Beyond Fandom: A Deep Dive into the Heart of Fangirl Culture

The screen’s glare illuminated my face beneath my covers. Round cheeks from childhood and a metal-filled smile from my freshly tightened braces stared with glee at my iPhone 6. 5 Seconds of Summer had just released their second album, Sounds Good Feels Good. A crisis was brewing as to whether I should dress up as Hanna Marin from Pretty Little Liars or Calum Hood’s girlfriend for the second Halloween in a row. How could I choose between hypothetically dating Caleb Rivers or Calum Hood? It was a dilemma only my A-day schedule lunch table could help me decide.

Fangirl culture has been embedded into my personality since the age of ten when I joined my very first fandom: Arianators (Ariana Grande fans, if you aren’t familiar). Growing up, I had always been serious about the media I consumed–throwing myself head first into an obsession with a show, artist, book series, or something of the like. I made it my whole personality. When I was ten years old, I was finally allowed to watch Victorious on Nickelodeon and became enamored with Grande’s character, Cat Valentine. I dressed like Cat for Halloween that year, coloring my hair with a red magic marker and perfecting the infamous Cat voice–a party trick I still do to this day. I have since gone through many phases, but the consistent response I have always gotten as a fangirl is the “crazy” stereotype.

Of course, I don’t deny that going as hard as I did for my costumes is a little weird, but I would be labeled as a crazed fangirl for things far more tame. I remember buying a 5SOS shirt from Target, wearing it the next day to school, and the boys in my English class teasing me for liking boy bands. I started noticing it everywhere, even as I transitioned through fandoms. I was really into Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, and Avatar the Last Airbender in eighth grade, earning me a fair share of teasing when I wore overt merchandise anywhere that wasn’t my own home (which wasn’t fangirl-friendly either; my dad had more than a couple running bits going that year). I started making my dedication to my fanbases more subtle.

Throughout all high school, instead of wearing my bold-lettered T-shirts and sporting-themed stationery, I would wake up in the morning and ask myself, “What would Annabeth Chase wear?” The name would change over the years, but there was a constant character or celebrity I was adhering my style to. It’s a practice I still carry on today! It’s great when I’m not sure what to wear, and I need a decisive method so I can get out the door. Nevertheless, everything changed when the pandemic hit. Suddenly, online spaces were the only spaces, and that launched me into the use of social media to connect with people equally as immersed in the fandoms we shared.

I joined stan Twitter, a subsection of Twitter reserved for fanbases, and revived my Tumblr account. I got sucked into the whirlpool of KPOP and still know entirely too much about the Korean music scene from 2018-2021. The coolest and possibly most intimidating thing about KPOP is the constant influx of content, it is genuinely impossible to run out. The online spaces fostered groups and cliques–it’s where I met a lot of my closest friends that I still keep in contact with. On one hand, it did a lot of good to me because I maintained some social skills during the height of quarantine and made those valuable relationships that have gotten me through difficult times. However, there is definitely such a thing as too much screen time.

Fandoms are toxic when they become more fixated on the material than on the people behind their celebrity profile pictures. While I’ve had undeniably positive experiences, it skyrocketed my anxiety and distrust of people. I had to let go of stan Twitter because of what it had done to my psyche. Think of it as the cafeteria in Mean Girls. Each fandom has its own table, and if you try to crossover, then you get excommunicated from them both. It’s a complicated relationship on top of the already complex codependency on people that don’t know you personally.

When I went off to college, I still maintained a lot of the online friendships I made in that time period. Some of them I met in person, and others I have yet to. When I rejoined the real world post-quarantine, I entered a relationship and reignited in-person friendships. I carried some of my fandom habits with me, like the aforementioned wardrobe choices, and I suppose I didn’t realize that way of thinking wasn’t normal for other people. I was accused of not knowing who I was and copying the personalities of fictional figures by people I cared about. Thus, the “crazy” stereotype was reborn under a new name: fake.

The grotesque connotation of being a fangirl isn’t the images of us excited in the venue of a concert but rather the moral criticisms from those who misunderstand us. I was told I was fake, that I didn’t know who I was, and that I was constantly seeking purpose in media because I hated myself. All of which I believed until recent months because the ones filling my head with those ideas were people I thought cared for my wellbeing. Really, it was a matter of controlling my interest. The little girl that bought the Callum Hood jersey hoodie is no different than the twenty-year-old with an ambiguous tattoo in honor of her favorite book character.

I wasn’t trying to be any character or celebrity’s ideal girl, I was embracing the parts of me that found something I loved. Fandom spaces and indulgence in media can be a great way to form a community and discover new ways of engaging with people. I don’t regret any of my experiences on social media or experimenting with showcasing my passion for content. Really, I am a fangirl–it’s a part of me that I adore because it connects me to something that brings me joy. Instead of rejecting it, feeling embarrassed, or ashamed of my love for television shows, music, and film, I have since learned to embrace it as each one is a piece of me and the woman I’ve grown into. So, when I drink coffee out of my Scarlet Witch mug, watch Gilmore Girls with my mom, blast Taylor Swift in the car, or wear something straight out of a Barbie movie–I’m doing it for me; that’s who I am.