In her new book Fangirls, VICE editor Hannah Ewens spotlights the real champions of music.
I’ve never considered myself a “fangirl” for any artist or band. Perhaps this is because I never camped outside the Staples Center or changed my Instagram username to patriciastyles123. So, when I came across Fangirls by Hannah Ewens, I was certain this was not a book I will be able to relate to but will nonetheless make an interesting read. I mean, a juicy exposé of crazy obsessions? Don’t mind if I do.
Ewens most likely knew this was the headspace of many readers giving a go at this book. So she dedicates the first three pages of the book to three simple statements:
For every girl who has ever had an obsession.
I guess I can’t deny that I’ve made collages of IM5band’s Cole Pendery to be my phone wallpaper during my middle school days.
Suggestion: replace the word ‘fangirl’ with ‘expert’ and see what happens.
Alright, so maybe my 2011 YouTube history is evidence enough that I was expertly knowledgeable of K-pop group SHINee’s dance regimens… and of Jonghyun’s ambidexterity, of Onew’s inseparability with his Rubik’s cube, of Minho’s blood type, and Taemin’s ideal spot for a date in Seoul – Namsan Tower.
Look what I found! A conceptual space where women can come together and create.
Finally, something consoling to remedy the first two convicting statements. I can now see that, with the help of Ewen’s sneaky diagnosis. But why is it that being labeled as one feels so disgraceful and sounds so derogatory?
Growing up on a remote island and with two parents who weren’t fans of music, Ewens reflects on her incredibly lonely childhood. It wasn’t until she serendipitously met E, who adopted Ewens as a little sister and introduced to her the true fangirl lifestyle. While she took E as a pattern, Ewens asserts that the metamorphosis was instinctive. It burgeoned from within, bestowing in her a sense of self for the first time in her life.
Years later, post-Frank Iero concert in a church, Ewens stopped in her tracks as she approached the altar to say goodbye to the former ex-My Chemical Romance member. Before her stood hundreds of fans with a motley of expressions that she knew too well – ecstasy, misery, and perplexity. It was not too many years ago that Ewens herself was sitting at home with E, pretending to smoke, blacking her eyelids, dyeing her hair, and blowing up over My Chemical Romance, all in proper fangirl fashion.
It was now clear to Ewens that fangirling is timeless, manifesting itself in the same way decade after decade. It’s simultaneously communal and personal – “to be a fan is to scream alone together.” Ewens’ personal fandom experience established the purpose for her book: to demystify the amorphous fandom and reinstall power in the “fangirl” label through thorough cultural and historical analysis and empowering fan narratives.
In “Fangirls,” 68-year old Susan from Melbourne has more influence than Harry Styles. This is Ewens’ strategy to give fans full control over the microphone. Styles gets a brief, six-word introduction to the first chapter about fangirl history, and Susan from Melbourne gets two full pages to share her story. Serving as moderator is Ewens, who dedicates an entire section to offer relevant background behind the word “hysteria,” a term negatively associated with fans, especially female fans:
Hysteria comes from the Greek word for uterus, which according to the Greeks, is the “anatomical source of problems.” Essentially, uterus-carriers – women – are cursed with this illness that brings about anxiety and the desire for sex. Virgins, widows, single, and sterile women are the most hysterical, according to Hippocrates, and they are therefore the largest population of women thrown into asylums for this apparent illness. Their symptoms? “Female disease,” “imaginary female trouble,” and “mental excitement,” all of which are apparent fangirl behavior.
I join the community of infuriated girls when I read this barbaric origin story. This sudden digression from jaw-dropping anecdotes of fans tearing their lungs and camping outside Zayn’s house to a serious analysis of linguistics was shocking but necessary to show readers just how stigmatized and stereotyped the fangirling concept is. The music world is heedlessly stuck in this mentality, and Ewens is simply snapping us out of it.
Turning back to Susan, a lifetime Beatles fan from Melbourne, Australia, I appreciated her piece on her own fangirl behavior growing up. Now 68 years old, Susan urges girls to “let it go, enjoy it. It’s good for you.” Don’t listen to Hippocrates. There’s no such thing as a female disease pent up in the uterus. Susan is exhorting young girls of this age to release all that energy for their favorite music. In fact, it’s the healthiest form of expression. Ewens selected the perfect fan narrative to debunk the Greeks.
This leads to another major reason why I appreciate “Fangirls.” Ewens makes it clear that she is here to empower young, teenage girls to scream for their idols. But at the same time, she acknowledges all women: those fresh out of their teen years, those entering college, and like Susan, those approaching their senior years. Ewens takes this approach to fortify the female fandom.
One of the most memorable chapters, headed by Patti Smith’s quote, “No one expected me. Everything awaited me,” spoke of the rite of passage of any fangirl: waiting in line. Here, Ewens introduces a new age group of fans that have not been mentioned yet – young adults. According to an interview with a security guard at London concert venue O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, these older fans arrive much later relative to the young campers and overtly express their distaste for “the waiting game.”
What is really happening here is the manifestation of insecurity and wistfulness – the older girls, with their college and job commitments, envy the younger girls and the time they have at their disposal to be the superior fan. One excerpt was especially powerful,
The waiting has an earnest optimism that is unsettling because it speaks to a jadedness that has crept in, something that younger fans haven’t yet learnt. It cuts back to a past where they might have had the pre-devotion to act similarly – maybe they didn’t when they had the chance.
It didn’t take me long to realize that I am a member of this sad crowd of older girls. Ewens has shown me that if I imagined myself standing in line seeing duffels strewn over the pee-stained pavement and tripping over empty jars of baby food packed by the parents of the sea of devoted fans’ that lay before me, I would experience the same sensation of “what-if.” Specifically, “what if I had let myself play the waiting game 7 years ago?” Especially now, I’ll most likely be much older by the time concerts are up and running again.
As the book comes to a close, Ewens surprises audiences with, “When I said my dad wasn’t a music fan, that wasn’t strictly true.” Ewens’s dad would always have the staticky radio on when picking her up from school, the station always switched to the same handful of songs, “Stop! In the Name of Love,” “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted,” and “Waterloo Sunset.”
As a teenage girl wishing to protect her precious reputation, Ewens would turn the volume dial down and frustratingly complain, “Don’t have it up so loud, for fuck’s sake, Dad.” As a teenage girl at that time, Ewens was so enveloped in her own angst that she didn’t realize her dad was trying to stir up the small bit of fangirl he had left. He didn’t know that bringing a new fangirl into the world would require him to relinquish the one inside him. “I was working six days a week, I would never have had the time to be a fan,” he says. Fandad proved an impossible feat.
Ewens waits till the end to reveal the truth, but looking at the book in its entirety, it’s clear that upbringing actually has little to do with whether the person will turn into a fan or not. Ewens states, “The girls I had studied had left a template – if the new ones wanted it. Now all they would need was an obsession.” We may not all be teenage girls at the moment, but we are all screaming fangirls of all ages and genders.