> if you're talking about Star Trek, the MCU, Taylor Swift or the Legend of Zelda series, the most reliable source is probably not going to be either an academic journal or the New York Times.

You lost me here. I mean, yes, there's serious fan community interaction around those subject which is unauthenticated and anonymous. But that's interaction and not research or journalism. You might cite the existence of a favorite lore or fan theory in a wikipedia article, but you don't take the fan stuff as a source for the original material!

To take your specific example: Swift is literally getting married today, I gather. Why do I gather it? Because trusted human beings in my information space (Twitter feed, news articles, etc...) are telling me! Would I trust an anonymous fan source telling me someone got married? Almost certainly not.