'I will tweet about him probably 20 to 30 times a day'

Social media has changed the relationship between artists and their most dedicated fans.

These days, it's not uncommon for fans to contact their favourite musicians on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. The question is: will they respond?

18-year-old Sydney Heigh is a self-proclaimed Shawn Mendes super fan. She says she tweets at him about 20 to 30 times a day on average.

"But this morning I was looking at some old stuff, and I found that when Handwritten (Revisited) was released back in 2015, I tweeted 583 times — within a couple hours," she said.

After she got her wisdom teeth out, Sydney's family pulled an elaborate prank, pretending Shawn was going to be playing a concert in her hometown of Edmonton the following day. They thought she'd be so upset that she couldn't make it because of her surgery, but her reaction was just the opposite. 

Several months after it was published on YouTube, Shawn saw it and tweeted that he wanted to find the girl from the video. Sydney woke up to "90 FaceTime missed calls, and thousands of tweets and text messages and 4000 new followers." She also got a private message from Shawn and a hug from him at the Junos earlier this year.

"All of it has changed my life so much. I have friends now all over the world because of him, and these friendships that I've made through Shawn, I don't consider them my 'internet friends', because I travel with them, I go and I see them," she said, "I feel like friends like that are harder to find, but when you have a connection through something like music it just builds a lot stronger of a friendship."

Like Sydney, Eva Anassi has also found new bonds through her musical obsession.

Eva is a New Kids on the Block fan. The Texan has been a "Blockhead" since the age of nine, and uses her Twitter presence to interact with the members of NKOTB. 

"I did get my Twitter account specifically to keep track of them," she said, "The news and everything I get is up to date because they're constantly on there."

She admits she's obsessed with the band, but not in a negative way.

"It's not a stalkerish obsession that would land me in jail. Not by far. You'll never find me in their hotel rooms or at the front door of their house. It's not that kind of obsession," she said.

Eva says her "Blockhead" sisters have given her support over the years — and sometimes, the band's members themselves have responded to her tweets.

"My ultimate goal of chatting with them on Twitter is obviously to meet them in person. I want them to know me personally. It would be great, you know, to run into them somewhere and they say 'Hey Eva'."