Fictional Fans

For sure; I think although popular, it remains a relatively narrow sub-niche. I only mentioned it because you expressed a general curiousity :)

And to clarify, sociologically, I think the tension is similar to the thrill of horror movies with an underlying theme of "I can get through this". As in, the "worse" has a very strong element of getting through it anyway somehow, which, the more I reflect on it, is what most stories of facing adversity have in common. People process what bugs them in reality in a wonderfully wide variety of ways.