Columnist Charlotte Cain explains why you should appreciate the fangirls who make the media world go round.
Over the last few decades, the rise of the fangirls has impacted society more than we could have imagined.
When you think of a fangirl you may think of a teenage girl lying on her bed, her walls plastered with Justin Bieber’s face. They’re obsessive and crazy stalkers of their favourite boy band but I bet you didn’t know the impact they have had.
When One Direction hit our screens in 2012, the boys were in their late teen years, which led to most of their fans being around the same age or younger. They were labelled as the “Directioners” and were known for being crazy and not knowing what the word privacy meant.
In 2015 the band made over 130 million dollars and then the next year 110 million despite not making music that year. One Direction had global success, and it was all thanks to their fangirls who are the power behind the well-oiled machine of stardom.
Fangirls seem to have always been around. In the 60s it was Beatle-Mania sweeping the globe when the English rock band The Beatles became a household name. When they performed on the Ed Sullivan show in the USA, 73 million people tuned in to watch.
Young women have been ridiculed for decades and are constantly undermined for engaging with their interests. They have been told that spending money on concert tickets and merchandise is a waste of time and money.
Yet when a man does the same for their favourite sports team it’s an acceptable passion. Howling at the TV watching a football team is labelled as dedicated whereas teenage girls at One Direction concerts were called banshees.
Whereas the movie Barbie had an opening weekend revenue of a billion dollars, beating Oppenheimer in the box office, Taylor Swift’s the Era’s tour made more than 500 million and brought the friendship bracelets based on the lyrics from “You’re on Your Own Kid” that are now a standard in concert culture.
They’ve taken the ridicule and shame that comes with being a fangirl and turned it into a positive and uplifting experience, as shown by Harry’s Love on Tour run where the fans lived by the phrase “Treat People with Kindness” and created a community that included everyone.
These girls in their bedrooms who spent hours making edits on TikTok are the reason your favourite show is getting a second season. They keep the media world turning.
Fan editor Melanie made an edit for twitter (now X) on Heated Rivalry which went viral and got her a job offer at HBO to make trailers for future shows. She opened Final Cut Pro in her bedroom and started playing around with show clips and making what the internet had labelled as fan edits.
Eight years later she turned her passion for cinematic edits into a full-time job that she loves.
The craziness that followed Harry Styles’ solo career has become a social event to dress up in sparkly clothing with a variation of the latest album name and fluffy boas and spending, no matter how much money required to see him live.
When you think of your local fangirl surrounded by her posters and her vinyls, you should maybe consider that she could be making your future Marvel trailers or become the journalist interviewing your favourite film star on the red carpet.
So when you consume your media on TikTok, Instagram or X, think about the teenager pouring hours of her free time into CapCut Pro to make her 30-second film trailer in between days of school, and think of the underpaid Gen-Z intern who runs your favourite show’s TikTok page, because without them the media world would crumble instantly.
