It’s annoying enough to write your idol and never get reply. So how would you feel if your admiring letter was ignored and thrown away like a piece of trash?
给偶像写信，结果却犹如石沉大海毫无音信，这已经很让人恼火了。若是那封饱含仰慕之情的信件不仅被无视，还被当做垃圾一样扔掉时，你会作何感想呢？
That’s exactly what happened to millions of US country-pop singer Taylor Swift’s fans. They must have felt disappointed when they read in the news that hundreds of unopened fan letters had been found in a trash bin in Nashville two weeks ago. The letters had been sent from all over the world, according to WKRN.com, the local news service in Nashville, Tennessee in the US.
美国乡村摇滚歌手泰勒?斯威夫特成千上万的歌迷们就遭遇了这一幕。两周前，在纳什维尔的一处垃圾桶里发现了几百封尚未开启的歌迷来信，想必泰勒?斯威夫的歌迷们看到这则新闻时一定倍感失望。据美国田纳西州纳什维尔当地的新闻网站WKRN.com报道称，这些信件来自世界各地。
Taylor’s management team was quick to respond, saying that the letters had been thrown out by mistake.
事后，泰勒的管理团队马上回应称这些信件是被误扔的。
“Taylor gets thousands of fan letters every day and they are delivered to her management office,” Swift’s spokeswoman Paula Erickson said in a statement. “After the letters are opened and read, they are recycled.”
“泰勒每天都会收到成千上万封歌迷来信，而这些信都被运往她团队的办公室，”泰勒的发言人保拉?埃里克森在声明中表示。“这些信在开封、阅读后才被回收。”
Every fan secretly hopes that his or her letter will be personally read and replied to. But dealing with piles of fan mail is a big burden for most celebrities. Many of them, aware that their fans’ support is vital to their careers, hire others to read and reply to fan letters for them.
所有歌迷都默默期盼着自己的信能被偶像读到、并亲自回信。但对大多数明星来说，处理堆积成山的歌迷来信实在负担颇重。很多明星清楚粉丝的支持对自己的演艺事业至关重要，便雇人来替自己阅读并回复这些粉丝来信。
Sylvia Taylor has been running a fan-mail-answering service in California since 1987. She told the BBC that she and her six staff members process up to 20,000 items of mail a month on behalf of 26 celebrities. Typically, correspondence is acknowledged by a photo with a printed autograph.
自1987年起，西尔维娅泰勒在美国加州开办了一家专门提供给粉丝回信服务的公司。她在接受BBC采访时表示，自己和手下6名员工每个月要为26位名人处理大概20000封粉丝信件。通常会回寄一张印有明星签名的照片作为对歌迷的答谢。
The relationship between the fan and the celebrity often exists only in the mind of the former, says Lynn Zuberbis, an expert in the psychology of fandom at the UK’s West Chester University. It stems from a deeply-rooted human need for community and belonging.
英国西彻斯特大学粉丝心理学专家林恩?祖博比斯表示，明星与粉丝之间的情感通常只是粉丝们的“一厢情愿”罢了。这源于人们群体感和归属感的本性。
“It’s not about the autograph. It’s about the moment of connection,” Zuberbis told the BBC.
“这与亲笔签名无关，而是为了享有与明星沟通的瞬间。”祖博比斯在接受BBC采访时说道。
When a celebrity replies to a fan’s letter in person, it can be a powerful experience for the fan. Writing on The Telegraph’s online blog, Nigel Farndale is nostalgic for an era when celebrities took fan letters seriously.
能够收到明星亲笔回信，对粉丝而言是个非常印象深刻的经历。奈杰尔?方达尔在英国电讯报网站的博客中写道，他十分怀念那个明星重视粉丝来信的时代。
Bill Wyman, the former bassist of the Rolling Stones, for example, used to write around a dozen letters a day in the 1960s. It passed the time when they were stuck on tour buses or waiting around hotels before a concert.
上世纪60年代，滚石乐队的前贝斯手比尔?怀曼曾每天回十几封信。有时身在旅途巴士上，或者在演唱会前在酒店周围，他们通过这种方式来打发时间。
Replying to fans is a good long-term investment because it buys their loyalty, Farndale said. He wrote a letter to UK actor Stephen Fry when he was 19. To his surprise, Fry wrote back with a long and witty letter.
方达尔说，给粉丝回信是一项不错的长线投资，因为这样可以换来他们的忠实追随。他曾在19岁时写信给英国演员斯蒂芬?弗雷。令他倍感惊喜的是，弗雷回复给他一封幽默风趣的长信。
“Whenever I see Stephen Fry being criticized in the press for being pompous, or whatever,” Farndale says: “I always feel protective toward him.”
方达尔说：“每当我看到媒体批评弗雷自负或其他什么，我总是会站在他那一边。”