Like, at first, like,
the first time that we met,

it was, like, just, like, really friendly.

It was nice, it was--
it felt normal, like, and chill

and, like, we had, like,
good conversation.

She was really doing what I wanted to do,
you know what I mean?

Like, playing music
and, like, traveling around doing it

and I was like,
"Oh, that's, like, really cool."

So, it felt really grown up to me.

[audience cheering]

Thank you very much.

[Erin] How would you keep in touch
while Tegan was on the road?

Back then it was just, like,
more, like, common to, like, send emails

to people than it was
to, like, text a lot.

[keyboard keys clacking]

They were basically letters to each other.

[whooshing]

At some point, there was a natural break
in the conversation

where she was, like, on tour,

and I was doing lots of
music stuff and just busy.

So, you know, eventually I reached out

and was just like,
"Hey, like, what's up?

Like, haven't heard from you in a while."

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

[keyboard keys clacking]

I got an email back saying

that it was no longer
the email that she was using.

She also emailed me
a different phone number

to contact them with

and I just figured
their phone number changed.

It didn't seem very, like, weird to me.

The emails definitely
emulated the same vibe,

the same, uh, typing style,
um, everything.

Like, so it didn't set off
any red flags inside me.

[keyboard keys clacking]

♪♪

The emails did ramp up

to being, like, less than
really full letters anymore.

It was more like a text message style.

[keyboard keys clacking]

In my mind I just figured, like,
that seems normal

because, like, when you start, like,
talking to somebody like that,

like, it just ends up being
more frequent, you know?

So, even, like, that didn't really
feel strange at the time.

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

I would say when
it turned, to, like, 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,

um, and I didn't need anything more.

[♪ suspenseful music continues]

I don't think it felt romantic at all.

No, it felt more... just sexual.

[keyboard keys clacking]

At this stage,
I remember, like, eventually

just being really annoyed
that we hadn't met up.

'Cause I had seen she was in Vancouver.

So, I got a little bit more bold

and I was like,
"Why aren't we meeting up?"

[♪ soft somber music playing]

And basically being, like, the ultimatum,

like, "If you don't show up,
I'm, like, not interested

in continuing to talk to you anymore
because this is insane."

[keyboard keys clacking]

Ultimatum was made
and then Tegan didn't show up, you know?

And then, the-- like, there was
no explanation given at this point

and I was just like, "Listen, like,

"I'm, like, done having this, like,
conversation back and forth.

This is doing nothing for me."

I'm not gonna continue to talk to a ghost.

Not long after that happened,

Piers, which was
Tegan's management at the time,

left me a voicemail.

It more or less said, "We're in the middle
of this investigation about somebody

who's hacking Tegan's email."

Hearing that voicemail
sent chills through my body.

I got in touch with her and did a call

and started exchanging emails
much like we had done with Julie,

and, uh, there was again, yeah,

there was direct evidence
that this, you know,

this person had been tricked by someone.

But, uh, Steph became
increasingly unconvinced

that I was on her side
and that we were all victims.

The most shocking twist
was Steph was like,

"No, this is Tegan, I know it's Tegan."

She said, "I believe you're
protecting your client.

"Your client is demented

"and I've hired a private investigator.

They've concluded
this really was your client."

And sort of,
"Until you can prove otherwise,

I'm sticking by it."

[Erin] You had very little doubt
that it wasn't Tegan the whole time.

Yeah, at that time,
of course, I didn't, like,

I didn't have the foresight that I do now.

[Erin] Why did you say
that you had hired a PI?

Um, at the time, like, I felt like
I had to have something.

Like, she had somebody having her back

and I essentially felt alone,

I didn't have anybody on my side.

So, like, at the time
I'm a young dumb kid who was like,

"I'm gonna say that I have
a private investigator.

"So, maybe that, like,
if there is something

"that they're, like, trying to hold back,

maybe they'll just
freakin', like, say it."

I felt very small,
so, what are you gonna do?

You have to fight.

[keyboard keys clacking]

[♪ solemn music playing]

Tegan and I knew each other in real life.

She never reached out.

She never said, "I'm sorry."

She never gave me her side of the story.

The real human response
to something like that,

no matter who you are,
is to make sure the other person

who was involved
in the wreck of this mess is okay.

Nobody made sure I was okay.

In 2014, JT was a stranger to me.

We hadn't physically seen each other
in five or six years.

And then, within two weeks
of finding out about JT,

JT was online talking shit

and saying I was a horrible person
and coming after me.

Obviously, that made us all very reluctant
to reach out to JT.

After that, a lot of people
didn't wanna be around me,

because Vancouver's a small town
and everybody talks.

Music is a small town, everybody talks.

It doesn't matter where you are.

A lot of people
who I have never met in my life,

meeting for the first time
knew about this shit.

They go, "Oh, you are JT."

And I knew exactly what that meant
and I'd be like, "Oh, great, cool."

Like, music spaces
became uncomfortable for me.

I didn't wanna be even in queer spaces.

I still don't wanna be in queer spaces,

'cause I could feel people's conversations
and their body language

and their energy change
when I entered a room.

Like, do I wanna be in a space
where I can feel people

actively feeling uncomfortable around me

because they think
I'm a very, like, weird person

who makes up crazy stories and is a liar?

No. So, I stopped going anywhere.

I feel awful for JT.

I feel terrible, this has haunted her.

She felt, it's clear to me, embarrassed

and violated by this experience.

But during the course of that time,

my relationship with Lindsey... dissolved,

and my mum's sister was dying

and this Fake Tegan thing
had come up again

and it just felt so horrible.

It was just really very overwhelming.

And I believe in my heart
that even if at that time

I went and talked to her, she
would've just been like, "You're lying."

We're victims of the same person.

And it's hung over both of us.

[pages rustle]

Right from the beginning
there was sort of like,

suspicion on, on the people
in our lives, you know?

[Sara] Mm-hmm.

I was under the impression based on

how much personal information
that they had, that...

It was someone we knew.

Well, someone we knew

or someone you had told
really personal things

about me and Mom,

and, and I remember thinking,

um, the only, only way
that somebody would know any of that

was if they either knew you

or they were like directly in your email.

-Right.
-Like, actually in your email.

Because the only way
they would know about our--

like, mom having cancer or
who I was dating,

like, those kinds of things,

to me that felt like casual conversation.

But when I actually went through

and read some of the conversation
between Fegan and Julie,

I realized that they didn't know anything.

It was, like, more, like,
headline information.

Yeah.

And so, that is when
I realized that this was a fan

talking to other fans
and that these people did not know us.

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

[Tegan] Tegan and Sara fan base
is so fuckin' dope.

I-I know Tegan and Sara fans
who got a passport explicitly

so they could go and travel

with the friends they met
through our fan base.

People who hadn't left their house
to go see a concert in a decade,

who befriended people
through message boards

and then decided they were
brave enough to go to a concert.

I know people who've gotten married

because they met at our shows
or on message boards.

But you get to a certain size

and a certain part
of your fan base gets so intense,

they ruin it for everybody else.

♪♪

[Jenny] With music,
you can really project

your own storyline onto a song

and you can really believe that the lyrics
understand you.

It gives people a lot of room
to form these ideas

about the artist based on their music.

It's easy to lose sight of the fact that

that is a tiny fraction
of what a person's about.

You know, in these days they're talking
about parasocial relationships.

Like, people really thought
that they knew Tegan and Sara.

[Jenny] It's a trope, you know,
to be in an audience

and to be convinced
that the person on stage is looking at you

and the person next to you thinks
that they're looking at them too.

There's a need to be validated
that the artist knows you exist.

I know a lot of... queer famous people

and so a common thing we all talk about

is that there's these
awful toxic message boards

where the people who seem
to love and be obsessed with you the most,

are the most cruel and mean and shitty.

They were breeding grounds for obsession.

"We want more, we need more,
it's not enough."

"Why don't they come and stand outside?
Why don't they talk to us longer?"

"Why don't they tell us
more about their lives?"

But they always have
so much information about you

and you're like, "Who the fuck?"

[cheering]

[Lindsey Byrnes] Tegan and Sara fans
were dedicated.

What it felt like to me
was that they did not like me,

and they wanted to date my girlfriend.

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

I didn't understand how these people,
like, knew things about me,

like, personal stuff.

[keyboard keys clacking]

I already felt really protective
over my girlfriend,

who was a total normie, who was like,

"Why are your fans, like,
posting my dad's home address

on the ZetaBoards or whatever?"

And I was like, "I don't know."

Like, I don't know how to explain this.

It was so weird to me.

It was easy to joke about it
or laugh about it,

but at some point it really hurt.

Unverified information
could really be asserted

as if it was accurate and spread,

and misinformation
could spread really easily.

[keyboard keys clacking]

Some of this is because
the Internet, you know,

depersonalizes things
and we see people as avatars,

and we see ourselves
as being able to hide behind a handle.

And it's easy to forget
that there's a real person

who's gonna read that sentence

who might be genuinely frightened by it.

People were cruel about our girlfriends,

mean about our friends, shitty about us.

It's weird, fan culture is so strange.

Behaviors that fans engage in

and support amongst each other
are on a spectrum

that slide into really
dysfunctional behavior really fast.

[audience cheering]

The competitiveness
in fan groups, the entitlement,

the possessiveness, the elitism.

[screaming, cheering]

But I've been, like, pinched, kissed,
fondled, grabbed, carried,

trying to carry me outta the venue.

People have gotten on stage
and bear hugged Sara, taken her down.

I've been followed home.

We've driven around for an hour before
to lose people on our way to hotels,

I've had people show up at my hotel.

Those barricades and security people

you see at venues, you know,
like, they're there for a reason.

There were a lot of fans
who wanted to be part of,

who wanted a piece of Tegan and Sara.

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

Fan culture has existed
for hundreds of years.

Stay where you are.

Famously, when Sherlock Holmes
was killed off...

[gunshot]

[Jenny]
...people protested in the streets.

You know, in pop music with fan armies

where they will dox people
and threaten people

because they expressed an opinion

that the group decides together
is unacceptable.

♪♪

And the term, "stan"
as a description of superfans

who've gone a little too far

is thought to be, uh,
an amalgam of "stalker" and "fans"

"stan."

People might not realize that "stan"

is the Eminem song, Stan.

♪ Dear Slim, I wrote you,
but you still ain't callin' ♪

♪ I left my cell, my pager
and my home phone at the bottom ♪

♪ I sent two letters back in autumn ♪

♪ You must not’ve got ’em... ♪

[Jenny] It tells the story
of a fan named Stan

who writes Eminem a series of letters.

He's so outraged
that Eminem's not responding to him,

that he murders his girlfriend.

[♪ dark, solemn music playing]

And now, when you're proclaiming
yourself the best fan,

you call yourself a stan.

You're proud to be a stan.

♪♪

That's deranged.

In any artist's fandom,

the vast majority of people
are casual fans.

[♪ dark, solemn music continues]

But there's no denying
that there's a portion of fans

who are, you know,
what you might call pathological,

people who are dangerous.

[newscaster]
He told the officer he will do

whatever it takes to be with Katy Perry.

[officer] Put your hands on the wall.

[imitates gunshot]

[♪ dark music playing]

[♪ music fades out]

[birds chirping]

-[Tegan] -Hi. How's it going?
-[Jacqi] Hi. Good, how are you?

-I'm Tegan.
-I'm Jacqi.

[both] Nice to meet you.

-[Tegan] I love your overalls.
-[Jacqi] Thank you.

A few weeks ago your producers
on this documentary

reached out to me.

They had the email
that I sent your management back then

about this whole situation

and the Fake Tegan,

I wanted to just let you know
the information that I had.

Whoa.

I didn't have the whole conversation,

but these were the initial texts. Very--

Okay. Okay, so this is the first,
this is the first text.

-That's right.
-"Fantastic job."

[♪ slow suspenseful music playing]

"I could have the wrong number.
Who's this?"

-Good. Play coy. I like it.
-[Jacqi chuckles]

"This is Tegan, do I know you?"

[♪ suspenseful music continues]

So when Piers, our manager, reached out

and said that it wasn't me,

did you ever reach out to Fegan again?

Like, did you reach out
and say like, the jig's up?

I didn't text them right away.

I kind of just like, let it go.

It was like, "I wanna bury this
'cause this is weird and embarrassing

and I don't wanna think about it anymore."

[Tegan] Yeah, it's horrible.

[Jacqi] And then in 2014 on Tumblr,

this page popped up out of nowhere.

♪♪

Gained a lot of attention.

-It was just one picture of your face.
-[Tegan] Yeah.

[Jacqi] And, like, a couch
in the background.

It said something like,
"10:00 a.m. tomorrow,

"I'm releasing a lot of information

that you're gonna wanna know about Tegan."

-Damn.
-[Jacqi] There's, like, a countdown.

So, everyone was like, "What?
What's going on? Who is this person?"

And then the next day at 10:00 a.m.

they dropped all of these demos
that were unreleased,

pictures of you
that seemed pretty personal.

They said that you had a relationship
with them for three years.

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

I was immediately suspicious.

So, I DM'd them.

Their name was Tara,
and we started talking.

[Tegan] It's a fact-finding mission
at this point.

Yeah. I just said, "I have also been
in contact with this number.

And then management called me
and said that it wasn't Tegan."

[♪ mysterious music playing]

And they instantly were like,
"That's a lie, that's a cover-up."

We started talking about their experience

and their relationship with you.

They told me they had run
a fan fiction account about you and Sara,

and you were on the fan fiction account.

They were saying that you were a monster

and you were abusive
and you had played them

and that you were just
abusing all of your underage fans.

They wanted revenge and justice.

So, they had the intention
of going to the show

to stare you down and intimidate you.

-That's fucking creepy.
-Yeah. [chuckles]

So, we're going back and forth for a bit.

And then I got this whole long message

from this moderator on a
Tegan and Sara chat site

about all of this awful stuff
that this person used to do.

"This insane diabolical bitch
started a war with me

"and my friend about three years ago
after an encounter on .ca.

"She was the creator of
the original Quincest LiveJournal,

"which was open to the public
and was incredibly offensive,

and, I mean, really bad."

[keyboard keys clacking]

There were these
message boards with incest

fan fiction sexualizing us.

[keyboard keys clacking]

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

It was gross.

"I called her out on it,
putting pressure on her to delete it

"or at least make it private.

"She flipped out, going from
a previously very likable

"and intelligent poster on .ca
to someone with multiple IPs,

"emails and personalities.

She's diabolically good at lying."

Yeesh.

That's, um, that's rough.

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

[keyboard keys clacking]

And I just always go back
to the email exchange with our management

where this person went from being like,

"I'll help you find Fegan,"

to accusing me and being
really aggressive and, and angry.

[keyboard keys clacking]

Like, all of it feels very, very strange.

Tara is a person that reached out to me.

I-- Probably in response
to one of my angry tweets about Tegan

saying that they also received
some sort of, like, attention from Tegan.

They tried to be really friendly with me.

It felt like they were trying
to connect with me

and be like, "Oh, the same thing
is happening to me."

And-- But something felt weird about it,

because they kept on trying
to bring Tegan up all the time.

They became very aggressive very fast

and tried to, like, message me a lot.

It's like they wanted
to be a part of my life.

I could feel that very much.

And I eventually had to just say like,

"Hey, stop messaging me about this.

"I literally don't wanna think about it.

Like, it's over, fuck off."

[Lindsey] I remember meeting them
at the Newport Folk Festival.

They seemed like a fan and curious

and not dangerous.

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

[keyboard keys clacking]

It was a student.

I was nice. You know, professional.

But she became unstoppable.

[keyboard keys clacking]

And then I got a call
from her and they said,

"I need you to know that Tegan

"has been having relationships with fans,

multiple fans for years."

I mean, my initial reaction
was like, "No, she wasn't."

We were, like, breaking up
at this point, you know?

This person was, like,

thinking that they had done it.

They had told me this stuff
and then we were breaking up.

So, I was like,
"Oh, God, really?" You know?

I did not wanna engage with this person.

Breakups are painful,

but this was just wild.

♪♪

Whether they knew or not
that we were breaking up,

it was unbelievably cruel
and shitty thing to do to Lindsey.

It's just salt in the wound, you know?

It was fucked up, like, I was like,
"This is really fucked up.

"This is, like, a real breach of privacy.

Like get a fuckin' life," you know?

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

[JT] At one point, I emailed
the Fake Tegan email

and it kicked back

and in the code
it actually said Tara's name.

[distorted glitching sounds]

So, I messaged Tara and said,
"Hey, like, is this serious?

"Has this, like, always been you?

This is complete insanity."

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

"I know it was you this whole time.

"I tried sending an email to Tegan

"and it came up with an error message

"that my email got rejected

"and in the details had
an email with your name in it.

"That's too much of a coincidence
to not be true.

"And you also just always
know the correct answer

"to why her emails weren't traced back

"to the right places, et cetera.

"Because you did it all.

"You don't have a job,
so it makes sense

"as to why you're always available to talk
and make up stories.

"This is just so sick.

"I can't believe anyone
would spend their time doing this.

"I'm sending over
everything I have to Piers.

"So enjoy, 'cause you'll probably
be in some legal trouble

for impersonating someone."

I don't know why this person
did what they did,

but it turned my life upside down.

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

[♪ music fades out]

There's this big email that I saw from JT

claiming that she received metadata

that pointed the finger at Tara. Um--

And we-- And we have that email?

[Erin] [on computer] So, we have the email
of JT accusing Tara,

saying, "I knew it was you,"

but once I asked JT about
that "bounce back" in the metadata,

um, we haven't been able to find that.

So, that's, like, it-- had we--
had we had that

it would be an open and shut case, right?

But we only have JT
accusing Tara with this.

[through computer] But Tara was in contact
with Jacqi, JT, Lindsey, Jaime,

management, and Jana.

We did find a connection
between Tara and Julie.

[Tegan] It's very weird to draw
the web of all the people

that this person reached out to.

[Erin] This person always
lived in Portland, Maine.

Mark, the suspect number two,
was traced back to Maine.

And you have never lived in Maine.

Certainly very suspicious, for sure.

Shall we call that the Maine Train?

[wind blowing]

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.

[through computer]
And so, after a year and a half of this

and, like, taking in all this information,

this is the person it's led us to,

but it's circumstantial evidence.

I mean, it would be amazing
if we had a piece of ev-- like, evidence

that really 100%
was just like, "This is it."

But there's holes that make me feel like
maybe it's not them.

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

[keyboard keys clacking]

If you ever find out who the Fegan was,

I really would like to know why

and what I would like to say to them,

I'm torn between, "Fuck you for what you
did to Tegan and the rest of us."

And I just want this person to know

that it wasn't victimless,
you did hurt people.

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

Nothing that they could say

would make anything
what they did correct or right.

Like, nothing could change that.

[♪ suspenseful music continues]

[♪ music fades out]

[crew member] And now you can
close the eyebrow

and turn off the camera.

Can we drop the MIACs?

-Yeah, yeah, yeah, frame right. Yeah.
-[Erin] Okay.

[crew member] Exactly,
that's a little better,

'cause now I can't really...

[clapboard clacks]

[Erin] Yeah.

-[assistant] Hey, Erin.
-[Erin] Yeah?

[assistant]
I'm really sorry to interrupt.

We just got a text from Tara.

Um...

They said, "I've thought about it more

"and I'm not really interested
in being a tool

"in making someone else more money

"without any personal payout for myself,

"especially when I'm being
asked to reopen old scars.

"If Tegan already knew
how traumatic this was

"for the victims of this nightmare,

"then asking them to unearth
ancient and painful history

is just exploitative and selfish."

[Erin sighs]

So, do we think--

Do we think that means
they will not be coming?

[assistant] I think they're telling us
that they're not going to come.

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

-[Tegan] [on laptop] Hi, can you hear me?
-Yeah.

So we are all set up in Maine.

And guess who is not here?

[Tegan] Your interviewee?

[Erin] That's correct.

But I also feel very lured here, right?

[Tegan] Hmm.

[Max Kilger]
This person waited until you arrived

to say, "Oh, by the way, uh,
I don't think I wanna do this,"

because they want control over you

and they wanna manipulate you

and perhaps extract things from you.

[Erin] I think there's
a sense of satisfaction

in knowing that they, like, got us.

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

[line ringing]

[Erin] Hey, it's Erin.

[Erin] I have Tegan on the other line,

I'm gonna merge for a sec, okay?

[Tegan] [on phone] Hello.

Well, I just wanna first
say thank you so much

for getting on a call with us.

I know this is deeply weird

and, um, I appreciate--

I hope now that we've verified it's us,
that you feel comfortable--

[Tegan] [on phone] Totally.
Well, if it's possible

for me personally, I mean,

I have an email from you in 2014

telling my management, Piers, that you...

had evidence that you knew
who Fake Tegan was.

[keyboard keys clacking]

We never got that evidence,

and I think that's
where I would love to start,

if, if you remember
anything from that time.

[Erin] [on phone]
So, I mean, I'll jump in.

You know, you are somebody that,

um, you told me were a--
was a victim of Fake Tegan.

I need to take that at face value.

But I've been looking at this case
for a year and a half.

I've spoken to a bunch of victims.

[on phone] Part of the thing that
kept coming up is

they would have this sort of
dynamic with Fake Tegan

and then you would actually appear

trying to talk about the relationship.

I, I hear that, um,
it's not what it felt like to them.

[on phone]
Also, every single victim that we spoke to

did send us the messages

in which they were
talking to Fake Tegan.

And it was, to me, suspicious
that you did not send anything.

[Tegan] Um, I don't,
'cause I was hacked twice

and had to abandon
my email in a panicked frenzy.

One of the origins
of your love of the band was the,

like, the incest fan fiction.

Is that something that you
sort of fully took part in?

Yes.

There are coincidences
and oddities to where you were

and the way that you reached out.

You know, like, your behavior

has left me feeling very...

convinced that something's not right.

So, you have never hacked Tegan's email

in any way whatsoever?

[Erin] So, like you feel
that you are a victim of Fake Tegan?

I mean, you seem like
you were profoundly affected by this.

Yes.

[Tegan] Okay.

If I wanted to have
relationships and affairs

and friendships with all of these people,
why wouldn't I just do it?

But why? I make friends
with people all the time.

Why would I be hiding
my friendships with people?

I mean, a lot of these victims
were just friends.

[on phone] No one in my world
believes that this is real.

We were extremely worried and distressed

for the people that were
talking to this person.

Just what do you remember
about this person contacting you?

[on phone] What happened to you?

And why was it,
why was it traumatic?

Okay.

[Tegan] You're saying that that's what
drove you to reach out to Lindsey?

Like, at that point
you had been carrying on a relationship

[on phone] with Fake Tegan
without feeling guilty.

But when, when Tegan blew you off,

then you went in to sort of
fuck up her relationship.

Like, that was sort of the thinking.

Okay, okay.

I just acknowledge
that this has been hard

and I do appreciate you
taking the time and talking to me.

Maybe all these things
don't add up to you being Fake Tegan,

but you did things on the Internet
that are very easy to find,

that are extremely aggressive towards me.

[on phone] The incest page,
reaching out to Lindsey,

you built a Tumblr page
to out me as a horrible person

and release all my personal information.

And some of your behaviors,
when you add all of that up,

have made you a person that is
extremely worrisome to us, you know?

You attempted to have a...

um, you know,
physical run-in with me at the show.

And you wanted to publicly destroy me,

you wanted to personally destroy me.

You wanted to accuse me
and my management --

Excuse me?

Why do you think that--
Why do you think that it didn't affect me?

Why did you think it doesn't affect me?

How could this not affect me?

How could-- How could be,
like, violated like this?

Of course it affected me.

I've never had a call like that.

I-- It just was really different
than what I expected.

To me, the emotional depth
of them exploring their feelings

and what happened feels genuine to me.

It doesn't rule out the fact that they did

some really fuckin' shitty stuff to me.

Yeah.

But I feel like Tara's response
to certain questions,

especially the ones
where we were just asking to hear about

their experience,

it felt like...

it felt real to me.

This is somebody who had
a relationship with Fake Tegan,

feels totally fucked over,
got conned and is pissed.

So, I do not think Tara is Fegan.

I don't think we've found Fegan.

I went into the call
with a lot of feelings about

that this was the person.
I flew to Maine,

I got ready to interview them.

They ghosted at the last second.

For me doing this for a long time,

it's incredibly suspicious.

And so, uh...

But,

I think you're right.

[on computer]
Yes, we would like to find out who did it,

but it's also, it's so much more,

it's like what this does
to people and the dehumanization,

and when, when Tara was like,
"This didn't affect you.

How could this have affected you?"

That to me encapsulated everything.

It's like, of course, it affected you,

but nobody thinks of you
as a person that can be hurt.

Yeah.

The truth is messy,
the truth is complicated.

And this is the truth of this project

that there were bad actors
and Fegan was just one of them.

[♪ somber piano music playing]

-[JT] Hey.
-[Tegan] Hi.

You made it.

How's it going?

[JT] I'm feeling weird.
[nervous chuckle]

-Yeah, it's, uh, very unnatural.
-[JT] Yeah.

[Erin] Alright,
whenever you're ready, JT.

Erin was asking about the feeling I get,

like, just, like, by hearing your name.

I wouldn't even say your name
for the longest time.

Yeah.

I have everything
of your social media's blocked

-on everything I possibly could.
-[Tegan] Yeah.

[JT] I was, like,
at the grocery store, you know,

music's playing and then
one of your songs comes on

and I'm immediately, like,
full-body triggered,

like, feeling sick,

and it sucks, and I don't, like,
wanna feel like that.

You're not alone.

I mean, I've heard
that from other victims of, of Fegan.

It distorts your relationship
to me, the music, you know?

-I understand that.
-Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Is part of why you agreed to do this

is because you're hoping, like,
that people will see this and realize,

like, you were, like--
that Fake Tegan is real?

Like, that this happened to you,
that you were tricked and that...

Yeah.

...you really weren't making it up? Like--

It feels like it's just
haunting me and I'm, like,

wondering what I fucking did
in my past life to deserve this.

It's not your fault,
you don't deserve it.

It's not your fault. It haunts me too.

I just feel very stupid.

And I'm so sorry that you
feel that way, I hate that.

Are you angry with me?

No. No, not at all.

Was there a time where--
when you were angry with me?

No, there was a time
where I was very scared of you.

[JT] That's unfortunate.

I don't think I'm a very scary person.

I was just really fucking mad.

I get the sense you feel
I'm responsible somehow still.

The thing of it is,
the reason why there's still

an underlining anger is because I can't--

Because the story was you,

and then there was
the whatever the fuck happened,

I can't separate you from the story.

Yeah, I really get that.

And...

I don't think I understood that
as much as I do now.

[JT] I hope that I can move on, like,

-but I have to untangle the whole thing...
-Yes. Yeah.

...the story from you

and I need to, like, keep on doing that.

-But I am trying.
-[Tegan] Mm-hmm.

[♪ somber music playing]

The troubling question
is that we want to believe

we are not like the people
who would do this,

or we are not like the people

who would be gullible enough
to believe this.

But the truth is,
is that we're all a lot more similar

and I think that makes
all of us really uncomfortable.

♪♪

[Erin] Do you feel like this film
has been disruptive to your life?

[laughs]

I definitely... have had moments

and have been honest about this,

that I've regretted
opening this all up again,

starting this all over again.

-Hi, how's it going?
-Hi.

-Good, how are you?
-I'm Tegan.

It's just each time I talk
to a new Fake Tegan victim...

Hi.

[both] Hi.

[Tegan]
...I understand that it's necessary

and even the hardest parts...

Okay, I'm ready.

...feel important.

[Erin] What have been
the hardest moments for you?

I think the hardest moment's now.

Yeah, because I don't think
it's gonna stop, you know? I--

What's to stop that this could just
encourage a new generation of Fake Tegans?

And, and not even
Fake Tegan, like, just anyone.

We're all susceptible to this, you know?

Fake Tegan made me a less trusting person.

[audience cheering]

I'm really proud of
the Tegan and Sara community and the fans.

But fan culture is, "I wanna know more.

I wanna know more, I wanna know more."

It's insatiable
because you won't ever really know me...

unless you kidnap me and get to know me.

-[Erin] No.
-[Tegan laughs]

[Erin] We're not gonna use that joke.

[sing-songy]
♪ Horrific ♪

[♪ "Closer" by Tegan and Sara playing]

♪ All I wanna get is,
a little bit closer ♪

♪ All I wanna know is,
can you come a little closer? ♪

♪ Here comes the breath
before we get ♪

♪ A little bit closer ♪

♪ Here comes the rush
before we touch ♪

♪ Come a little closer ♪

♪ The doors are open,
the wind is really blowing ♪

♪ The night sky is changing overhead ♪

♪ It's not just all physical ♪

♪ I'm the type
who won't get oh, so critical ♪

♪ So let's make things physical ♪

♪ I won't treat you like
you're oh, so typical ♪

♪ I won't treat you like
you're oh, so typical ♪

♪ All you think of lately
is getting underneath me ♪

♪ All I dream of lately ♪

♪ Is how to get you underneath me ♪

♪ Here comes the heat
before we meet ♪

♪ A little bit closer ♪

♪ Here comes the spark
before the dark ♪

♪ Come a little closer ♪

♪ The lights are off
and the sun is finally setting ♪

♪ The night sky is changing overhead ♪

♪ It's not just all physical ♪

♪ I'm the type
who won't get oh, so critical ♪

♪ So let's make things physical ♪

♪ I won't treat you like
you're oh, so typical ♪

♪ I want you close, I want you ♪

♪ I won't treat you like you're typical ♪

♪ I want you close, I want you ♪

♪ I won't treat you like you're typical ♪

[♪ vocalizing]

♪ Here come the dreams of you and me ♪

♪ Here come the dreams ♪

♪ Here come the dreams of you and me ♪

♪ Here come the dreams ♪

♪ It's not just all physical ♪

♪ I'm the type
who won't get oh, so critical ♪

♪ So let's make things physical ♪

♪ I won't treat you like
you're oh, so typical ♪

♪ I want you close, I want you ♪

♪ I won't treat you like you're typical ♪

♪ I want you close, I want you ♪

♪ I won't treat you like you're typical ♪

♪ I won't treat you like you're typical ♪

♪ I won't treat you like you're typical ♪

♪ All I wanna get is ♪

♪ A little bit closer ♪