The Power of Fangirl Infatuation
Thursday, July 23rd marked 10 years of One Direction. Twitter and I’m sure Tumblr were flooded with photos of the dormant band as if it were 2013 again and nothing hurt.
To commemorate the boys and my many years spent yearning for them, I wore my Up All Night t-shirt, watched their tour film (j’adore le cinema) and danced to their music for the first time in too long. Their effect on me has always been almost visceral...I could compare it to an adrenaline rush. Honestly, I could probably flip over a car thanks to that pure excitement coursing through my veins.
As a now unemployed college graduate, I needed to feel that excitement again. Forgive me for stating the obvious so often, but shit sucks so bad right now.
So, I celebrated the holiday freely and shamelessly. I tweeted memories, shared ancient memes with friends and gushed with a random person at the grocery store about them.
Although I find myself cringing as I type, I still see no real reason to be embarrassed. The band made me happy during the worst of times in middle and high school and it’s nice to still be able to cash in on that serotonin whenever the mood hits.
Writer Megan Kirby explains in her zine, They Don’t Know About Us, that the band makes her “stupid happy” as well, “This love is not cloaked in irony or buried under layers of academic bullshit. Because the older I get, the more anxious I've become, and it's nice to have one facet of my life I never overthink. The sad reality of growing up is that not a lot of things make me mindlessly happy any more. It’s nice to have one thing that makes you giddy, even if that thing is a British boy band.”
The fact that Kirby and I feel as though we have to explain our love for the band shows us exactly what’s wrong with how everyone treats fangirls. I mean, there must be no respectable value to a band if a bunch of teenage girls like them, right?
“When people try to belittle bands because girls like it first, I’m like, The Beatles, man! The Beatles were handed to you by teenage girls,” said Phoebe Bridgers in a recent interview. The Beatles, along with some of the most history-altering musicians, were given to us by fangirls. For FREE! Out of pure love! To every fangirl that ever was and ever will be: thank you.
Yet, the world still doesn’t see it this way. Author Hannah Owens says it in an article for VICE, “Where there are young women liking literally anything, there are critics who say that their enjoyment is superficial, and their understanding not as deep as that of their male counterparts.”
Sexism is evident even in fandom. To contextualize this, imagine a male fan of the Beatles or literally anything. Now imagine a young female fan of the same thing. Who do you think actually has more knowledge of the band?
It’s time we change the narrative of fangirls. As rock critic Jessica Hopper once tweeted: “Replace the word ‘fangirl’ with ‘expert’ and see what happens.”
Furthermore, fandoms such as One Direction’s changed the music industry as we knew it. I, myself, learned many of the basics of the industry through being an active fan. “Stanning 1D was an unpaid internship,” one tweet reads.
Today, fans continue to change the landscape. Thanks to the BTS Army, fandom in 2020 now includes activism. Emma Madden for the Ringer explains that “Today, fans are empowered enough to not only stand alongside their idols—the result of several historical and technological changes—but even guide them, enacting change from a bottom-up, participatory stance.”
So, why should I be embarrassed to be a complete fangirl of One Direction? My love for them doesn’t take away from my music taste or experience. Yes, I tweet about wanting to run away with Harry Styles, but I have also worked for Universal Music Group.
I’ve met fellow fans through stan twitter who are now working with the biggest names in music. Fangirls through “love, knowledge, effort and expertise” (O’Neill) are changing the industry and world as we know it. They run this shit. So take notes, you could learn a thing or two from your little sister obsessed with Tik Tok Eboys or your friend with the insatiable need to tweet about Jungkook.
Sources (in order of appearance):
Sony Pictures Entertainment. “ONE DIRECTION - 1D: THIS IS US - Official Trailer (HD).” YouTube, 26 June 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmqeOZXhycg
“Adult Fans of One Direction.” Tumblr, 6 July 2017, adultfansofonedirection.tumblr.com/post/162654670128/what-does-the-she-drowned-four-years-ago-post.
Flowers, Brandon. “Phoebe Bridgers and Brandon Flowers on Transformation and Talking Shit.” Interview Magazine, 9 July 2020, www.interviewmagazine.com/music/phoebe-bridgers-and-brandon-flowers-on-transformation-and-talking-shit.
O'Neill, Lauren. “'What It Means to Be a Fangirl in 2019” VICE, 25 July 2019, www.vice.com/en_uk/article/d3nnqx/hannah-ewens-fangirls-book.
“Jessica Hopper.” Twitter, twitter.com/jesshopp.
Augustina (augvstina). “stanning 1d was an unpaid internship.” 22 July 2020, 12:56pm.
Madden, Emma. “The BTS Army and the Transformative Power of Fandom As Activism.” The Ringer, The Ringer, 11 June 2020, www.theringer.com/music/2020/6/11/21287283/bts-army-black-lives-matter-fandom-activism.