The first use of the word stalker in the English language appears to be in Scottish legislation all the way back in 1424. A stalker was defined as a poacher of deer who would be fined. Clearly someone hunting in forests would need to be quite agile, and this led to the meaning of stalker being extended to include someone who walks with big steps. At this stage, and for centuries afterwards, stalking was thought of exclusively as the pursuit of animals. Only in the last 50 years or so has the idea been given a specifically human context, and with the stalker soon identified as a threat to their prey, stalking became a crime again.
The first US state to criminalise stalking was California in 1990 after the attempted murder of the actress Theresa Saldana (1982) and the murder of the actress Rebecca Schaeffer (1989). According to various surveys in Western countries, the percentage of people stalked in their lifetime ranges from 8% (for women) in the United States to as much as 23% in Australia. In Russia, meanwhile, picnics and stalking have become almost inseparable since 1979 with Tarkovsky’s film The Stalker based on the novel by the Strugatsky brothers Roadside Picnic.
The rise of the “celebrity” has brought a new twist to this tale. In recent years many stars of TV and film have taken to sharing details of their personal lives with the world via reality TV and social media, opening a door to their lives through which their stalkers will eagerly enter. In July 2013 a British celebrity fan calling herself “Stalker Sarah” told the BBC of the years she has spent spying on her idols, resulting in her picture being taken with over 5,000 stars including Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Justin Bieber.
A dubious role model for many celebrity stalkers is Gert van der Graaf, a Dutch forklift truck driver and lifelong ABBA fan who began spying on the band’s lead singer Agnetha Faltskog in 1995. After initially complaining to police, she gave in to his attentions and in 1997 they began a romantic relationship. Two years later they broke up and in 2000 Ms Faltskog applied for an exclusion order, but this curious episode had already given hope to the stalkers of the world, eager to believe that the objects of their obsession might be persuaded to return their feelings.
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