The Importance of the Teenage Girl Fanbase

In May of 2019, I had the pleasure of seeing The 1975 in Chicago. What I saw before, during, and after the concert was something of a revelation to me. I noticed the people were overwhelmingly made up of young women around my age. They wore every color of the rainbow, danced, screamed and laughed to every song and created an energy for the show which made it unforgettable. While the few guys that were at the show had their hands in their pockets in combination with nodding slightly off beat during the whole show, the girls were loving every second of the show unapologetically. I had even found myself dancing without any care of what those around me thought of it. 

What it had opened my eyes up to was just how important this specific and massive fanbase of young women is.  

Despite the significance and size of this demographic, they are the target of condescending and blatantly sexist remarks and assumptions. Always asked if they even listen to the band or artist on their shirt, if they say “yes” they need to name every song, or they're not a true fan (whatever that even means). They say behind every great man is a great woman, and behind any of history's greatest musical artists are a swarm of teenage girls who love their music without the slightest bit of shame; that is so important. Growing up I remember the consensus was "pop music or songs by boy bands are bad," and as an insecure young boy I went along with this for far too long. As I grew older I started revisiting these same songs and found that they were amazing. Their lyrics and production were objectively incredible and not at all the cheap trash I had known it to be. Which brought up another relevant question: is pop music bad, or are we just told that because of the genre's majority female fanbase?

In too many aspects, young girls are so often dismissed simply because they are just that: young and girls. Even something as simple as enjoying pop music has become something of a joke due to the amount of young women that enjoy it. Yet they have consistently been pioneers in discovering talent and giving them unapologetic love which ascends them to stardom. Again, this can be observed in any major group or artist both in the past or now, but there are two monumental examples: Beatlemania and the hysteria that surrounded One Direction. 

I want to start off by saying that the Beatles are musical legends and their talent cannot really be debated, but I've listened to the music that both One Direction and The Beatles put out in the first two or three years of their career, and it's the exact same. That will break the hearts of many pretentious music fans but it is true, The Beatles were putting out the same relatively simple and lighthearted love songs that One Direction was so heavily criticized for. When people bring up The Beatles or Beatlemania they always show the crowds of young female fans almost as swarms of locusts, when in reality they are exactly what made The Beatles the icons we know them as now. You truly cannot appreciate The Beatles and not appreciate those young girls who weren't afraid to shout "I love their music" from the rooftops while the guys shuffle their feet and say "I mean, they're okay. I guess."

One Direction was the closest to Beatlemania I'm confident we'll ever see again and arguably it was so much bigger because of how much media has evolved and evolved since the 60s. Band member and overall angel Harry Styles is one of the few artists I've seen recognize this fandom of young women and truly appreciate them, despite the fact that he's reaching new audiences and has almost entirely shed his One Direction sound and image. 

 "Teenage girl fans -- they don't lie. If they like you they're there. They don't act 'too cool.' They like you and they tell you,” Styles said in an interview. 

To me, when I think of a serious music fan I don't think of the guy who scoffs at pop music and is shocked when he finds out girls listen to The Smiths. Instead I think of the 16- 18 year old girl who I've seen sit outside of a venue for 12 hours in the November cold as they cry tears of happiness all over their tour merch while their boyfriend sits in the car. The enthusiasm these young women provide for the music industry is priceless and something that needs to stop being viewed as something to be ashamed of.